Managing Pakistan's failure

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 20 Jan 2011 07:20

^^^ It will have to be a mix - building all of them into one model will require "weighting" the model etc..Will get very subjective...

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 20 Jan 2011 07:30

^ same thoughts here.

IMO there are multiple objectives.

Firstly, verifying the probability of certain developments we are interested in
Secondly, spreading the truth
Finally, gaming the game (that could be our comprehensive model - with all those weights and probabilities)

Somanath-ji/ would be more than happy to work with you

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 20 Jan 2011 10:22

I should have been more clear when I said mix.

How about five different options each with one theme.

We can then have an indexed option that uses the above five for a composite picture?

Intrade allows play dollars so we can set it up initially with that.

Can we have this setup by Republic Day?

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 20 Jan 2011 11:00

^^^Indexing is useful when the index itself represents something tangible..Problem is that a country can default on its overseas obligations - an economic implosion - and still remain a unified state entity (happens all the time - Zim, Russia - 1998, Ireland (!!), Greece (!!) )...On the other hand, it can be split apart politically but its constituents remain politically and economically viable entities (Balkan states, Pak itself

, 1971 )...So it is difficult to visualise what an "implosion" would mean in the context of a country..

In any case, adding to the laundry list:

6. Possibility of assassination of a major political/military leader (that would mean President/PM/COAS)..

7. Possibility of American ground troop operations WITHIN Pak..

I would suggest a rolling futures contract rather than an option...MAturity of 1 year for #1,2,5,7...#3 should have a 5 year maturity..#4, 6 could be structured as third-party insurance, ie, how much would you pay someone to insure Zardari is NOT asassinated in 1 year's time, something similar to CDS spreads...

Intrade is a good platform - but doesnt it require a monthly fee to set up a "contract"? Once we freeze on the individual option contracts, we can set them up for both actual and play trading..At least some members would be motivcated to put their monies where their mouths are

Republic day should be a good target date...

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 20 Jan 2011 11:24

Some points on my list of Pakistani Failure:

Non-Pakistani Security for the Government of Pakistan officials - President, PM, Ministers, Provincial Chief Ministers, Governors, etc. => Show Collapse of Trust between Politicians & People
High Profile Political Assassinations
Number of Drone Attacks
Number of Incursions by American Forces into Pakistan
Number of (Suicide) Bombings (in Pakjab)
Number of people killed through terrorism in Pakjab
Decay of Services, like Pakistan Railways, PIA, WAPDA
Inflation & Food Prices; Check out for people who get no meat in their diet and live a dharmic SDRE life
Foreign Currency Reserves
Closure of girl schools, CD & DVD shops, Bollywood Cable channels,

Maram · Post by **Maram** » 20 Jan 2011 22:13

Gaming the demise of Pakistan also needs to factor in the central asian oil/Rise of China and India.There is an issue of a fluid situation in Persia too. Tibet and East Turkeministan are dormant, but who knows what will happen in the future. It means the west to have any toehold in Asia need to invest and partner India in a very BIG way.Also, India must be seen as willing to step upto the plate to be a part of the chinese containment strategy. This is a non starter for several reasons. So, for the forseable future, TINA(there is no alternative) Pakisatan Jaiho !

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 20 Jan 2011 22:26

Maram while all those are interesting what is their salience to the issue? I bet not much.

And containing China has nothing to do with TSP failure which is happening due to its own contradictions.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 21 Jan 2011 02:44

RajeshA wrote:Some points on my list of Pakistani Failure:

Non-Pakistani Security for the Government of Pakistan officials - President, PM, Ministers, Provincial Chief Ministers, Governors, etc. => Show Collapse of Trust between Politicians & People

High Profile Political Assassinations

Number of Drone Attacks

Number of Incursions by American Forces into Pakistan

Number of (Suicide) Bombings (in Pakjab)

Number of people killed through terrorism in Pakjab

Decay of Services, like Pakistan Railways, PIA, WAPDA

Inflation & Food Prices; Check out for people who get no meat in their diet and live a dharmic SDRE life

Foreign Currency Reserves

Closure of girl schools, CD & DVD shops, Bollywood Cable channels,

We should be able track the actual data and use them as the basis for calculating the options and futures?

For example we can count the number of Corps commanders, PM, President, cabinet Ministers, Governors and CMs and calculate the number of assassinations in past 1 year to calculate the value. And attach a weightage to it determine the score for that variable. and so on...

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Jan 2011 02:45

Don't complicate more than needed. It will lose its primary focus which is to psyche the faithfools!

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 21 Jan 2011 02:49

Understood Ramanagaru.

The remaining is for my intellectual curiosity only. Will setup a google doc. and send access to people.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 21 Jan 2011 02:51

From a utilitarian point of view, implosion of Pakistan means "major downgrade in the severity of threat posed to India by the people who live in that area".

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 21 Jan 2011 06:19

Trying to encapsulate everything into "simple, tradeable" instruments

1. Possibility of a sovereign credit downgrade to C - open-ended futures contract - 5 years tenor, can get cues from market data on Pak's CDS spreads

2. A second division of the country - open-ended futures contract - 5 years tenor

3. Assassination of one of this basket ("worst off basket"

) - Zardari, Geelani, NAwaz Sharif, Kayani, Shuja Pasha..We would need to change the basket should the eminence grise change..

4. "Colonel" coup event - 2 year tenor (long enough for such events to hapen/not happen in Pak).

If a few people want to collaborate on the effort we can do that on email. I dont have access to hotmail/gmail in office, but if someone posts his ID here, I can send him a mail and we can take it from there..

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 22 Jan 2011 11:55

Two interesting bits of news

Reviewing security: Proposal seeks US guards for president

ISLAMABAD: In the backdrop of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer’s murder by his own police guard, a proposal is under consideration that will bring in special security guards from the United States for President Asif Ali Zardari, according to highly-placed sources.

While the security of President Zardari has always been cause of serious concern for the authorities, a larger proposal is also under consideration by the government to hire the services of foreign security guards for a number of VVIPs including the prime minister, provincial governors, chief ministers, and a few federal ministers, the source told The Express Tribune requesting anonymity.

The proposals come as a part of the government’s decision to review security arrangements of important personalities following the shocking assassination of Taseer, which validated fears that religious extremism had penetrated the ranks of security forces in Pakistan. “An overhaul in the present security system has been recommended as an essential requirement by the authorities responsible for the safety and well-being of the VVIPs,” the source claimed.

On a number of occasions, the president himself has been quoted to have said in the presence of US diplomats and officials that his life was in danger. He has also been quoted to have instructed his son, Bilawal, the chairman of the party, to name his sister Faryal Talpur as the president in case he was killed.

The fear about the presence of extremist ideology in the forces has long been around. It surfaced a few years ago when the involvement of personnel of the Pakistan Air Force and Army in two unsuccessful attempts on the life of the then president Gen. Pervez Musharraf came to light.

Could SPG provide security to them?

Pakistan's Sovereignty Bill rejected

..all government functionaries, including the president, are bound under law to protect and preserve the sovereignty of the country...

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs on Friday rejected a proposed bill which required the president to certify annually that the country’s nuclear programme had not been compromised.

The bill called ‘Pakistan Sovereignty Act of 2010’ was moved by the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q). The proposed law would protect and preserve the sovereignty of Pakistan, according to the draft bill.

It required the president to certify to the parliament, annually, that no compromise has been made on the security or effectiveness of the nuclear programme, no understanding has been reached with any foreign country for interference in the change of command or promotions in the Pakistan Armed Forces or in the structure or rule of the security forces of Pakistan and no conditionality has been accepted from any source to weaken the defence of Pakistan against foreign aggression.

The bill was tabled in the National Assembly by senior PML-Q lawmaker Riaz Hussain Pirzada last year in response to the US Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act, which the opposition parties criticised as “intrusive”.

The US law is meant for providing $7.5 billion non-military aid to Pakistan over the next five years. However, it attaches certain conditions, including annual certification by the US Secretary of State to the Congress, that the economic assistance is not diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

The proposed Pakistan Sovereignty Act was referred to the foreign affairs committee which met behind closed doors at the foreign office to scrutinise it.

The meeting, chaired by Awami National Party President Asfandyar Wali, chairman of the committee, rejected the bill saying that all government functionaries, including the president, are bound under law to protect and preserve the sovereignty of the country.

“There is no need for any separate legislation,” observed Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who presented the government’s view on the issue in the meeting.

Qureshi said the government would never compromise on national security, including the country’s nuclear programme.

“We will maintain our minimum credible nuclear deterrence,” the foreign minister was quoted as saying by one of the committee members.

Guddu · Post by **Guddu** » 23 Jan 2011 06:46

Cross post from TSP thread.

I would like to request the more articulate BRFites (SS, Doktor sahab, Rajesh A and others too numerous to list) to occasionally consider posting insightful comments on the af-pak section of the forum http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?board=4.0

I have known the organizer of the forum for over a decade, who is well versed with pakiness, but more importantly, he teaches martial arts to US military forces including those in Af-Pak region. Its an American forum, but they are in general sympathetic to India. By advancing the BRF viewpoint, on that forum, we can get our message across right to the front lines and to military types. The board serves mostly as a depositary of news items, but those get read by the right people. This is a wonderful chance to educate them about paki perfidy.

Perhaps Shiv Sahab could post a link to his e-book for a start...or if I have his permission I could do so (pl. provide link).

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 24 Jan 2011 04:57

game over

Perhaps a fundamental condition for any uprising to occur is a very deep claim to equality. The have-nots must know that they are equal in dignity and in rights with the haves, and formulate the demand for the concrete fulfilment of this right to be an equal. Perhaps this is what is lacking in Pakistan for revolution to happen

About tunisia-

Game over for the giant with clay feet, who collapsed and shamefully fled to this great, freedom-loving democracy known as Saudi Arabia , as the people took the streets of Tunis and other big cities of the country. The former colonial master, France, looked particularly stupid, having just offered the services of its riot police to their old friend Ben Ali; but so did other powers, such as the US, whose turnaround in favour of the street demonstrators was as sudden as it smacked of political opportunism.

One would love to see the Pakistani people rising similarly to demand equality and justice, instead of leaving the streets to bloodthirsty mullahs, their faces wrung by hatred of anything resembling equality. Why does a popular revolution in Pakistan seem improbable at best?

In a celebrated article dating back to 1962, American sociologist James Davies listed the seven conditions which he saw as common features of every modern political revolution. First, revolutions happen in societies that have been prospering economically for a while, before meeting a sudden, crashing end. As Davies puts it, “Revolutions are most likely to occur when a prolonged period of objective economic and social development is followed by a short period of sharp reversal.” In such a situation, expectations of rising abilities and continued prosperity are dashed and met with frustration and anger. This condition is contiguous to the second one, economic and fiscal irresponsibility from the government, which leads to a daunting combination of economic downturn and mismanagement of the national economy to the point of indebtedness, bankruptcy and currency collapse. Third, a revolution is brought about when there is no longer any social cohesion, when the mutual trust between classes and disparate groups has been eroded, i.e. when the upper classes lose all sight of the common good and aim solely at their own benefit. Fourth, an active group of intellectuals, civil society or political leaders is required, who can articulate and formulate the inchoate aspirations of the disgruntled population. Fifth, a common thread in all revolutions is an incompetent government, either unwilling or unable to meet the demands of the people, or simply blind to its needs. Marie-Antoinette’s infamous “Let them eat cake” sums it all up. Sixth, Davies notes a general blindness in the ruling class concomitant with rapidly changing conditions in the regional or international environment: at a time where decisive leadership is most needed, the economic and political elites utterly fail to give a direction, and instead look inwards to protect their private interests, thus betraying the implicit contract between them and the general population. Seventh, and the final criterion for revolution, is an inept and inconsistent use of force. The government no longer exercises force in a way that can be either understood or deemed fair by the population. Its “monopoly of the legitimate use of force”, to use Max Weber’s term, is challenged from different sections of society, as is challenged the state’s use of force domestically. Unchecked police brutality, police corruption, discontinuous, inconsistent and unfair use of law enforcement is one of the most potent elements leading to a popular uprising.

While most of these conditions are met nowadays in Pakistan, a popular uprising does not appear likely (though we dearly hope to be wrong on that one). Perhaps a fundamental condition for any uprising to occur is a very deep claim to equality. The people must claim the “right to have rights”, in Hannah Arendt’s term. The have-nots must know that they are equal in dignity and in rights with the haves, and formulate the demand for the concrete fulfilment of this right to be an equal. Perhaps this is what is lacking in Pakistan for revolution to happen. The feudal set-up, reinforced over decades by the lack of any decent public education system, the growth of radical Islamic groups fundamentally adverse to equality, has embedded the idea that inequality and discrimination — against women, against minorities, against the poor — was not just acceptable, but the norm to be aspired to.

Now why paqis are incapable of revolution-- I think some of the gurus here has mentioned this earlier ??Shiv/SS

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 24 Jan 2011 06:40

Re setting up of Pak specific contracts on Intrade - this is the response I got when I inquired about the process of setting up new contracts..

Hello Somnath,

Thanks for your enquiry. If you send us your suggestion we will consider it and if we think it will be of interest to our members, we'll list it on the exchange. You are not able to list your own contracts however.

Please let us know if we can help you further.

Kind regards,

Carl Wolfenden
Exchange Operations Manager
Intrade - The Prediction Market

Is there some other platform that is open architecture?

If not, then maybe we can set up a Google spreadsheet-application with a small VBasic programme to simulate a market, where members can play with certain number of "play dollars"..

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Jan 2011 23:11

Somanth, Please carry the dailog. Setting it up in Intratrade will have more eyes. They already have a set of three contracts for Zaradari's exit for three years!

So lets define a state which is acceptable and catches the intent of our 'research".

Maybe we set a poll on the contract and get the highest question?

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 25 Jan 2011 00:27

Somanath,

Would it be possible if we pay that $100 fee and become a full member or something like that?

We may have to comeup with some title that makes it kosher for these guys. lets see.

Pls drop me a mail at r a m a y dot b r f at geeee mail.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 25 Jan 2011 06:59

RamaY wrote:Somanath,

Would it be possible if we pay that $100 fee and become a full member or something like that?

We may have to comeup with some title that makes it kosher for these guys. lets see.

Pls drop me a mail at r a m a y dot b r f at geeee mail.

I tried something like that - the monthly fee is 5 dollars..But the setting up contracts is only at the discretion of Intrade..Maybe we can send them a couple of trades and see how they react.

Sent you a mail...

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Jan 2011 07:24

Somnath and RamaY, When you contact Intratrade mention the reasons why TSP failure/collapse is important:

- Af-Pak embroilment
- State with nukes
- Various factions fighting in FATA/WANA
- Moderate politicians being killed. BB, Taseer etc.
- Regular widespread weekly bomb blasts
- Widespread notion that terrorism emanates from there
- collapse would be more troublesome than Somalia

etc.
etc.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 25 Jan 2011 21:49

Somnath, got the mail. Thanks.

Ramanagaru, will summarize a mail and send it for review to you and Somnath

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 25 Jan 2011 23:00

http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/25/pakistan ... pport.html

GENEVA: Pakistan warned on Tuesday that growing international support for rival India’s nuclear programme would force Islamabad to bolster its deterrence and destabilise the region.

In the opening session of the 2011 Conference on Disarmament, Pakistan’s ambassador Zamir Akram sharply criticised reported moves to bring its neighbour into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and other bodies that allow trade in nuclear materials, including for weapons.

“Apart from undermining the validity and sanctity of the international non-proliferation regime, these measures shall further destabilise security in South Asia,” Akram said.

“As a consequence Pakistan will be forced to take measures to ensure the credibility of its deterrence. The cumulative impact would be to destabilise the security environment in South Asia and beyond,” he told the conference.

He said Pakistan maintains its opposition to negotiations on a ban on the production of new nuclear bomb-making material, a lone public stance that has blocked the Conference on Disarmament despite pressure from major powers.

A thief acquiring moral stand while refusing to abandon his habit of blackmail.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Jan 2011 23:12

Ties in with Rajaram's analysis on TSP stance wrt to India made known to US.

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 26 Jan 2011 05:45

Balkanizing Pakistan: A Collective National Security Strategy

The argument for Balkanizing Pakistan or, more specifically, fragmenting the Islamic Republic so it's easier to police and economically develop, has been on the table since Pakistan's birth in 1947 when the country was spit out of a British laboratory. And lately, the concept is looking more appealing by the day, because as a result of flawed boundaries combined with the nexus between military rule and Islamic extremism, Pakistan now finds itself on a rapid descent toward certain collapse and the country's leaders stubbornly refuse to do the things required to change course. But before allowing Pakistan to commit state suicide, self-disintegrate and further destabilize the region, the international community can beat them to the punch and deconstruct the country less violently.

To quell any doubts about Pakistan's seemingly uncontrollable spiral into darkness, just recently, Foreign Policy Magazine ranked Pakistan as the tenth most failed state on earth and it would seem its leaders are hell bent on securing the number one slot - an honor it can add to their already dubious distinction as the world's largest incubator of jihadist extremism.

The most popular approach to fragmentation is to break off and allow Afghanistan to absorb Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which would unite the Pashtun tribes(derecognise durand line which SS saran-durand line had suggested in sept 15 2010 article) . In addition, the provinces of Balochistan and Sindh would become independent sovereign states, leaving Punjab as a standalone entity.

Balkanization is based on the premise that the weak central government in Islamabad is incapable of governing Pakistan's frontiers, which have become the number one source of regional instability.

Punjabis who represent 40% of the population constitute 90% of the armed forces. Pakistan's own history provides a prime case study of what happens when an ethnic group can no longer tolerate political and economic disregard. After a quarter century of strife the Bengalis rebelled, seceded and founded Bangladesh in 1971.

Pakistan's birth

Pakistan's problems began when the British drew its boundaries haphazardly, which was primarily a product of incompetence and haste than maniacal design. According to an article in the New York Times last year, British colonial officer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe was given six weeks to carve a Muslim-majority state from British India although he had never even been there before. Radcliffe's private secretary was quoted as saying that Sir Cyril "was a bit flummoxed by the whole thing. It was a rather impossible assignment, really. To partition that subcontinent in six weeks was absurd." It would be a comical anecdote except for the fact that hundreds of thousands of people died in the ethnic cleansing that followed as a direct result of British carelessness.

Pakistan's border with Afghanistan - the poorly-marked Durand Line - had been drawn in 1893, also by the British, but it was never meant to be a long-term legally-binding boundary.

Hitchens also said the country was doomed to be a dysfunctional military theocracy from day one - beginning with the very name of the country itself:

what is in a name.

But then, there is a certain hypocrisy inscribed in the very origins and nature of "Pakistan". The name is no more than an acronym, confected in the 1930s at Cambridge University by a NW Muslim propagandist named Chaudhri Rahmat Ali. It stands for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, and Indus-Sind, plus the suffix "-stan," meaning "land." In the Urdu tongue, the resulting word means "Land of the Pure."

Pakistan is one of the clearest demonstrations of the futility of defining a nation by religion, and one of the textbook failures of a state and a society.

Yet, based on its strategic decision to foster extremism and its recent public support for Taliban rule in Afghanistan, it appears the biggest existential threat to Pakistan is its own political and military leaders.

(gun to its own head syndrome)

I contacted an Afghan intelligence analyst about this and he assessed General Kayani's claim with one single word: rubbish. The Pakistan army consists of 500,000 active duty troops and another 500,000 on reserve. If Pakistan truly wanted to capture the Haqqani Network they would be able to drag them out of their caves by their beards within a few days.

However, there is a higher probability of General Kayani converting to Hinduism than there is of the Haqqani Network ever being decoupled from Al Qaeda.

An Institute for the Study of War analysis concluded that Haqqani was "irreconcilable" and negotiations with him would actually strengthen Al Qaeda and would undermine the raison d'etre for U.S. involvement in Afghanistan over the past decade.

Nine years, nearly $300 billion dollars and 1900 dead coalition soldiers later, the U.S. has officially verified that the entire war effort has been focused on the wrong side of the mountains.

A stable Afghanistan is in Pakistan's best interests, but this message has been preached time and again with little to no results, and the U.S. has waited long enough for Pakistan's leaders to uproot the extremists that orchestrated 9/11. But now, it appears as if the international community will have to do it for them.

Looks like the end result of balkanisation is good for everyone but the reason west wants -- protection from TSP attacks on the west onlee.
India will not complain if TSP commits suicide helped by west in the process.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 26 Jan 2011 08:29

“As a consequence Pakistan will be forced to take measures to ensure the credibility of its deterrence. The cumulative impact would be to destabilise the security environment in South Asia and beyond,” he told the conference.

Now it is west's turn to shiver in their dhotis, err suites

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 28 Jan 2011 05:58

RamaY wrote:Somnath, got the mail. Thanks.

Ramanagaru, will summarize a mail and send it for review to you and Somnath

I didnt get any mail from you RamaYji (guess the J&K thread was taking up all your time

)..

I have sent a mail to Intrade to see if they can list "Probability of a second division of the country" as a contract. Of all the different variables, this would probably encapsulate most of the "collapse theory..

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 28 Jan 2011 07:08

Somnath, Make it clear. Probability etc are obtuse for aam janta

Balkanization of Pakistan 2015

This captures the issue very clearly.
Good initiative.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 31 Jan 2011 21:59

X-posted....

ramana wrote:A_Gupta, Can you lead an effort to compare and contrast Egypt and TSP? I think we shoud be prepared if the contagion spreads to TSP.

What is similar and what is different? And what changes should we be noting that tips the balance?
The TSP failure thread would be good place.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 31 Jan 2011 22:02

A-Gupta wrote in TSP thread....

The Pew Research stuff also says (note: in Egypt a representative sample was polled, Pakistan was "disproportionately urban").
http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims ... hezbollah/

Bin Laden

"In Egypt, about one-in-five Muslims offer positive opinions of bin Laden (19%) and his organization (20%), while more than seven-in-ten express negative views of each (73% and 72%, respectively).

Pakistani Muslims also have negative views of bin Laden; just 18% express at least some confidence in him, while 45% say they have little or no confidence in the al Qaeda leader. Nearly four-in-ten (37%) do not offer an opinion."

Current role of Islam in politics

In Pakistan, a 46% plurality of Muslims say Islam plays a large role, while 36% say it plays a small role in Pakistani politics. Opinions are about evenly divided in Egypt, where 48% of Muslims say Islam plays a large role in their country’s political life and 49% say it plays only a small role....

Pakistani Muslims are less likely than they were five years ago to say that Islam plays a large role in their country’s political life; in 2005, more than six-in-ten (63%) saw Islam as having considerable influence.

Modernizers vs Fundamentalists

A considerable number of Pakistani Muslims (44%) also say there is currently a struggle between modernizers and fundamentalists in their country, but the same percentage of Muslims in Pakistan do not offer an opinion on the matter; just 12% see no struggle.

Only in Jordan and Egypt do majorities of Muslims say there is no struggle between modernizers and Islamic fundamentalists in their countries. About seven-in-ten (72%) Jordanian Muslims and 61% of Egyptian Muslims offer this opinion; just 20% and 31%, respectively, see a struggle in their countries. In both of these countries, however, Muslims are now more likely than they were in 2009 to say there is a struggle; a year ago, 14% of Muslims in Jordan and 22% in Egypt saw a struggle in their countries.

Gender segregation

Pakistani Muslims are the most supportive: 85% say they would favor making segregation of men and women in the workplace the law in their country. A narrower majority (54%) of Muslims in Egypt also support making gender segregation the law in their country.

Severe punishments

About eight-in-ten Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan (82% each) endorse the stoning of people who commit adultery....Muslims in Pakistan and Egypt are also the most supportive of whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery; 82% in Pakistan and 77% in Egypt favor making this type of punishment the law in their countries...When asked about the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion, at least three-quarters of Muslims in Jordan (86%), Egypt (84%) and Pakistan (76%) say they would favor making it the law...

Democracy

...A somewhat narrower majority of Muslims in Egypt (59%) say democracy is preferable to any other kind of government...In Pakistan, just about four-in-ten Muslims (42%) prefer democracy to other types of government; 15% of Pakistani Muslims say that, in some circumstances, a non-democratic government can be preferable, and 21% say that, for someone like them, the kind of government their country has does not matter. About one-in-five Pakistani Muslims (22%) do not offer an opinion.

Demographic variation on democracy

For the most part, views of democracy among Muslim publics are not tied to demographics.......In Pakistan, however, Muslims with at least some college education are considerably more likely than those with less education to say that democracy is preferable to any other kind of government; more than half of Pakistani Muslims with some college education or more offer this opinion (53%), compared with 45% of those with a secondary education and just 36% of those with a primary education or less.

Yet, those with less education are not necessarily more likely than those with some college to embrace other forms of government; a similar percentage in each group says that non-democratic government can be preferable and that the kind of government Pakistan has does not matter to people like them. Instead, Pakistani Muslims with a primary education or less are about three times more likely than those with at least some college to decline to offer an opinion (28% vs. 9%, respectively).

Suicide bombing

One-in-five Muslims in Egypt and Jordan offer support for suicide bombing in defense of Islam, as do 15% of Indonesian Muslims. Yet, far more in these three countries say these violent acts are never justified; 46% of Muslims in Egypt and a majority in Jordan (54%) and Indonesia (69%) reject suicide bombings. The notion that these types of attacks against civilians are never justified is even more widespread in Pakistan and Turkey, where 80% and 77%, respectively, share this view.

PS: 8% of the Pakistani sample thinks that suicide bombing is often or sometimes justified. This is down from the 41% recorded in 2004.
Concern over Islamic extremism

Nearly two-thirds of Pakistanis (65%) express concern about Islamic extremism in their country, but fears have declined since last year, when 79% shared that view. About six-in-ten in Egypt (61%) and Indonesia (59%) and more than four-in-ten in Jordan (44%) and Turkey (43%) are also concerned about extremism in their countries.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 31 Jan 2011 22:07

How is unemployment situation in TSP?

In Egypt its about 30% unemployment.

How many uty graduates are unemployed?

In Egypt its ~57% of the above 30% are uty graduates.

What is the food price situation in TSP?

Food prices in Egypt were a major takleef in present crisis.

Politicial situation.

Egypt military wants an assured transition past Mubarak.

--------
One major factor in TSP is the increasing frequency of US drone attacks with impunity.
Shows the TSP military is not defending the nation.

The takleef of Islamists is that its their members getting droned.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 31 Jan 2011 22:31

so far in egypt the protest is against the individual (mubarak) and not the institution (army)
in pakistan, it might be reversed
the protestors have been calling on the army as brothers... not the same in pakistan

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 31 Jan 2011 22:47

Well things can change. In TSP the individual can be 10 % and the protestors to make common cause with TSPA and start a regime change? it was the economic distress that fed the upsurge in Egypt. Tunisia was an example of what can be accomplished. IOW the conditions in Egypt were there all along.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 31 Jan 2011 23:08

X-posting for data....

Pakistan- South Asia's Sick man

Pakistan - South Asia's sick man

Today, Pakistan is South Asia’s sick man. This year – the financial year ending on June 30 – if the Pakistani economy grows at all, the rate of increase will be no more than the rate of growth in population. This means that there will be no increase in average income and, for most of the population, income per head will decline. This will add another 10 million to the pool of poverty, bringing the total to over 70 million. In the immediate future, the national output is likely to increase at a rate less than one-half of that expected for Bangladesh and one-third of that projected for India.I pointed this out to Pakistan’s President Ass-saaf Allie Zardari in a recent meeting. He responded by saying that by comparing the performances of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan I was comparing apples and oranges. India had had a democratic system of government for more than 60 years and Bangladesh had been under democratic rule for a longer period than Pakistan. He said he had inherited a damaged economy and a dysfunctional political system from a military dictator. His government’s first priority was to provide the country with a political system that was fully representative of the wishes of the citizenry.

The Indian rate of domestic savings and its tax-to-GDP ratio are more than twice that of Pakistan. Islamabad has had to go repeatedly to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to save itself from bankruptcy. India needed to do that only once in the last quarter century.

New Delhi put a great deal of emphasis on developing public sector institutions of education, training and learning in a number of sectors. The famed institutions of administration and technology have produced skilled people who have led some important parts of the Indian economy. They also constitute the core of the community of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), who are playing an important role in transforming the Indian economy at this time.

Pakistan does not have a single such institution in the public sector.The third important difference is that the Indians have allowed the development of scale in the modern sectors of their economy. Consequently, some of the Indian firms are now of the size and competence to challenge those in the West. The Indian firm has arrived on the international scene. That may have happened in Pakistan’s case too but for the nationalisation undertaken by former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the early 1970s. He was, in a way, adopting the Indian socialist model of economic management without realising that India built up the state sector through investment, not expropriation of private assets.

The two differences that stand out between Bangladesh and Pakistan are in the areas of industrial policy and the treatment of women in the workforce. Dhaka adopted a model of development that put small enterprises at the centre of the economic stage. Such micro-lenders as the Grameen Bank and BRAC were able to provide small amounts of capital to hundreds of thousands of small entrepreneurs, most of them women. These enterprises contributed to the development of the ready-made garment industry which, in turn, encouraged the participation of women in the workforce. This development model, focused on women, has produced the most rapid demographic change in South Asia. The increase in the median age of the population was more rapid in Bangladesh than any other South Asian country.

So the economic factors are in place. Only the lack of thinking people is there.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 03 Feb 2011 17:32

Lovely Lovely!
I_like_this_article

Posting in full..
http://www.newsindia-times.com/NewsIndi ... 407777.htm

Implications of a Collapsing Pakistan
Harold A. Gould

As Pakistan sinks steadily into the pit of political oblivion, it will inevitably drag the U.S.’ Afghan policy down the drain with it, because without the availability of Pakistan’s logistical and civil infrastructure, and regardless of Gen. David Petraeus’s vaunted military talents, what remains of America’s struggle to wrest Afghanistan from eventual Taliban investiture is almost certainly doomed to failure.
President Barack Obama’s pledge to draw down the American military commitment in Afghanistan may ultimately turn out to be more a Vietnam-like strategic capitulation than a victory lap. Should this turn out to be the case, in the face of a Pakistani political collapse, what other alternatives will exist which an already war-weary American public will accept?
Viewed in historical perspective, what is gradually taking place before our eyes is the final consequences of flawed political choices which the emergent Pakistani elites made following the nation’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s death in 1948, which were compounded by subsequent regimes, and further exacerbated by faulty U.S. Cold War policies towards the South Asia region.
In this sense, the story of Pakistan is one of “chickens coming home to roost!”
Put succinctly, the subsequent history of Pakistan has been the systematic rejection of the efficacy of Jinnah’s vision of a consensual political mode for Pakistan, in keeping with the multicultural, politically accommodative model that alone has proved viable in the South Asian context, literally since the Indus Valley Civilization, and irrespective of whether the regimes have been Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim. The political contrast between India and Pakistan makes this clear.
One might say that over the years the Pakistani public allowed itself to be hijacked by Islamic fundamentalism, partially as a means of coping with its phobic fears of “Hindu India” and partially because the lack of socio-religious flexibility left religious extremism, and its political extensions, as the sole doctrinal basis for attempting to achieve a politically coherent state.
Islamic fanaticism, conjoined with military authoritarianism, has ripped Pakistan to shreds and soon will provoke its political disintegration. What alternative is left for U.S., NATO and Indian strategic policy in the face of a Pakistani political meltdown?
In my opinion, the best option is strategic consolidation. That is, India, the U.S. and its allies, must “step aside”, let the holocaust happen, and try to contain in every way possible its spread beyond Pakistan’s borders and the Pashtun region now dominated by the Taliban.
As the ramifications of the “implosion” become apparent, the U.S., NATO and India can deploy their military and diplomatic resources in whatever manner they deem necessary and possible to contain, ameliorate and mediate the undoubtedly pervasive violence that will ensue and must run its course.
With regard to Afghan policy in the face of a Pakistani political meltdown, and an inevitable upsurgence of Taliban militancy in the Pashtun region, former U.S. ambassador to India Robert D. Blackwill has offered a highly imaginative interim solution.
The U.S., he says, should for the time being consolidate its forces and resources in the non-Pashtun portions of the country where Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazarras predominate and originally formed the core of the Northern Alliance which in concert with the U.S. defeated the Taliban.
His observations concerning the interim realignment of forces in Afghanistan in the face of the worst-case scenario are highly pertinent.
“Washington should accept,” he declares, “that the Taliban will inevitably control most of the Pashtun south and east and that the price of forestalling that outcome is far too high for the United States to continue paying.”
Even prior to the impending collapse of Pakistan, or indeed if in the end it avoids this terminal fate, Blackwill rightly concludes that “the emergence of a clear division in Pakistan might provide just the sort of shock the Pakistani military apparently needs in order to appreciate the dangers of the game it has been playing for decades.”
Pakistan is only a furtive step away from ceasing to be a viable modern state capable of carrying out its responsibilities as a purported “non-NATO ally” of the U.S. in the war against the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other jihadi extremists.
Yes, this implies a comprehensive realignment of forces, resources and strategic orientation towards the Af-Pak theatre. But in the face of a steadily disintegrating, politically pathological Pakistan state, it is only a matter of time until such a realignment takes place anyway.
For U.S.-Pakistan relations, as we have known them, it is indeed the end of the affair.

arunsrinivasan · Post by **arunsrinivasan** » 03 Feb 2011 19:50

^^ Great article. IMVHO, I feel that TSP tends to muddle through, gets to the edge but doesnt go over ... though I wish it does. I'm not able to foresee the sequence of events that would push it over the edge, mainly because of the two A's ... Army & Allah. Their Army for all its fault is a powerful institution, when it comes to an existential crisis might be able to restore some semblance of order. For all the punjabi, sindhi, pashtun, mohajir, baluch differences, when it comes to the crunch, I feel the Islam would keep them together. Lastly, would the western world (primarily US) allow it to collapse, not sure if they can prevent it. But they might just throw money at the problem to keep them from tipping over .... my 2 paisa.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 03 Feb 2011 21:05

arunsrinivasan, you might have read this one - on what might happen

Uneven Cohen
http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/pakistans-r ... ion/p23744
Pakistan's Road to Disintegration

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 04 Feb 2011 00:20

X-post...

Johann wrote:
JE Menon wrote:I have to agree with SSridhar here. The comment coming from Gen. Rodriguez is most disappointing. There are two possibilities:

1. This is a lull before the storm - and I fail to see how much more stormy it can be given the apparent pace of attacks set By Gen. William McRaven in that theatre. Unless the storm this time is going to blow over Pakistan. In other words, the comment by Gen. Rodriguez about not needing much from Pakistan in Waziristan could suggest that the reason is American anticipates to act on its own. But I doubt it. This may, ultimately, be a political statement more than anything else. The Obama drawdown is to begin in a few months... and this might be the opening shot in the media to indicate that, yes, things will go according to "plan". Of course, that's crap. Uniformed American soldiers in fairly significant numbers will be in Afghanistan for a while to come.

2. This is the final acceptance by the US that Pakistan is unwilling to act in that area. What does this mean? It means that the operations in the Pak theatre might be winding down. And this is not a good thing at all. It could mean, despite the full knowledge on the part of the Americans, from Obama & Biden down to the platoon commander on the ground, that the Pakistanis are "the cancer", nothing is going to be done about it. What is clear is that although everyone identifies the problem, the solution that first appears to go through their minds is "India must do something on Kashmir". They know they can't really raise this issue with us either, because they know how idiotic it would be to do so. They know what we will say and they know they have no answer for it.

While it is disappointing, the disappointment may be temporary. It seems to me, judging by the various scratches and itches that the US is executing, that something rather bad for Pakistan is taking shape within the American strategic machinery. There are few takers for the argument in the US now that Pakistan is anything but a double-dealing reptile. So far, they seem to think however that to keep this snake from lunging at them every now and then, they have to give "massive aid". They can hardly string together two sentences about Pakistan without that phrase in there somewhere. But, even that assessment is on its last legs.

As we know, Satyam eva Jayate. We can wait.
The Americans will not give up on having North Waziristan cleaned out, they can not. This is about whether the PA can be pushed in to acting on Obama's electoral timetable.

If the Obama Administration can make big and deep improvements in Afghan security he can have a bigger draw down and a national security victory he can brandish at Republicans, while having something to offer his left-wing, anti-war wing of the party. America would remain deeply engaged regardless.

A Pakistani invasion of N. Waziristan would allow a bigger drawdown, with troops levels reducing in Eastern Afghanistan.

If the improvements on the ground are more limited, or fragile, then the 2011-2012 drawdown will have to be largely symbolic.

It is all a matter of degree - this Administration's policy has been calibrated for flexibility. They don't want to lose Afghanistan, but they don't want to lose the 2012 elections either, and they are looking for the cheapest mean path between the two.

The riskiest option the administration could take would be to go for the kind of reduction in forces that would have taken place if the PA had gone in to N. Waziristan anyway, and count on increased drone strikes to balance things out. That is something DoD all the way up to Gates, and State all the way up to Hillary Clinton would oppose.

I think the fear of replication of Egypt situation will keep them more in Pakjab than in N Waziristan or Indian borders.

Brad Goodman · Post by **Brad Goodman** » 04 Feb 2011 00:28

Cross posting from TSP thread

Many in Pakistan Fear Unrest at Home

But while Mr. Gilani appeared unruffled, diplomats, analysts and other Pakistani officials admit to unease, and concede that Pakistan contains many of the same ingredients for revolt found in the Middle East — and then some: an economy hollowed out by bad management and official corruption; rising Islamic religious fervor; and a poisonous resentment of the United States, Pakistan’s biggest financial supporter.

Some diplomats and analysts compare the combustible mixture of religious ideology and economic frustration, overlaid with the distaste for America, to Iran in 1979. Only one thing is missing: a leader.

Food inflation totaled 64 percent in the last three years, according to Sakib Sherani, who resigned recently as the principal economic adviser at the Finance Ministry. The purchasing power of the average wage earner has declined by 20 percent since 2008, he said.

Families are taking children out of school because they cannot afford both fees and food. Others choose between medicine and dinner.

A middle-class customer in a pharmacy in Rawilpindi, the city where the powerful army keeps its headquarters, told the pharmacist last week to sell him only two pills of a course of 10 antibiotics because he did not have enough money for groceries.

The most popular fuel for home cooking, gas, has been severely rationed this winter. Gas supplies to power in textile mills in Faisalabad were suspended this week, leaving some 400,000 workers without their daily wages, said Abdul Qayyum, a textile union official.

Well-to-do secular families who serve liquor in their big city homes nervously talk of their servants “doing a Qadri,” voicing a fear that the flotilla of help that is common among the privileged will turn on their patrons.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 04 Feb 2011 01:59

Christine Fair spills out a lot of perfidy!

The F-16 Fiasco

Select quotes:

With the lapse of time, many American and Pakistani interlocutors alike rehearse redacted variants of this sordid affair for various purposes. But I was dismayed when a U.S. official (speaking in his personal capacity) did so at the U.S. Institute of Peace event. He stressed, with suitable outrage, that the United States unfairly deprived Pakistan of the F-16s it purchased, demurred from reimbursing Pakistan when sanctions precluded delivery, and even charged Pakistan for the storage fees while the United States sought a third-party buyer for the planes. This particular individual has a long-standing relationship with South Asia and extensive experience in the region, which made the stylized telling all the more troublesome.

This narrative likely appealed to recreational critics of Washington and its serially failed engagements with Islamabad. But it is a disturbing and incomplete re-telling at the F-16 fiasco, the rehearsal of which does little to advance U.S.-Pakistan relations.

....

Most frustrating is Pakistan's refusal to acknowledge its own role in undermining its security by backing various Islamist militant groups in Afghanistan throughout the 1990s, including the Taliban. (Pakistanis often claim erroneously that the CIA created the Taliban.)

Pakistan also complains that it has been punished disproportionately relative to India for its nuclear weapons program. Pakistan correctly notes that India was the first to proliferate in South Asia with its first explosion of a nuclear device in May 1974 (Pokhran I). As the revisionist and weaker state, Pakistan could hardly resist the compulsion to acquire nuclear weapons. The bitterest invective is reserved for the 1985 Pressler Amendment, which many Pakistanis wrongfully claim was written to punish Islamabad for its nuclear program.

Contrary to Pakistanis' popular perceptions, U.S. and international nonproliferation efforts in South Asia were precipitated by India's 1974 nuclear test as well as misgivings about the Ford administration's response to India's abuse of Canadian- and U.S.-supplied civilian nuclear assistance. And, of course, the U.S. Congress was increasingly discomfited about Pakistan's acquisitions of nuclear items abroad.

In response to these varied concerns, the U.S. Congress passed two nonproliferation amendments to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act (FAA): the 1976 Symington Amendment and the 1977 Glenn Amendment. Together, they prohibit U.S. military and economic assistance to countries that reject full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards for all nuclear facilities and materials; transfer, acquire, deliver, or receive nuclear reprocessing or enrichment technology; or explode or transfer a nuclear device. Congress, wary of Indian and Pakistani intentions, passed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act (NNPA) of 1978 that prohibited the sale of U.S. uranium fuel to countries that refuse "full-scope" IAEA safeguards and inspections.

"Our security policy cannot be dictated by our nonproliferation policy.''

After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Washington chose to subordinate its nonproliferation policies to other regional interests. According to Steve Coll, then-national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told American president Jimmy Carter that Washington needs to secure Pakistan's support to oust the Soviets and that this will "require... more guarantees to [Pakistan], more arms aid, and, alas, a decision that our security policy cannot be dictated by our nonproliferation policy."

Despite full knowledge of Pakistan's nuclear program, Congress added Section 620E to the FAA, which granted the president a qualified authority to waive sanctions for six years, allowing the United States to fund and equip Pakistan for the anti-Soviet jihad. Congress next appropriated annual funds for a six-year program of economic and military aid that totaled $3.2 billion. Despite continued warnings from the U.S. about its nuclear program, Pakistan continued developing a weapons capability. Pakistan's military dictator, Zia ul Haq, asserted that it was Pakistan's right to do so.

In 1985, the Pressler Amendment was passed, making U.S. assistance to Pakistan conditional on an annual presidential assessment and certification that Pakistan did not have nuclear weapons.

But this legislation was not punitive as Pakistanis claim and as some historically ill-informed American commentators lament. Rather, the amendment allowed the United States to continue providing assistance to Pakistan even though other parts of the U.S. government increasingly believed that Pakistan had crossed the nuclear threshold, meriting sanctions under various U.S. laws.

Nor was Pakistan a passive observer of this congressional activity. Husain Haqqani, now Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, explained in 2007 that the Pressler Amendment was passed with the active involvement of Pakistan's foreign office, which was keen to resolve the emergent strategic impasse over competing U.S. nonproliferation and regional objectives on one hand and Pakistan's resolute intentions to acquire nuclear weapons on the other. He described it as a victory for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was.

In 1990, when U.S. interests in the region lapsed after the Soviet Union left Afghanistan, President George H. Bush declined to certify Pakistan, and the sanctions came into force.

{Here she ignores the admission by some US asst secy that TSP tested a bomb in PRC around this time.}

However this was not a bolt out of the blue. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Ambassador Robert Oakley repeatedly made Pakistani leadership aware of the inevitable consequences of proliferation. Pakistan's leadership made a calculated gamble.

{i]{Oakley was called Viceroy of TSP!}[/i]

This brings us back to the F-16s debacle. When the Pressler sanctions came into force, Pakistan was precluded from taking possession of 28 F-16s for which it had made payments until 1993, some three years after the sanctions commenced. Pakistan paid the Lockheed Corp. $658 million for the planes, and some reports suggest that Pakistan continued making payments based on Pentagon assurances that continued payments would ensure eventual delivery.

Pakistan did not get the planes and was assessed storage and maintenance costs of $50,000 per month for the planes that sat, becoming ever more obsolete, in the Arizona desert. This account is telling: Pakistan preferred to heed the roseate advice of the Pentagon over the clear lines of U.S. law.

...

While Pakistanis prefer to characterize the F-16 fiasco as inherently unfair, the simple fact is that Pakistan's leadership made a strategic choice to develop nuclear weapons at the expense of taking ownership of the fleet of F-16s. Pakistan's leadership understood the U.S. law and its likely consequences. Pakistanis need to hold their leadership to account rather than blithely blaming Washington.

Americans also have to take responsibility. When U.S. officials rehearse only part of this story, it undermines all efforts to achieve a working bilateral relationship that is based on facts rather than fiction.

A lot of truth coming out. It was BRF stance for a long time that Pressler was a way for US to bypass the more rigorous Cranston -Symington Amendement.

And lot of angst at Larry Perssler being feted by Indian Amercans despite being number one enabler of TSP acquisiton of nukes!

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 04 Feb 2011 02:53

ramana wrote: It was BRF stance for a long time that Pressler was a way for US to bypass the more rigorous Cranston -Symington Amendement.

And lot of angst at Larry Perssler being feted by Indian Amercans despite being number one enabler of TSP acquisiton of nukes!

It was yours truly who pointed out this 10 years ago.