A Contrary Opinion

The referendum was wholly unnecessary... however the war against fanaticism is reality and we need Musharraf for that..

Wonderful arguments, Mr. Gilani. I did not know Goldman Sachs employed such sharp thinkers.

Regards and welcome.

``I am not a supporter of military rule, nor do I espouse the role of the army in our checkered history. However, if we are giving such people as Nawaz Sharif or Benazir Bhutto (who will undoubtedly be voted in by the masses) the benefit of the doubt when they have done nothing but betray us, why not give the goodwill to someone who, for any faults one can mention, has only been brutally honest with us. ``

well said......there is a tendency in Pakistanis do dismiss change and expect ideal situations...and when that is not met, they become disheartened and negative.... as exemplified by the opinions of many pakistanis regarding the referendum.

instead of complaining about something that can`t be undone, why can`t Pakistanis just stand united and help out wherever they can....that is if they can stop sitting pretty in their Defense kothis, accumulating wealth for themselves, and complaining about the government.

re: prem

...goldman sachs has over 22,000 employees globally...how do you know they are all sharp or dull?...

Someone on another board asked why do Pakistanis have this yearning for the messiah? This article serves up the perfect answer.

Here is a gentleman who works in the citadel of capitalism whose denizens are constantly taught how important their conduct is to the exalted reputation of their employer. Its Paulson today. Corzine a couple of years back and Rubin before him. These men were important but the institution will outlive them all. A majority of MDs can walk away from Goldman and there is enough strength in the bench to take over without a missed heartbeat. Its not even a theoratical question. It actually happened in 1994, yet the firm pulled through because institutionally it was sound. Pakistan will not pull thru in its endless search for the messiah because the whole house is rotten-top to bottom. Its a miracle that it has survived the surgical strikes carried out by the military. I think time has finally run out. Barring a last ball six, the endgame is near.

later

-sac

sac #5, ``Pakistan will not pull thru in its endless search for the messiah because the whole house is rotten-top to bottom. Its a miracle that it has survived the surgical strikes carried out by the military. I think time has finally run out. Barring a last ball six, the endgame is near.``

you`re expressing the typical ``intellectual`` Pakistani`s dismissal of Pakistan....but you fail to realize that the problem doesn`t just lie within the government and leadership...but it`s in the gutteral mindsets of Pakistanis in general.... Pakistanis are the most selfish, self centered, whining group of people i`ve come across. we don`t have the cajones to try and mend the country, yet we have Gene Simmons tongues to verbally lash out against Pakistan.

if many of the NRI`s and wealthy of Pakistan sit down and act collectively, Pakistan can be very different from what it is today. but no...we`re more interested in accumulating Swiss bank accounts and expensive cars in our garages.

besides Imran Khan`s efforts for the cancer hospital and groups like Junoon raising awareness, has there been any other major financial help provided by Pakistani-Americans to the state of Pakistan?

Dear Adnan Gilani:

A contrary opinion filled with EXTREMELY apologetic contradictions.

Every nation has it Mustafa Kemal and Lee Kuan Yew`s you say? Please don`t pollute the aggressively active and visionary talent of those men (good or bad) with dime-a-dozen General`s of Pakistan including Musharaf.

What has Musharaf done to earn even the possibility of having his name sung with the likes of Lee Kuan Yew? Yeah, he`s taking on the Mullahs, but the Mullah`s been his own army`s child anyway. Still, I give him credit.

Let`s look at how Musharaf could have appeared to be `revolutionary`:

1) eliminate feudalism? prescribe that individuals can only have 100 acre limits. CONFISCATE THE REST? DO you think he has hte guts to do that? Or if he has to be `benign`, buy the rest off the feudals and MAKE SURE THEY NEVER get the land back again (last time such `reforms` were done, the feudals managed to get the money AND get hte land back). this is one basic formula suggested by some agricultural engieers here in Pakistan when i asked how they would propose to get rid of feudalism (if one believes that it does need to be gotten rid of).

Rather, Musharaf is now sleeping with feudals who are not only opportunists, but entirely individual opportunists who have no NATIONAL representation.

Lee Kuan`s and Kemal`s had a vision. Musharaf needs to get a new pair of glasses- and that`s the least of his problems.

HISTORY REPEATS,

I am sure there would have been several andan gilanis supporting zia, the basic democracy, the non party based democracy so that the corrupt bhuttos are not there. It is this short memory that andan so well redicules is also inflicted by it. It is the people of the andan type that are the killers of pakistan, the ones that cannot see the history repeating itself.

Only difference and may be the redeeming factor is the back seat rulers, the maericans. Ten foreigners die, 400 are arrested, hundreds of educated especially doctors are killed, it is termed sectarian violence, part of the jihadic action.

Pakistan if the present trend continues will be the philippines of the south asia, mushy the marcos double. The revolution forthcoming will not be the people power revolution, it will be by the bearded generals, it will be a khomeni revolution. Th epolicies persued by mushy at the beckoning of the US will only alineate the ordinary pakistanis. And let there be no doubt, the americans will not walk away as in the philippines, simply because of the bomb and that is when pakistan will meet its true destiny, another islamic iraquised country.

Another apologist for the Pakistan Military.

Not much new here, but a worthy effort.

Ras

re: spout

{if many of the NRI`s and wealthy of Pakistan sit down and act collectively, Pakistan can be very different from what it is today.}

...we love pakistanis but expecting non resident INDIANS (NRI`s) to start contributing to pakistan is a little much, isn`t it?...khopdi me chot aa gayi?..

Scout wrote:

``you`re expressing the typical ``intellectual`` Pakistani`s dismissal of Pakistan....but you fail to realize that the problem doesn`t just lie within the government and leadership...but it`s in the gutteral mindsets of Pakistanis in general.... Pakistanis are the most selfish, self centered, whining group of people i`ve come across. we don`t have the cajones to try and mend the country, yet we have Gene Simmons tongues to verbally lash out against Pakistan.``

you are expressing the typical `intellectual-basher` argument here. the basic reason why so many people are against the military regime is:

1) The military is playing the same games, indulging in the same corrupt practices, manipulating the fabric of hte nation by actively trying to ruin the major political parties but then coming up with nothing better than scattered individual feudal opportunists, rigging elections (i notice none of you Fauji lovers like to dwell on that- perhaps if you see no evil, hear no evil, than the Faujis can be sinless indeed)

no, the problem is not in the mindset. Even if people are self-centered, selfish, whining, these characteristics do not justify anything at all. The only people I can think up of when you give the general Pakistani characteristics are the Faujis themselves. They are self-centered cause they cannot understand and accept why 95% of the population won`t vote for their `revolutionary` policies. they are selfish as the Faujis eat up the biggest portion of non-interest payment budget. they are selfish cause their retired and serving officers end up heading (and pissing in) every professional government establishment without any qualification whatsoever.

Scout # 7

``if many of the NRI`s and wealthy of Pakistan sit down and act collectively, Pakistan can be very different from what it is today.``

NRI means Non Resident Indian.I see no help coming from their side in the near future unless a Saraswati temple is being built on the banks of river Indus. :)

Regards.

scout:

The NRIs did the best for themselves. Expecting them to solve the problems facing Pakistan today is a variation on the search for Messiah longing. The NRIs do not understand the dynamics of Pakistani society because they have been away from the action so to speak. You are right that Pakistanis in general are a whiny lot. Unfortunately they are the only ones who can go about changing that.

Imran`s cancer hospital, Edhi etc. are laudable endeavours but they cannot take over the responsibilities of the state. And please be careful about labelling dissenting opinions as ``intellectual``. Reminds me of ugly girls being referred to as ``qabool soorat``.

later

-sac

Mush has a vision. The only problem is he doesn`t know how to get there or gives up a part of the vision becuase of American pressure or internal pressure from within (his own Army)

His true graduation will be when he realises that the very insitution that created him will be the detriment to long standing democracy in Pakistan

Ras #10: Could you explain why anyone who supports the current policies of Musharraf is automatically and thoughtlessly considered an apologist by you? And that too an apologist for the whole military, not just for Musharraf.

And could you point out any great achievements that Benazir and Nawaz`s govt. carried out in the ten years they stayed in power? Does it really make any difference whether Musharraf is from the military? Shouldn`t his economic policies and their success (or potential for success) be used as a criteria? Or is it more important that robber barons like BB and Zardari run the country, again.

Following are some excerpts from Shahid Burki`s article, as well as some comments from the World Bank President on Pakistan. Pakistan, a country which could not even get three straight tranches of loans from the IMF, is now being praised by all these international institutions.

Maybe you need to open up your mind, and realize that there are people who support Musharrafs` policies because they feel it will make a legitimate difference in the lives of poor Pakistanis. This includes honest politicians like Imran Khan and Asghar Khan etc. Perhaps that should be enough to get you out of your love affair from the massively corrupt Bhuttos, and direct your thinking towards the poor people of Pakistan.

``My own - and I must confess, oft repeated - view is that what Pakistan practised during the nineties was not democracy by any stretch of political imagination. Instead, what we had was a system that was extremely malleable in the hands of crafty, corrupt and selfish politicians. The system proved easy to manipulate and allowed a small group of elites - the country`s political establishment - to exploit it to its own advantage. What ensued was a period of extraordinarily poor governance in which political and bureaucratic corruption became rampant and the number of people living in poverty increased exponentially.

For ten years, the country was not governed according to a system of rules promulgated by the representatives of the people. It was governed according to the will and whims of a few men and women. While few would dispute that Pakistan in the nineties was poorly governed, it still does not establish a case for military intervention in politics......

India had the highest rate of economic growth in the nineties - it averaged 6 per cent a year, twice as high as the rate of increase in the first forty years after independence. Raj Krishna, the late Indian economist, once dubbed this anaemic rate of increase in GDP the ``Hindu rate of growth``. But as a result of the quickened rate of growth achieved after India began the process of reform, the country`s economy was 80 per cent larger in 2000 compared to its size in 1990. But India was not the only country in South Asia to outperform Pakistan. Sri Lanka, in spite of the continuing civil war in the country, was the second best performing economy in South Asia. Its GDP increased at the annual rate of 5.3 per cent.

Bangladesh, with a rate of growth of 4.8 per cent a year came in third. Pakistan`s GDP increased at the rate of only 3.7 per cent, slightly more than one-half of the rate of growth in the previous forty years.`` (Burki, www.dawn.com)

``ISLAMABAD, May 14: The visiting five-member IMF review mission headed by Klaus Enders has expressed satisfaction over the current state of the economy and said it would recommend to their executive board to disburse the third tranche of $109 million to Pakistan by June 30 this year.`` (www.dawn.com)

``To a question about his meeting with President Musharraf, Wolfensohn said the president outlined a two-part strategy of his government - the devolution of power to local level and the reform agenda.

He highly appreciated the devolution of power plan of the government.

The WB chief further said during his visit to the NWFP and his meeting with the governor, he witnessed the devolution of power.

``It is the most transparent applications of powers, including financial powers, he observed.

Wolfensohn also said he was very impressed by the steps the president outlined about the reform agenda of the government - both in the departments and the state-run enterprises.

``We will be giving full support to him,`` he assured.`` (www.brecorder.com)

Pakistan in 1990 was its historical lowest level of poverty of 18%. In 1999, Pakistan was at its highest ever level of poverty of close to 40%.

The World Bank and IMF etc. never had a single good thing to say about Pakistan in the past ten years. Now the President of the World Bank, the President of the USA etc. all are praising Pakistan.

Yet you are bent upon ensuring that good old Bonnie and Clyde (BB and Zardari) get back in the saddle, and screw us again. Get out of your one track thinking, and forget for a moment whether Musharraf is from the Army or not. Just look at his policies, and his personal financial honesty, and then decide whether the author is being an apologist or is actually concerned about Pakistan.

I would encourage you to follow Imran Khan`s interviews on how the current system of Pakistani politics is totally dominated by the feudal mafias, the timber mafias, the drug mafias, business mafias, etc.

Any country, whose educated people are willing to bring back the exact same faces that destroyed it earlier, deserves disaster. People in the US don`t cry the same tears for the return of Abraham Lincoln, that some in Pakistan cry for the return of Benazir.

FR Khan in a reply said it best. Pakistanis are a bunch of whiners who have no idea of chosing the best of the available options.

Romair # 16

Please read the following article closely...

Opinion From The Nation (Lahore) 5-16-02

Pakistan`s security environment

By Masood Sharif Khan Khattak

Pakistan lives in what can be termed a very tough neighbourhood. We are a country whose security is not only threatened from the outside but also from the inside. It is time that we take stock of the situation in right earnest. If we do not do this our problems will multiply manifold and soon the proverbial last straw will find itself on the back of our beloved country. I am certain none of us want that to happen. In order to make a brief assessment of our security environment I shall touch upon the aspects of foreign policy, law and order, the political scene, economy and the current India-Pakistan stand off.
Foreign relations play a pivotal role in the security considerations of any country. If Pakistan has to bring about an improvement in its security environment it will have to reassess the way, it has exercised its foreign policy options. The Foreign Office has to obtain ascendancy over all other organs of the government in formulating the country`s foreign policy options. There is just no other choice.
Domestically we use the complete governmental apparatus in a selective witch-hunt of the opposition. At different times, we have all been at the wrong side of the stick. At all times the commonality has been that the resources of the State were utilized to fight thoroughly patriotic Pakistanis whose only fault was being in political opposition to whosoever was in power. The State resources should always have been used to fight the enemies of the State and the opposition should have been left alone to practice political opposition.
This has never been the practice. It is not the practice even in these so-called days of good governance either. The result, over the years, has been that the political culture has deteriorated. On the other hand those elements that like to take on the State and put its integrity, internal security, law and order, provincial harmony, investment climate and the well being of the general health of the State at stake have improved upon their ability to take on the State frontally and with impunity.
In modern times, states break up because of two major factors. Health of the economy and the state`s internal law and order situation. It is a fallacy to believe that armies can keep countries intact. Take the example of the Soviet Union. When its economy collapsed and the internal dissension, the mighty Soviet Army with all its inter-continental ballistic missiles, nuclear war heads, millions of armed-to-the-teeth soldiers, tanks and whatever else, could not keep the erstwhile Soviet Union from fragmenting into twelve independent states. In our own history, we see that when the Bengalis rose against the State of Pakistan our Army could do nothing to keep the State intact. India`s efforts to keep Kashmir as an integral part of India is not going to work either. Its million plus Army will one day have to quit Kashmir.
We have to concentrate very pragmatically upon our domestic situation before it gets out of hand. Our general law and order situation is bad to say the least. The military ruler Gen Musharraf has openly told this nation on television that the writ of the State of Pakistan has eroded from all over Pakistan. What, therefore, needs to be done expeditiously is that this lost writ should be restored - before it is too late. The State has to leave alone the legitimate political opponents to carry on with their legitimate political opposition and has to divert the attention of all the law and order apparatus, in particular the intelligence agencies, to concentrate on the activities of the anti-State elements and thwart their nefarious designs. If we do not do this instantly, the State of Pakistan will eventually pay a very dear price for this negligence. We, the patriotic Pakistanis are pained at the plight of our hapless motherland. Erosion from within is our biggest enemy.
I am not someone who understands the intricacies of the economy but what I do know is that despite what we are fed over State-controlled electronic media and from those in charge of the economy we are not in a happy situation at all. A good economy should reflect itself in the daily lives of the citizens. In our case, it does not. Statistics are useless for the man in the street.
Who cares if the loans are rescheduled? They will have to be repaid by our next generations. How does it help? When Pakistanis are investing in Jabel Ali (UAE), Malaysia and so many other countries around the world and are helping in improving the general health of those economies why can they not do the same for Pakistan by exploiting the Pakistani market potential? Utterly wrong policies of the governments in the past and in the present have driven the local investors away from the shores of Pakistan - this makes our expectation that the foreign investor will come to Pakistan laughable. This is tragic. We shall have to do something quickly to get the sons of the soil back if we want the economy going.
As far as the external threat from India is concerned I say it emphatically that it is something that was catered for, and very effectively, in the 70`s by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto when he laid the ground work for Pakistan to become a nuclear power in the military sense. That is why India and Pakistan have not gone to war ever since 1971 - despite conflagrations like the Kargil episode and the present full military, naval, and air stand off.
India has never been interested in our territory or our population. They have enough of land and enough of a Muslim population to want an addition to that population. Their sole interest has been and still is to destroy Pakistan`s military potential. The Indians have been preparing for this purpose since long. The Indians have been acquiring arms and equipment from abroad since 1971 for all the three services i.e. army, navy and the air force in a very systematic and planned manner.
Indians have also concentrated on indigenous production of sophisticated military hardware. Their nuclear and space research programme has been meticulous and purposeful. They have had a steady missile development process. In short, the Indians had planned well in order to arrive at a peak military potential in or around the years 1995-97.
On our part, the nuclear program started by Shaheed Bhutto progressed well over the years. Once Pakistan achieved the nuclear capability, it had the problem of the delivery system. Despite western pressures, the governments of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto in 1988-90 and in 1993-96 developed our missile systems. Today we have the bomb - thanks to the elder Bhutto and we have the delivery systems - thanks to the daughter of the father of our nuclear programme. The lethal combination of these two aspects is keeping the Indians from invading Pakistan. Yet, and very sadly so the military government of Zia ul Haq took the elder Bhutto to the gallows and the head of the present military government has the audacity to call the daughter a security hazard.
I shudder to think what we would have had to face if we had not been a nuclear power today and if we did not have the ability to deliver those warheads to almost any place in India that matters to that nation. I get a feeling that we might have been in a kind of situation that the Palestinians face today. What stops India from driving into our territories is not our conventional forces but the fact that our nuclear capability puts the price tag of invading our territories at a level that the Indian nation just cannot bear.
The Indians did not go to war after 1971 because a stalemate would not have helped their cause of trying to be recognized as a regional power and it was not before 1995-97 that their acquisitions and indigenous production could give them their peak military potential so that they could destroy our military machine once and for all. This is why in 1998 they exploded their second nuclear device. The sole purpose of this activity on the part of the Indians was to find out for sure whether Pakistan was or was not in possession of nuclear weapons and the delivery system without which a nuclear capability means nothing. There can be many opinions on the matter but I think Mian Nawaz Sharif`s action of exploding the device at Chaghai did the trick. The Indian desire to cut Pakistan`s military might to size was struck a big blow - a blow that was strong enough to tell the world, Indian and Pakistani leaderships of all times to come that war was no longer an option for the settlement of disputes between India and Pakistan.
We need to immediately reassess our options to improve our security environment. We have to bring about a political culture of tolerance that is not visible on the horizon despite what the incumbent government says. We need to revert to an undiluted representative dispensation immediately. We need to re-establish the writ of Pakistan on each and every inch of its territory and this cannot be done by word of mouth but by deeds of thoroughly professional nature on the part of the country`s security apparatus. We have to set the economy moving and this cannot be achieved in a suffocating political atmosphere that is dominated by fear and intimidation.

The writer is former Director General Intelligence Bureau and Member, Central Executive Committee, PPP