What Pakistan’s Bomb Could Not Buy

WASHINGTON DIARY: Borrowed prosperity —Dr Manzur Ejaz

What happened after 9/11 is well known. The termination of the hundi system along with rescheduled foreign loans and sale of state-owned corporations helped add to the state coffers, particularly, the foreign currency reserves. Insecure Pakistani immigrants also directed more investment to Pakistan. And the US pumped in billions of dollars to buy all kinds of loyalties as it had during the Afghan-Soviet war. The Indo-Pak peace moves also helped lift the borrowed confidence of Pakistan’s ruling class. A wave of unprecedented speculation took hold of Pakistan and the millionaires from the classes with large assets became billionaires overnight.

It reminds me of the proverb “anhay daiy pair haith bataira aa gia” (The blind man stepped on a quail). He then declared to his wife that he always ate good quality meat. Pakistan’s imported and rehabilitated economists have stumbled upon the 9/11 quail like the proverbial blind man. Since then they have been all over the world, receiving honour for the great “break-through” in which they have not played any part. As a matter of fact Pakistan’s economy has never stood on its feet — it was always propped up by US-leased and -sanctioned support.

To trigger the domestic economic growth, the State Bank of Pakistan took the most dangerous turns of all — it boosted consumer spending by printing money. It hyped up the growth numbers for a few years to make Ishrat Husain look good. The prices of assets were inflated — about 1,300 percent in some cases. Acting as cheerleaders of the US treasury, the World Bank, IMF and other international institutions joined the chorus to praise Pakistan’s economic progress.

All this was meant to create an illusion in Washington, in a bid to convince the US elite to stand behind America’s saviour, General Pervez Musharraf. Even for Washington’s anti-Pakistani core, while Pakistanis were devils Musharraf was an angel. Or that is what they pretended for the time being.

But something has drastically gone wrong in the last few weeks. First “deep throats” have classified Pakistan as a failed state and “big mouth” experts and legislators at a Congress Committee hearing whipped Pakistan in a way that Washington journalists have not seen for a while. They declared that the Dr AQ Khan case was still open and that Pakistan should be forced to hand him over!

And at a recent gathering of bankers, participants were convinced that Pakistan’s economy was at the verge of collapse. Nonetheless, they were mystified about the manner in which Pakistan goes in cycles of boom and bust. What a surprise!

A few months ago, a good friend from the World Bank was up in arms when I pointed out that Pakistan’s economic growth was borrowed from US largess and consumerism. Now everyone is coming around to parrot the arguments they could not earlier bear to hear. This U-turn is not unexpected because they all prosper in their jobs by constantly changing their tinted glasses as prescribed/ordered by the US treasury.

On the contrary, if they had done an elementary statistics course — a tall order — they would have seen the correlation between the US’ use of Pakistan and the latter’s prosperity bubble. It has occurred again and again during the military regimes of Ayub Khan, Zia ul Haq and now General Pervez Musharraf.

Furthermore, has the so-called neo-liberal economic model, being followed in Pakistan by imported economic managers worked anywhere? Did it succeed in South America where the neo-liberal economists presided over the countries? If so, then why are the socialists coming to power with a vengeance in South and Latin America? But people who keep changing their tinted glasses will never learn, as says Shah Hussain:

Suchi gal suniway kewnkar, kachi haddan wich rachi

(How can they ever hear the truth with half-truths in their bones?).

The writer can be reached at manzurejaz@yahoo.com

Ref viewer #91

[``nuclear weapons and missile development is today second-rate science``
I wonder why the practitioners of ``first-rate science`` in Pakistani academics are increasingly attracted towards the politics of nuclear weapons. Could they please explain how much Pakistan has benefitted from the practice of their first-rate science?]

The first-rate academics of Pakistan are working on the thermodynamics of djinns and how it can be used to generate pollution-free electrical power, a cutting-edge research area.

No matter what now.

nukes are a done deal in South Asia and their history

cannot be reversed easily.

That said and done, I still had reservations about our

technology leaps in India and Pakistan on my visit there

about a year and a half ago.

Nukes yes! Clean Public Restrooms No!

Never knew where to find relief and did not

want to join our masses on the walls or in the fields.

Maybe if that technology could also find its way there

people like me would be happier.


Ras

the likes of hoodhboy can bray as much as they want. no one pays any attention to them except for the clowns who populate this website.

real progress in pak will be driven by people like these:

National Bank of Pakistan Looks Overseas to Expand Operations
2006-05-30 18:49 (New York)


By Naween A. Mangi and Haslinda Amin

...Raza, who spent 28 years at Bank of America in the U.S.,
Yemen, the U.K. and Pakistan before being hired by the
government to run National Bank in 2000, is setting up a network
that runs from Riyadh to Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital.
He has opened offices in the Bangladesh port city of
Chittagong, Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, Baku in Azerbaijan and the
Afghan cities of Kabul and Jalalabad.

....As normally frosty ties between India and Pakistan warm,
official trade between the two countries, currently $500 million,
may expand to include more of the estimated $2 billion traded
unofficially. The Middle East is being targeted by the
government as a major source of foreign direct investment.
Pakistan has attracted a record $3 billion in foreign investment
this year.
``Over the next 10 years, we will become increasingly
integrated with these economies,`` said Nadeem Naqvi, chief
executive officer of AKD Securities in Karachi. ``If Pakistan
becomes even half the energy and trade corridor it`s being
projected as, National Bank will be very well placed to take the
lead in financing.``
Since Raza took the helm five years ago, National Bank`s
profit has multiplied 27 times to 12.7 billion rupees ($211
million) in 2005.
``We were a sleeping giant,`` Raza said. ``We had the
customers and branches, but we didn`t have the elements to
leverage our franchise.``

Business Graduates

Raza reduced the number of branches by a third to 1,240 and
shed half the 27,000 employees the bank had in 2000. The bank`s
bad-loan ratio has shrunk to 14 percent from 33 percent.
He has hired 100 business school graduates every year,
invested in technology and reduced the layers of bureaucracy at
the bank. The time taken to approve a loan has been cut to 10
days from 100 days.
Pakistan`s economic expansion has contributed to profit
growth at the nation`s 38 banks. The $118 billion economy
expanded 8.4 percent in the year to June 30, 2005, the fastest
in two decades, and is poised to grow at an annual pace of as
much as 8 percent over the next five years, Prime Minister Aziz
has predicted.
Raza expects profit growth to moderate. National Bank`s
profit more than doubled in the year ended Dec. 31. The bank`s
business will still grow, helped by lending to agriculture and
small and medium-sized enterprises, Raza said.
The bank`s market capitalization has grown to $2.8 billion,
from $100 million when the government first sold shares in the
lender in 2001.
``National Bank is among the most attractively valued banks
in the region,`` said Muddassar Malik, who oversees 5 billion
rupees of assets as chief executive officer of BMA Asset
Management Co. It`s ``a core holding for a lot of mutual
funds.``

--Editors: Penna (mgd/snc)

Re: # 100
Dear Invest_Banker,
No doubt Mr Reza has done a terrific job at NBP, but you fail to mention the history of NBP before 2000 which is replete with Govt ineterferrence through job creation and dishing out loans to please their supporters/cronies. Surely Mr Reza and other bankers were helped because the Govt has shown a genuine interest of restructuring its financial sector through privatization and added bonus of being a beneficiary post 9/11. Granted, Pakistan has experienced a economic period of posterity, but the real test of any system or leader arises in crunch times. Pakistan faces number of constraints going forward in the form of galloping inflation, rising interest rates, deficits, higher import bills and a possible drought or poor crop for the fiscal year.

On a separate note, you have failed to understand Mr Hoodbhoys argument against the use of nuclear weapons. The same Bankers (reza etal) and enterpreneurs who are responsible for the economic boom of last five years would fully endorse Mr Hoodbhoys opinion cause capital needs prinicipal protection, ability to profit and not live in the fear of being frozen which was the case back in 1998.

Why is it that the quality or nationality of foreign investors coming to Pakistan is very different when compared to our neighbour India? Wrong state policies, perceptions of a failed state, risks of increased fundamentalism and lack of security not only for capital, foreigners and locals.

So this is why AQ Khan is in isolation and his family isn`t being allowed to meet him...Congress is putting the squeeze on the pakis while the administration bombs pakis in the tribal areas...Now if John Roberts repeats the Farifax DA`s quote about pakis selling their mothers, all 3 branches of the US government will have come down on the pakis..

What`re the chances that Q.Q. Khan will die of ``natural causes`` pretty soon?

Frustration mounts between US, Pakistan
Congress pressures Pakistan to give more information about possible proliferation, upsetting already-delicate ties.

By David Montero | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – One of the central relationships forged after 9/11 has hit a rough patch. The latest irritant between Washington and Islamabad came last week as US lawmakers urged Pakistan to wring more information from disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, alleging that he may yet hold the blueprint to some of Iran`s nuclear secrets.

Earlier this month, Islamabad officially closed its investigation. While Mr. Khan remains under house arrest, Pakistani officials say they`ve given Washington all the details they could get out of him - though that information has never been made public.


``Some question whether the A.Q. Khan network is truly out of business, asking if it`s not merely hibernating. We`d be foolish to rule out that chilling possibility,`` said Republican legislator Edward R. Royce in a statement at the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation hearing. ``Vigilance and greater international pressure on Pakistan to air out the Khan network is in order.``

So far, the tough talk is coming only from Congress, suggesting that the White House may be more keenly aware of the many demands already placed on Pakistan`s President Pervez Musharraf, including the pursuit of Al Qaeda suspects, the curbing of cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, and the development of good governance to keep radical Islam at bay. Some analysts say that the demand for access to Khan risks pushing an already delicate relationship to the point of overburn at a time when Pakistan is warming up to Iran.

``Even if the US gets access to Khan, he might not be able to give information on [Iran]. Khan has never been to Iran,`` says Hasan Askari Rizvi, a defense analyst in Lahore, Pakistan. ``If you apply pressure, you may not get the information you want. The US will have to determine its priorities.``

Interrogating Khan is a wish that Islamabad has never granted: Washington has always had to go through the Pakistani military to get to Khan, cherished as a national hero. Some say that`s the problem, that Khan has never been pressed hard enough. Pakistan authorities, however, defied Congressional demands last week, saying Khan would never be given up.

``The government of Pakistan does not allow direct interrogation of Khan,`` says Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesman for the Pakistani military. Pakistan`s foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, recently told a parliamentary session that Pakistan would not ``take dictation from anybody on our national interests.``

Some saw double trouble in these words. For not long after he spoke them, Mr. Kasuri and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz were busy feting Iran`s foreign minister, who came to Islamabad with visions of building a $7 billion gas pipeline.

Other signs of a deepening relationship between the two Islamic republics include:

• a proposed joint investment company to boost bilateral trade up to $1 billion;

• the ratification of a bilateral preferential trade agreement by the Iranian Parliament;

• a new Iranian center in Pakistan to provide artificial limbs for quake victims;

• Pakistan`s opposition to a military option in the Iranian nuclear controversy.

Washington`s relationship with Islamabad, meanwhile, is under greater strain as the US and its allies in Afghanistan face stepped up attacks from the Taliban. Islamabad remains extremely sensitive to claims that the insurgency operates from across the border in Pakistan. Earlier this month, Col. Chris Vernon, chief of staff for British forces in southern Afghanistan, told the Guardian newspaper, ``The thinking piece of the Taliban is out of Quetta in Pakistan. It`s the major headquarters. They use it to run a series of networks in Afghanistan.``

Nor has Washington`s courtship of Pakistan`s nemesis, India, helped matters. The US has offered a civilian nuclear deal to India while flat out refusing one to Pakistan.

It`s all led to dampening of relations that some analysts say are now at their lowest point since 9/11.

``Pakistan`s real gripe is with the Americans. In recent months an angry Musharraf has quietly, but deliberately defied them. Relations between the two countries have not been so poor since 9/11,`` writes noted journalist Ahmed Rashid in a recent edition of Pakistan`s The Daily Times.

For analysts like Mr. Rashid, pursuing Khan now would be tone deaf at a time when Islamabad is in no mood to do Washington any favors or jeopardize its ties to Tehran.

``[Officials in Washington] don`t understand the regime in Pakistan,`` contends Ayesha Siddiqa, an independent defense analyst in Islamabad. ``It`s a rent-seeking establishment, providing a service to the United States, like regimes in the Middle East. But ... beyond a certain point, [the Pakistanis] have a mind of their own.``

Some see it differently, pointing out that the views recently expressed in Congress do not necessarily represent those of the Bush administration. ``The US administration and the Pentagon understand the limits of what Pakistan can do, but the Congress does not,`` says retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood, a political analyst in Islamabad. Mr. Masood says that Congress, being influenced more by public opinion, has unrealistic expectations that threaten relations with Pakistan.

That`s a gamble, given that Khan may have nothing substantive to say. Giving up Khan is also a huge political risk for Pakistan, since it would only add fodder to the claim that Pakistan is America`s stooge, analysts point out. Plus, if Khan sings, he may implicate some of those in power. ``It`s suicidal to hand him over,`` says Siddiqa.

What is needed instead are better measures to build trust, analysts say. A recent US proposal to generate economic activity in Pakistan`s tribal areas, where the Taliban are said to be growing in popularity, is a concrete step in the right direction, points out Masood. He says more bilateral trade and education assistance are the needed antidotes to the current tensions.

Trust, he and others add, cannot be managed so long as the current relationship remains one of demand and follow. ``Even if [Pakistan] follows the US verbatim, there will still be so many frustrations,`` says Masood. ``Raising the expectations too high can spoil the relationship.``

so why is allah giving india aids?

i think we know the answer to that question:

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/International/2006/05/31/1607407-sun.html

India tops world AIDS infections

JAKARTA -- India has the largest number of AIDS infections as the spread of the disease shows no sign of letting up 25 years into an epidemic that has claimed 25 million lives, the UN reported yesterday.

#103 by invst_banker on May 31, 2006 4:07am PT

faisal ``liberace`` uno..is that you?

#102

Nothing surprising. The US-Pakistan relationship is coming to an end. The shoulders-off gesture by President Bush to Gen.Musharaff was not a momentary knee-jerk reaction..it was a sign of times to come.

In fact Pakistan has outlived its utility in the geo-political calculations of the US for this region. America has now strong foothold in Afganistan and it is not going to leave that place for the next 100 years--take it for sure. Afganistan is in better geographical location to expand america`s influence in Central Asia than Pakistan. The double whammy for america is that it can more easily create trouble in Tibet from Afganistan than from Pakistan. And the third utility of Pakistan in taming India to open its markets is already over.

Now, either Pakistan has to wait for another 9/11 so that lady luck smiles on it again and US comes running to its doors. With US in Afganistan, that possibility is now remote. The other thing is Pakistan returns to true democracy in 2007 and starts on a clean slate once again. That possibility is remoter--because as things stand today, Musharaff is not going to either give up his Post or even Uniform and the 2007 elections will be as ``free and fair`` as that of 2002, with the results already known. The only difference can be that ``Baba and Bibi`` (Shariff and Benazir) may accept some junior post under Prez.Musharaff--though chances are less. If President Musharaff reneges his promise of returning true democracy in 2007, it will not go down well with the western world.

So overall, the chances of Pakistan returning to Pariah Status post 2007 are very high and what is now started appearing in US media are nothing but signals of the future.

Re: # 105
[America has now strong foothold in Afganistan and it is not going to leave that place for the next 100 years--take it for sure]

Are you sure that America will remain a superpower for the next 100 years or so. To tell the truth, I donot see America assuming that role for more than 15 years.

Re: # 98
[The first-rate academics of Pakistan are working on the thermodynamics of djinns and how it can be used to generate pollution-free electrical power, a cutting-edge research area]

For a professional scientist, who is working in a premier university, getting involved in the politics of bombs is equally useless as it is the study of thermodynamics of djinns.

Hoodbhoy: [Many gaming scenarios played in the US strategic war planning institutions indicate that there are well-rehearsed contingency plans if Pakistan’s political situation changes radically after General Musharraf’s departure, planned or otherwise. Clearly, Pakistan is a country that is closely watched and monitored]

Of course, ``closely watched`` and ``monitored`` with the kind help of persons like Hoodbhoy.

[What Pakistan’s Bomb Could Not Buy]

Before starting writing on this topic, it will be helpful to have a detailed discussion about WHAT PAKISTAN`S BOMB HAS BEEN ABLE TO BUY. This list is certainly larger than the list created by Hoodbhoy.

Instead of:
a) enrolling PhD students and getting involved in producing new research
b) putting efforts to successfully run the science departments
c) defining and implementing the strategies to improve the poor state of science in Pakistan

our ``brilliant`` scientists like to enjoy getting involved in the politics of bombs. My point is that this activity is not of better use than presenting papers on the thermodynamics of djinns.