Pak-US Relations

The Frontier Post, January 23, 2012 The Receding Empire

Air Commodore (R) Khalid Iqbal The year 2011 was indeed an Annus Horribilis in the chequered history of Pak-US relations. Likewise, it was a year of global retreat for America. The US kept an unrelenting pressure on Pakistan by taking pot shots on its core national interests. Even the Kashmir cause, so dear to candidate Obamas heart, was not spared. An effort to dismantle the stature of Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai was one of such events. Dr Fai has been projecting the Kashmir cause over the last two decades in a pacific and prudent manner, yet with a missionary zeal. He has indeed earned an iconic stature for himself. As a founder of a non-profit entity Kashmiri American Council (KAC), he pursues the resolution of Kashmir dispute on the basis of UN resolutions. He was arrested in July 2011, and his connection with the ISI was blown out of proportion to create an aura of mistrust and deception. Dr Fai was charged for illegally lobbying the Kashmir cause without registering himself with the American administration and receiving foreign support to fund these activities. Dr Fai had also been in contact with Indian diplomats and other officials. He has also been carrying out Kashmir related activities in consultation with Indian individuals and entities, especially those based in America. With the background that in America, lobbying is a legal instrument of reaching out to the decision makers, biased handling of Dr Fais episode was to implicate the ISI, tarnish a legitimate movement for independence, embarrass Pakistan and appease India. Effects of America initiated process of strategic divergence that started with creation of a misplaced frenzy by Americans, in the context of culpable homicide by a CIA operative Raymond Davis, continued snowballing throughout the year. Other significant events were Abbottabad and Salalah attacks. Furthermore, threat of physical attack on Pakistans nuclear assets was so real and pronounced that President Ahmadinejad made a public statement on June 7 to highlight the gravity of the issue. Memogate might as well be an American knitted sting episode to rupture civil-military relations at the national leadership tier and generate a sense of political paralysis. After all there have been many a twists from the American actors of the memo-saga. Hand in glove are the His Masters Voice anchor persons and His Masters Pleaders who having lost the case professionally prefer to fight it through media and political jingoism. In 2001, Pakistan was coerced into a war by America. For ten years there was no policy review to correct the course. Now a comprehensive policy review is underway to recast Pak-US relations; the engagement between the two states is likely to be reworked on equitable terms. This does not suit America. Hence, an environment is being engineered whereby the entire government system appears in doldrums. On the global dimension, underlying economic meltdown of America is translating into an enormous scaling down of American military capability. Expensive weapon acquisitions like F-35 have been deferred, option of changing the composition of force from all standing to a combination of standing and reserve components is being considered. Affordability appears to be main driver behind the Presidential review; Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defence; issued on January 3.

Americas self assumed role of world policeman will be trimmed. Americans wont be patrolling everywhere, all the time. Some of American troops guarding Europe since World War II may return home. The Army and Marine Corps will shrink; and number of weapon systems would reduce. Despite such a loss in capability, it would only be a tiny step in the direction of $487 billion in military cuts, agreed to in the bipartisan debt deal. On Afghan front, opening of the Taliban office in Qatar is indicative of the haste in the Run Away saga that is likely to unfold soon; 2012 would indeed be the Year of Taliban. Known as tough negotiators, they would accrue all they want without ceding an iota. The year started with news that a senior Taliban official, Mullah Mohammed Fazl might be released from Guantanamo or transferred to Qatar as a confidence-building measure. Mullah Omar has been taken off the terrorist list; soon Haqqanis would also stand dry cleaned. North Koreas nuclear follies have long been forgotten. Iran is under focus but in all probability, things will not move beyond rhetoric. Iran is very well placed to go nuclear; if it decides so. So far Iran is an ardent follower of NPT. Squeeze on Obama resembles the final months of President Carter. NATO summit in Chicago is round the corner. Economic crisis in Europe is diminishing the European will to continue supporting expensive American war in Afghanistan. Chicago summit may meet the fate of Istanbul Conference, held in November 2011, and Bonn II Conference, convened a month later. After rupturing NATO/ISAF supply line, Pakistan alongside Iran are now on the fence, both know it well that there is no sustainable solution to Afghan conflict without their consent. American emphasis on rising power of China in a negative sense, and shift of American military focus to Asia-Pacific region and reliance on India as provider of security in India ocean, as articulated by Leon Panetta in his recent strategic guidance for department of defence, must have not gone down well with the Chinese leadership. Beijing has strong interest in stabilising Afghanistan. Opportunity of a helping role by China has been watered down by portraying China as a rival country. Russia is no longer willing to allow a free ride to America in Central Asia. Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar has recently narrated in his article Enter the year of the Taliban carried by Asia Time Online the outcome of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit held in Moscow last month; Kazakhstan President Nurusultan Nazarbayev announced with a straight face: Now, in order to deploy a military base of a third country on the territory of a CSTO member state, it will be necessary to obtain official approval of all CSTO member states Hillary had recently visited Uzbekistan and offered it military assistance to undercut the CSTO unity. However, Uzbek President attended the summit and supported the alliances decision. This Russian led alliance includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The new agreement gives Russia an opportunity to prevent the deployment of the US airbases in Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, and puts an effective halt to east wards expansion of American Missile Defence Systems. The US has a choice to eat the dust and seek Pakistans favour for reopening of the transit routes, or use unsustainable Northern Distribution Network. CSTO stance would continue to haunt the fate of the US base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, which is a strategic hub for air transportation. President Atambayev has repeatedly called for the closure of the Manas airbase on expiry of current agreement in 2014. Like every receding empire, America is frustrated; it is not yet in a mood to reconcile with the reality. Pakistan is certainly not short on leverage viz a viz America. Time is on Pakistans side. At this point and time, Pakistan needs a cool headed leadership with a strong nerve.
khalid3408@gmail.com

Pak-US Relations

The Nation, January 23, 2012 How Pakistan helps US drone campaign
By: Reuters The death of a senior al Qaeda leader in a US drone strike in Pakistans tribal badlands, the first strike in almost two months, signalled that the US-Pakistan intelligence partnership is still in operation despite political tensions. The Jan 10 strike - and its follow-up two days later - were joint operations, a Pakistani security source based in the tribal areas told Reuters. They made use of Pakistani spotters on the ground and demonstrated a level of coordination that both sides have sought to downplay since tensions erupted in January 2011 with the killing of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor in Lahore. Our working relationship is a bit different from our political relationship, the source told Reuters, requesting anonymity. Its more productive. US and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the Jan 10 attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad. They said he was targeted in a strike by a US-operated drone directed at what news reports said was a compound near the town of Miranshah in the border province of North Waziristan. That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol the tribal areas. The sources described Awan, also known by the nom-de-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of al Qaeda, which US officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation. The Pakistani source, who helped target Awan, could not confirm that he was killed, but the US official said he was. European officials said Awan had spent time in London and had ties to British extremists before returning to Pakistan. The source, who says he runs a network of spotters primarily in North and South Waziristan, described for the first time how US-Pakistani cooperation on strikes works, with his Pakistani agents keeping close tabs on suspected militants and building a pattern of their movements and associations. We run a network of human intelligence sources, he said. Separately, we monitor their cell and satellite phones. Thirdly, we run joint monitoring operations with our US and UK friends, he added, noting that cooperation with British intelligence was also extensive. Pakistani and US intelligence officers, using their own sources, hash out a joint priority of targets lists in regular face-to-face meetings, he said. Al Qaeda is our top priority, he said. He declined to say where the meetings take place. Once a target is identified and marked, his network coordinates with drone operators on the US side. He said the United States bases drones outside Kabul, likely at Bagram airfield about 25 miles north of the capital. From spotting to firing a missile hardly takes about two to three hours, he said. It was impossible to verify the sources claims and American experts, who decline to discuss the drone programme, say the Pakistanis cooperation has been less helpful in the past. US officials have complained that when information on drone strikes was shared with the Pakistanis beforehand, the targets were often tipped off, allowing them to

escape. Drone strikes have been a sore point with the public and Pakistani politicians, who describe them as violations of sovereignty that produce unacceptable civilian casualties. The last strike before January had been on Nov 16, 10 days before 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in what NATO says was an inadvertent cross-border attack on a Pakistani border post. That incident sent US-Pakistan relations into the deepest crisis since Islamabad joined the US-led war on militancy following the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said ties were on hold while Pakistan completes a review of the alliance. The United States sees Pakistan as critical to its efforts to wind down the war in Afghanistan, where US-led NATO forces are battling a Taliban insurgency. Some US and Pakistani officials say that both sides are trying to improve ties. As part of this process, a US official said, it is possible that some permanent changes could be made in the drone programme which could slow the pace of attacks. The security source said very few innocent people had been killed in the strikes. When a militant takes shelter in a house or compound which is then bombed, the ones who are harbouring him, they are equally responsible, he said. When they stay at a host house, they (the hosts) obviously have sympathies for these guys. He denied that Pakistan helped target civilians. If ... others say innocents have been targeted, its not true, he said. We never target civilians or innocents. The New America Foundation policy institute says that of 283 reported strikes from 2004 to Nov 16, 2011, between 1,717 and 2,680 people were killed. Between 293 and 471 were thought to be civilians - approximately 17 percent of those killed. The Brookings Institution, however, says civilian deaths are high, reporting in 2009 that for every militant killed, 10 or more civilians also died. Interior Minister Rehman Malik also said in April 2011 that the majority of victims are innocent civilians.

Evolving Situation in Afghanistan

The Nation, January 23, 2012 Negotiating Peace in Afghanistan without Repeating Vietnam
By James Dobbins In 1968 I began my life in diplomacy as an aide to Averell Harriman and Cyrus Vance, who were heading peace talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris. Thirty-four years later, I ended that career as the George W. Bush administrations first special envoy to Afghanistan, appointed weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Like Richard Holbrooke, my contemporary on the Paris delegation and my eventual successor as envoy to Afghanistan, I have been struck by parallels between the two wars and the two peace processes, the first of which ultimately ended in failure and the second of which is only now taking shape, the fruit of much effort by Holbrooke and his successor, Ambassador Marc Grossman. A recent Post editorial [Talking with the Taliban, Jan. 5] was right to note that the Talibans preference for negotiating with Washington rather than with Kabul is similar to North Vietnams preference for negotiating with the United States rather than with the government in Saigon. And we all know how that process ended, with the total withdrawal of U.S. forces, a North Vietnamese invasion, the collapse of South Vietnamese resistance and the disappearance of South Vietnam. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have since been accused of seeking from those negotiations no more than a decent interval between the U.S. withdrawal and the South Vietnamese collapse. The Post expressed anxiety that the Obama administration may have a similar objective. This is a reasonable enough fear, but President Obama has done nothing to substantiate it. The 1973 agreements that formally ended the Vietnam War were reneged upon by both North Vietnam and the United States, the former by invading the South and the latter by cutting off the military and economic assistance it had promised the South to induce Saigon to sign those agreements. Those promises even included a U.S. commitment to resume bombing North Vietnam should it not fulfill its end of the bargain. In contrast, Obama administration officials have made clear that U.S. forces will remain in Afghanistan indefinitely after Afghan forces assume responsibility for the conduct of major combat operations in 2014. President Hamid Karzai has said the same. American and Afghan officials are currently negotiating a formal agreement to this effect. Some may see negotiation as an easy or quick way out of Afghanistan, but the Vietnamese analogy suggests otherwise. The Paris talks lasted more than five years, whereas the Afghan process has not yet begun. Throughout those years the U.S. engagement in Vietnam was larger and more costly than the current U.S. engagement in Afghanistan in both blood and treasure. Throughout those years U.S. opposition to the war was much more intense than anything we have seen in the past decade. Yet the existence of negotiations served throughout most of that period as a rationale for continuing the fight, not for ending it. One cannot prove a counterfactual assumption, but I expect most historians would agree that, in the absence of the Paris peace talks, the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam would have come even earlier. In one respect the two peace processes are quite distinct. The Vietnam negotiations arose from a U.S. initiative, in response to domestic political imperatives and over

repeated objections from the Saigon regime. By contrast, the incipient Afghan process has its roots in that society, not ours. Repeated polling shows overwhelming support throughout Afghan society for peace talks with the Taliban. Responding to this, Karzai has championed the concept for years, only gradually overcoming skepticism from the Bush and Obama administrations. Its certainly true that Karzai would prefer to be at the center of the process than at the periphery, where the Taliban is trying to keep him. Its also true that if Washington does not soon overcome the Talibans resistance to direct Afghan government participation, the talks will not go far. But U.S. officials surely recognize this as their proximate objective in these talks and will condition progress on substantive issues on so expanding the participation. The U.S. failure in 1975 to enforce adherence to the peace accord North Vietnam signed two years earlier derived largely from the domestic political effects of Watergate, President Nixons resignation and the consequent, if short-lived, collapse of presidential authority. A similar failure might follow the conclusion of a peace agreement in Afghanistan. But if it does, failure will occur with or without such an accord. In 2010 I joined several former officials in testing the waters for an Afghan peace process by talking to all the potential participants, including Taliban intermediaries. We concluded that the time was right and so advised the U.S. administration. Certainly the United States will need to be prepared to enforce any agreements it reaches in such talks. Whether Washington proves willing to do so will depend not on the presence or absence of a peace agreement but, rather, on the resilience of U.S. support for a commitment that will certainly require no more of it in the presence of an accord than in its absence.

Evolving Situation in Afghanistan

The Frontier Post, January 23, 2012 Self-inflicted US dilemma

Editorial The American movers and shakers must be sorely ruing in their hearts for being so disrespectable to Afghanistans objective ground realities since their invasion and occupation of it that has now become such an Achilles heel for a respectable endgame for them there. It was the inexorable all-inclusiveness element that should have compulsorily inspired and guided all their effort to administer and rebuild it. Yet for the sheer ousted Talibans predominantly Pakhtun ethnicity, they arrogantly kept shunted out the whole of the community as an outcast from the power dispensation, which they put under the Afghan minorities, principally Tajiks decisive controls, with President Hamid Karzai sitting at the head virtually as a lame-duck and mere showpiece. For this monumental stupidity, they are now in a pickle, with their peace foray with the Taliban turning into an intractable dilemma for them. The venture has run into problems which probably they had not even imagined of. Their erstwhile-pampered Afghan minorities, which were pitted in a fierce civil strife with the Taliban before their ouster by the US-led foreign armies, are furious with them for keeping them out of the parleys, even threatening to take to the gun again if Taliban are brought into the power structure. They have taken exception to opening of Talibans political office in Qatar, insisting any peace talks venue has to be within Afghanistan, not outside. For his part, Karzai too is very sour for being kept out of the loop, whereas he had expected to be at the forays centre. In so many words has he spoken out over these days that he should have been leading the peace negotiations. Probably in guile or to demonstrate his relevance to peace ventures, he has gone public about his confabulations with a delegation of Afghan resistance leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyars Hezb-e-Islami. This rendezvous may in fact be a meeting of two disgruntled minds, as Hekmatyar too is feeling unhappy for not being invited by the Americans for peace talks. He has unambiguously stated in his recent press meets that he would have responded positively to the invitation. The Taliban too seem a divided camp over the peace foray, with some hardliners believably opposed to it. It appears while Mullah Omar has consented to talks, not all the resistance factions are on board. Although the Haqqani group had once stated it owed allegiance to Omar and would abide by his any decision for peace talks with the Americans, they are mum ever since the news of peace negotiations has surfaced. But then the Taliban is no homogenous movement with a binding chain of command and control. It is a heterogeneous resistance, with local commanders wholly autonomous in decisions and actions, even though they all variously profess loyalty to Omar. The Americans with their peace wand have thus veritably walked into a minefield of uncertainties and unpredictabilities, all of which they could have avoided had they kept in mind the Afghan politys sensitive and deeply-held ethnic and tribalistic faultlines. It really is so stupefying that they could be so ignorant of these slippery slopes when they were no stranger at all to Afghanistan or its people. All through the cold war, they were pitted in a hot superpowers rivalry to pull it out from the Soviet camps orbit. And many an analyst attributes the ouster in a bloody coup of slain Afghan president Sardar Mohammed Daoud by the Soviet-trained- and armed

Afghan air force and elements of ground forces in 1978 to his moves to distance his country from the Soviet influence and get nearer to the American camp. In any case, the intimate US involvement, particularly CIAs, with the Afghan resistance against Afghanistans Soviet invaders could have left the Americans in no ignorance at all about how these fault-lines come into act decisively. From their own experiences, they could understand how hard it was to reconcile the inter- and -intra ethnic and tribal antipathies even in dire circumstances. Not only was it quite a job for their handlers to persuade over 70 Peshawar-based Afghan political formations to at least group up manageably after their refusal to become an integrated one whole for purposes of coordinating their resistance war effort in their homeland. Nor must have they forgotten how obstinately were their field commanders autonomousminded, not amenable even to their respective political groups orders, except being respectful to the extent of getting money and arms supplied by the CIA and its Arab allies for fighting the proxy war. It must also be still fresh in their minds how various groups would bicker for an acceptable share of money and arms and how bitterly would their field commanders grumble over supply of more funds or weapons to their adversarial tribes. Nor must have it erased from their memories how a tribe would refuse flatly to participate in an attack on the Soviet invaders simply for the assaults command having been given to their rival tribe. It really is astonishing with so much of intimate knowledge about the Afghan polity the American occupiers would have tripped so abysmally on its ethnic and tribal fault-lines. And they will slipping to a shameful fall if they go ahead with their weird plan, being pressed by some influential US quarters, to fragment Afghanistan into a Tajik-ruled north, Hazara-controlled west and a Pakhtun-held south and east, with an American expeditionary force to oversea this queer configuration functioning. It is just not viable. The country will slip down into a multi-dimensional conflagration. If the Americans do depart with ignominy, they thus themselves will have to blame, verily.

Pakistan-Political Issue

Daily Times, January 23, 2012 Pakistan in Crisis

S P Seth The Supreme Court and the military brass are angry with the government for contempt of court and the secret memo respectively If media coverage were to rate a country, Pakistan would be one of the top contenders. But it is the kind of coverage that the country could do without, if only its ruling establishment were not so bent upon dishing it out. As an example of such bad publicity, here is the opening paragraph of a Sydney Morning Herald editorial. It reads: As if the lethal opera that is Pakistan a nuclear-armed, basket-case economy with corrupt politicians and an Islamist insurgency is not bad enough, the countrys military is displaying renewed interest in running the show (Clearing the air in Pakistan, January 18, 2012). This, in a way, sums up much of the commentary in the international media, especially in the west. The situation is further confounded with the countrys highest judiciary determined to pursue an old corruption scandal that has dogged President Asif Ali Zardari when he was a minister in his late wife, Benazir Bhuttos cabinet. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani is charged with contempt of court for defying the Supreme Courts instruction to investigate corruption charges against Zardari. He is alleged to have stashed some $ 60 million in his Swiss bank account(s). Gilanis appearance before the court has taken some heat out of the issue, but it has still to make its findings with the case adjourned till February 1. At the same time, a Judicial Commission is investigating the matter of the Memogate, as it is called, where allegedly someone high-up in the government might even be Zardari or someone under his direction wrote an anonymous memo seeking US help/intervention to prevent a possible military coup after the US operation that killed Osama bin Laden; with the government undertaking to ensure that the army will duly cooperate in the fight against terrorists. Of course, Pakistani readers would be familiar (if not over-familiar) with all that is going on. But this raises some pertinent questions. First and foremost is the judiciarys role. Pakistans highest court gained tremendous public support when it stood up against former President Pervez Musharrafs bully tactics to cow it down by dismissing the countrys chief justice. The popular protests that followed virtually forced General (retd) Musharraf into exile. Since then Pakistans Supreme Court takes its role as the guardian of law and order and the countrys moral conscience very seriously no matter how exalted a persons position might be. Hence its orders for Prime Minister Gilani to appear before it to answer the charge of contempt. When he appeared before the court, Gilani reiterated that President Zardari has immunity under the law inside Pakistan, and outside. But he maintained: I have no intention to defame or ridicule the court... The court seems to relish its symbolic victory. According to Justice Saeed Khosa, This is a great day for the rule of law, when the sitting chief executive has appeared before this court. Even as the tussle between the Supreme Court and the government is still unresolved, the issue of Memogate, where the army chief is fuming about treason against the military, is hanging like a live grenade. And in both cases, the judiciary

will be the arbiter. The Supreme Court and the military brass are angry with the government for contempt of court and the secret memo respectively. In an odd sort of way, both the judiciary and the military seem to be working towards bringing down the government. However, with the judiciary committed to the rule of law that enshrines civilian supremacy over the armed forces, the Supreme Court might be trusted to maintain that fundamental principle of democratic functioning. It is over the top for the generals to brand the said memo as treasonous, as if the military is an autonomous state if not a supra state. As Akram Zaki, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, has reportedly said: All politicians of high ambition have been leaning on the US in one way or another for a long time. In his view, the memo issue has been blown up beyond all proportion. There are huge egos at clash, where personalities have become the issues over substance. The Zardari administration appears highly unpopular, and for good reasons, for failing to deliver the public good. Every day the Pakistani media is replete with stories of peoples suffering on a whole range issues, like rising unemployment, inflation, failing infrastructure and so on. You name it and it is there. But according to the basic principle of democratic functioning, it is the court of the people that should decide the fate of any government during the elections. If that is adhered to, as it should be, it will be the first time since General Zias coup that a civilian Pakistani government would have completed its term of office a hopeful augury for democratic building in Pakistan. Even as one examines the present imbroglio in Pakistan, it seems surreal that the Pakistani establishment (the government, the judiciary and the military) is expending so much energy and time into marking their respective boundaries and domains when the country is faced with much more urgent issues that threaten the very state they are part of. The most dangerous of them is the threat from militancy/terrorism. An estimated 3,000 people reportedly died from militant violence last year. Even more than the number of people killed, and that is substantial, such violence is creating an image of Pakistan as a failing state. If this continues, the image might become a reality. Against this backdrop, the clash of bruised egos of the personalities involved in this tug of war is a luxury Pakistan can ill afford.
The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Indian-Army

Pakistan Observer, January 23, 2012 India alerts army on BD scene

News Report Singh readies all assistance KolkataKolkata based Indian Anandabazar Patrika said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decided to provide all sorts of assistance to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, if any attempt is made to remove her from power in an undemocratic way. This message has already been conveyed to the Bangladesh government, the report said. The Bangla Daily in its front page has published this by line story by Agni Roy from New Delhi on Saturday. Indian Intelligence has been asked to monitor the whole incident inBangladesh so that its heat cannot enter India. Indian army bases near Bangladesh border has been asked to remain alert. Regular contact with Bangladesh embassy in New Delhi is on. The report said India thinks that main target of the recent failed military coup against Shiekh Hasina was actually New Delhi. The aim of this rebellion was to destroy the environment of friendship that was built up between Bangladesh and India in recent years after Hasina government came to power. Quoting intelligence report the Bangla daily said, During the rule of BNP and Jamaat some hard line fundamentalist officers were recruited in Bangladesh army for achieving specific goals.Efforts are on to wash brains of the mid-level army officers. Pro-Indian officers should be removed from army so that Bangladesh does not become another Sikim such publicity is being made there, the report added. Referring to BDR massacre at Peelkhana in 2009, Anandabazar Patrika said India is worried about the situation as general election in Bangladesh is still far away. Many Indo-Bangla projects are now under process. New Delhi provided US $ 100 cr loan to Dhaka in this regard. Efforts are on to carry Indian goods throughBangladesh territory. Under these circumstances, New Delhi has taken a clear and hard line so that the authority of Sheikh Hasinas Government in no way becomes weak in Dhaka. According to Anandabazar Patrika intelligence of both the countries reported that Hizbut Tahrir, Jamaat-e-Islami and BNP led by Begum Khaleda Zia have been working jointly to achieve same goals. Tareq Rahmans involvement with this incident was also reported by theIndian daily. Quoting intelligence sources the Kolkata newspaper said Conspiracy to oust Sheikh Hasina from power was active for last seven to eight months. An attempt was made in last November to oust her. Some mid levelofficers were behind the attempt. But it was unearthed in the beginning as intelligence agencies strengthened watching Quoting a senior Indian minister,the daily said Bangladesh was under military rule during half of its period after independence. So, threat of army coup remains there. NNI

Pakistan-Corruption

The Express Tribune, January 23, 2012 The Perception of Corruption in Pakistan
By Dr Humayun Dar Mismanagement is a bigger factor in the current crises being faced by the country. There is no doubt that Pakistan is facing a lot of economic problems, many of which are very grave in magnitude and depth, but the perception of corruption in the country is undoubtedly exaggerated. Assuming that the general public will be impressed by slogans of eradicating corruption from the country, some political parties have started giving timelines for getting rid of top-level corruption within 90 days of coming into power (for example, Imran Khan while addressing the Karachi rally). Transparency International, which helped in creating this widespread perception of rampant corruption in Pakistan, has a methodology for ranking countries in terms of incidence of corruption. It is based on a survey of perceptions, which sums up subjective views of a large number of respondents drawn from different segments of society. While the law of large numbers may in general regress towards truth, it does not help to study the phenomenon of corruption based on the perception of individuals. In a country where irrationality abounds, lack of information and an asymmetrical access to it gives rise to a lot of speculation on the part of the general public. In periods of lower economic growth, less or ill-informed economic agents tend to attribute the so-called unexplained gap between potential and actual gross domestic product (GDP) to corruption. It is evident from the global Corruption Perception Index (CPI) annually published by Transparency International that the incidence of corruption as perceived by people is negatively related with the level of GDP of the countries, ie, low income countries tend to have more corruption as compared to the ones falling in the higher income categories. It must be noted here that the present article does not attempt to probe into the direction of causality between corruption and GDP or its growth. It must be stressed that the CPI is not based on a quantitative measure of corruption. In fact, corruption is such a concept that it is almost impossible to quantify it in an objective way. It is possible to come up with a quantitative estimate of corruption, based on some econometric models. However, Transparency International does not attempt to do so. The present government has failed miserably to manage the economy. While GDP growth has been significantly lower during the last three years (average annual growth of 2.9%) as compared to the period of the previous government led by General (retd) Pervez Musharraf (average annual growth of 5.2%), there is no reason to assume that the level of corruption has gone up. In many cases, the size of corruption is directly proportional to the level of economic activity. With a slowdown in GDP growth, one would expect a decline in opportunities that may fall under the purview of corruption. Even, if we accept Transparency Internationals rankings the corruption score is actually slightly better than the last few years of the previous government.

If supply of power and its rationing has increased in size and frequency, it is not because of an increase in corruption. If CNG is in short supply, it is again not due to an increase in corruption. If Pakistan Railway and PIA are not performing, an increased level of corruption cannot explain these phenomena. On the contrary, all these are results of the mismanagement of the economy. So, those highlighting an increase in corruption under the present government must look for other credible objections to build a case against it. They would not have to work hard to point out other areas of failure of the present government and its policies on almost all fronts.
(The writer is an economist (PhD from Cambridge University).

Pakistan-Economy

The Express Tribune, January 23, 2012 Will Pakistan be a Global Leader, or Laggard?
By Dr Haider Shah Countries like Vietnam are projected to overtake current leaders like Canada and Italy. Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world and is ranked 27th on the IMF list in terms of economic power measured by GDP. It is also a member of the elite club of known nuclear powers. It is, therefore, not an insignificant country by any set of measures. In terms of geostrategic importance it has a significant role in the peaceful resolution of the situation in war torn Afghanistan and in the war against terrorism. As we have now entered 2012 it becomes a matter of keen interest to find out how international analysts and forecasters view the position of Pakistan in the world after a few decades. Many countries, big and small, have turned their fate around in a span of 10 to 20 years. Is Pakistan one of those or is it drifting in the opposite direction? In order to have a dispassionate answer to this question I have chosen two reports independently produced by the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) which forecast how the world will be in 2025 and 2050. There are four important points which emerge after the two reports are examined. One, there will be a clear shift of economic power from the existing major economic powers known as the G7 to the emerging economies. Second, China and India will be the most dominant players by 2050. Third, it is not impossible to make a break with the past as some relatively new economies seem to be rising up the ladder with carefully planned developmental policies. Fourth, and the most important from our perspective is that Pakistan does not appear in the list and more worryingly when it gets mentioned the cause is not a very positive one. Both reports agree that the post Second World War international system will be almost unrecognisable by 2025. The PWC report makes projections on the basis of GDP size in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms and identifies the developing nations that would become major players in the next few decades. The four rising stars Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) are joined by Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey and are given the collective name of the E7. South Africa, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Vietnam are other potential frontrunners. The most amazing change is that China and India are expected to rise to the top two positions above the US by 2050. The next notable change in the rankings is Brazil rising above Japan and Indonesia potentially rising significantly in the rankings to eighth place by 2050. However the inclusion of Vietnam proves that it is not an exclusive club of traditional giants. Compared to Pakistans 27th position Vietnam is placed at 40th number as per IMF list of GDP by PPP ranking of 2010. The PWC report predicts that with 8.8% average annual GDP growth Vietnam will be the best performer and by 2050 it will overtake Italy and Canada to bag 14th position on the rankings list. The NIC report notes that economic globalisation and the dispersion of technologies will place enormous new strains on governments. In the new world order while there will be winners from the emerging economies some will be losers as well. Weak

governments, lagging economies, religious extremism, and youth bulges are identified as four emerging threats which are feared to create a perfect storm for internal conflict in certain regions. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Yemen are cited as examples of those countries that are likely to struggle with internal faultlines. One chapter of the NIC report deals with countries that are exposed to state failure as they have common features of high current account deficits and import dependence, low GDP per capita and heavy international indebtedness. Examples given are Central African Republic, Nepal, Laos East Africa and the Horn. Unfortunately Pakistan is also cited as an example of pivotal yet problem-beset countries which are at risk of state failure. In the final assessment the future of Pakistan is considered a wildcard by the authors of the NIC report. Those of us who sincerely wish Pakistan become a major economic power and play a role which is in agreement with its true potential are rightly disheartened to see such an assessment of Pakistans future. It appears that by pursuing a nonsensical jingoistic security paradigm Pakistan has missed the long term economic growth bus.
The writer teaches public policy in Hertfordshire University, UK.

War on Terror

The Express Tribune, January 23, 2012 Fighting Terror

By Imtiaz Gul The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies, and a fellow of the International House of Japan/Japan Foundation, Tokyo A high-level EU delegation recently met with a number of Pakistani officials as part of the EUs counterterrorism strategy. The EU delegates underlined the need for improving human rights conditions, judicial reforms, law-enforcement and the need for a more legal-justice approach, rather than a criminal-justice approach. The initiation of a formal counterterrorism dialogue between Pakistan and the EU augurs well and underscores the concerns that the 27-member European bloc has on Pakistan. Until recently, and particularly in the aftermath of 9/11, most EU states usually tagged along with what the US would do with regards to Pakistan, especially on matters relating to counterterrorism. Essentially, Washington led and determined the direction of strategies in these areas. Pakistan remains sceptical of whether the EU can separate itself from Americas predominance as far as counterterrorism is concerned. Islamabad wants the EU to look at issues such as the Afghan refugee problem and narcotics as part of a counter-terror strategy for the simple reasons a) that militants and terrorists in Afghanistan feed off the dividends that accrue from the drugs trade, and b) refugee camps are a major source of terrorism in Pakistan. Islamabad also believes that until Afghanistans economy transitions from one of being driven by war to a normallyfunctioning economy, no counter-terror strategy will succeed. At the same time, EU member states seem to have finally woken up to the realisation that they need to chart their own way for dealing with a country as pivotal as Pakistan. Two reasons for this rethink in European capitals are the hopeless circumstances in Afghanistan and terrorist violence in Pakistan. One would hope that the EU strategy will look at the malaise and its roots, rather than treating just the symptoms. As for Pakistan, the police and lower judiciary require comprehensive reform. The police is the primary tool for fighting terrorists in urban centres and the courts are where they are to be prosecuted. This basically means that without adequate funding and training, a supportive legal framework and certainty of enforcement of punishments, no counter-terror or counter-insurgency strategy will work. Finding a remedy to combat increasing radicalisation or putting up solid defences against terrorist forces cannot happen in isolation, especially when much of todays Pakistan is the direct product of the anti-Soviet jihad. Recently, I met a very senior civil servant in Peshawar who said that it would be difficult for us to fix our problems unless we went back to our religion. A brilliant career officer, the officers words were surprising because while there is absolutely nothing wrong in being religious, surely the solution to the countrys problems is not as simple as that. It showed that even senior officers of the state thought that fighting terror and militancy was as easy as practicing ones faith. While the latter is a very admirable route for an individual, it is not a substitute for a state putting in place effective policies against terrorists.

World War

The New York Times, January 21, 2012 Why World War I Resonates
By William Boyd IN France I live near a little village called Sadillac. Its no more than a cluster of houses, an old chateau, a church and a graveyard surrounded by a few farms and vineyards. The village probably hasnt changed much since the French Revolution; its population hovers around 100. By the graveyard is a simple obelisk with the names of the 30 or so young men from Sadillac who died in the First World War, 1914-18. Its almost impossible to imagine the effect on this tiny community of these fatalities over four years. Every year on Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. the hour and the day of the 1918 armistice villagers gather to participate in a short memorial service around the obelisk. In 2014 it will be a hundred years since the First World War began, and yet its presence in novels, films and television has never been greater in Downton Abbey, on television, in Steven Spielbergs movie War Horse, in a mini-series of Sebastian Faulkss Birdsong and, coming soon, in Tom Stoppards adaptation of Ford Madox Fords Parades End. The last old soldier or sailor has died and almost all of the witnesses have gone, but the war exerts a tenacious hold on the imagination. For us British, the memories, images and stories of 1914-18 seem to have a persistence and a power that eclipse those of the Second World War. Im symptomatic of this urge to revisit the conflict: my new novel will be my third with the First World War at its center. When I wrote and directed a movie, The Trench, about a group of young soldiers in 1916 waiting for the Battle of the Somme to begin, I was obsessed with getting every detail right: every cap-badge worn and cigarette smoked, every meal eaten. It was as if I wanted the absolute verisimilitude to provide an authentic, vicarious experience so the viewer would be in a position to say, So this is what it was like, this is what they went through, how they lived and died. I think this is the key behind the enduring obsession with that war. To our modern sensibilities it defies credulity that for more than four years European armies faced one another in a 500-mile line of trenches, stretching from the Belgian coast to the border of Switzerland. The war was also fought in other arenas in Galicia, Italy, the Bosporus, Mesopotamia, East and West Africa, in naval battles on many oceans but it is the Western Front and trench warfare that define the war in memory. It was a deadly war of attrition in which millions of soldiers on both sides slogged through the mud of no mans land to meet their deaths in withering blasts of machine-gun fire and artillery. And at the end of four years and with about nine million troops dead, the two opposing forces were essentially where they were when they started. IN France and Germany, the traumas of the Second World War have to a degree erased memories of the First. But in Britain, where almost a million servicemen died, its still images of the trenches of the Western Front that are shown and that resonate on Remembrance Day. One of the reasons for this is, paradoxically, the resonance of the poetry. The poets of the First World War Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Isaac Rosenberg are taught in almost all British schools. I can remember Wilfred Owens terrifying poem Dulce et Decorum Est, about a mustard-gas attack, being read aloud to us in the classroom when I was 10

or 11. One boy actually ran outside, he was so overcome and upset. The war poems shaped your earliest perceptions of the First World War and were swiftly buttressed by the familiar images of the trenches and the histories of the futile, costly battles. Intensifying the powerful art was the visual documentation, because it was the first war to be extensively filmed. And finally, there were family stories. One hundred years is not so very long ago. My great-uncle Alexander Boyd was wounded and decorated at the Battle of the Somme. His brother, my grandfather William Boyd, was wounded a year later at Passchendaele, as the Third Battle of Ypres was known. Family legend and anecdote fueled my interest in the war. But there is another deeper, perhaps more profound reason the war continues to preoccupy us. It was a conflict between 19th-century armies equipped with 20thcentury weapons hence the unprecedented carnage. To put it in an American context: imagine an officer in the United States Army in his 50s, say on the Argonne front in 1918. As a young soldier he could conceivably have fought, 30 years earlier, in the last of the wars against the Plains Indians in the late 1880s. Yet now he stands surveying a different world. The tactics were 19th century advance on the enemy. But the enemy had weapons of mass destruction the battlefield was dominated by tanks, machine guns, howitzers, aircraft and poisonous gas. Some 117,000 American servicemen died in the 19 months of United States participation in World War I more than twice as many as in Vietnam, nearly 20 times as many as in Iraq and Afghanistan. No society today would accept such a horrendous casualty count. At the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, on July 1, 1916, the British Army suffered 60,000 dead and wounded in one day. It was arguably the worst butchers bill in military history, of army versus army. There is a very real sense in which the modern world our world was born between 1914 and 1918. Something changed in human sensibility. Soldiers wouldnt be willing to engage in such slaughter. Toward the end of the First World War, even, tolerance for past norms had begun to end. In 1917, much of the French Army mutinied and refused to attack. They would defend but not attack. The days of cannon fodder were over forever as a result of that war, which is a further reason artists try to re-imagine it constantly. To quote another poem, Philip Larkins MCMXIV: Never such innocence again. After the First World War, nothing in the world would ever be the same. William Boyd is the author of the forthcoming novel Waiting for Sunrise.

Misc Subjs

Pakistan Observer, January 23, 2012 Foreign aid & Pak models
Dr Samiullah Koreshi I hate the idea of living on foreign aid, assistance or help from the time it made its appearance in our national life. May be it was natural for us , coming from an Agra Delhi family the two cities where on every nook and corner there was the testimony of our glorious past, the Taj Mahal, Sikandra the Garden tomb of Akbar the Great ( 1556-1605), Fatehpur Sikri , Akbars miles and miles long deserted Royal City, its palaces and Agra Fort from where we went down and down to conquer India. And in Delhi the Red Fort, , the Grand Mosque dominating the view of Delhi, the Qutub Minar of 12th Century standing erect in its majesty, to name a just a few and hundreds of the historic monuments which reminded me-us , the common folks of what we had been and made us hate to be baggers. There was national pride in even the most humble person of the cities as if he owned them. I suppose a citizen of ancient Cairo, Rome, Athens or China would have had the same feeling of owning the history as his legacy. And then the memories of miles and miles of gallows that were erected from Red Fort to Turkman Darwaza on both sides of the road on which Delhi Muslims were executed in summary trials for Mutiny against the East India Company Rule in 1858, only Muslims were executed for Mutiny and no Hindu, despite the fact that the Mutiny was the first and the last Hindu-Muslim joint war of independence against the British ( 1857-58). These gory scenes were witnessed byMuslims from Delhi to Bengal, for Northern Muslims, Sikhs and Pathans remained loyal to the British. Ghalibs lettrs depict the execution of Muslims of Delhi graphically. They taught us to sacrifice for our national honour and freedom , as school children visiting these sites on week ends on our bicycles Also for our earliest education we went to Jamia Millia where head of our institution was Dr Zakir Hussain Khan, a Ph D from Gottenberg , the Khaddar clad icon of selfsacrifice, who taught us elementary English Grammar . Jamia was founded on Gandhian Non-Cooperation Movement . Later the same scholarly Dr Zakir hussain became a President of India. These icons of selfsacrifice gave an imprint of nationhood. Ingrained in us was a deep sense of national identity. We went to Aligarh University, the educational institution which gave its values to Pakistan Movement. We were ideologically motivated generation,, patriotic, self respecting aware of our national identity. I look back on our history, even quite recent history. Aligarh University spread over miles and miles . Nothing was built on any foreign aid. . The magnificent buildings, lecture halls , laboratories, Girls college, girls boarding house, vast play grounds, the great Students Union like Oxford UnionAll were constructed by donations of Muslim of the Subcontinent., from one end to the other, bearing on each room the name of the donor on a marble stone slab , some I remembers still. There were many Arbabs from Peshawar, Choudhries from Dhaka and Barsisal , Talpurs of Sindh, Nawabs and Talukadars of Oudh, of UP like Nawab Bhikampur, Bohri Head of Community Mulla Saifuddin Khoas memons of Bombay, seths of Madras. The budget was subsidized by Nizam of Hyderabad, Nawab of Rampur, the richest Shia prince on whose charity functioned most of Shia institutionsm Nawqab of Bhopal, . Not one foreigner, no Lord, no British tycoon. The Nizam financed educational institutions, paid stipends and scholarships, and Rampur Ruler did the sam for all Shia institutions, Imam bargahs, etc. Bhopal subsidized even publications of Iqbal the national poet, and so on . Junagarhs ruler did a lot for Muslim education in Sindh. Incidentally so did the Hindu seths and princes for the Hindus. No forign aid at all was used in Muslim or Hindu educational, social or philanthrophist organizations. All this changed after Independence. We became baggers.

I had wondred whether the urge for communitys welfare has died in Pakistan. There were signs that still there are some who are carrying on the duty silently. I learnt that the Karachi rich businessmen , mostly Memons, Khojas, Bohras and former Bombay industrialists settled in Pakistan contribute through their zakat about 80% or a little more all the mosques and madressahs, widows and orphanages, according to quite reliable sources. . No publicity. This zakat also goes to the under privileged and charitable organizations. Like Edhi Trust . I learnt chi of a citizens committee which serves food to those living on road side or as destitutes and runs schools for about hundred thousand children . I wanted to get more details but they did not want to indulge in publicity. Coming to home grounds, Islamabad-Pindi region. One gentleman whom I had known as a Principal in some College invited me to address thestudents at their annual function, at Khana Pull suburb of Islamabad. I thought this must be some shanty school. Who else would invite me. Normally they would invite some big mouth from a political party who will go there and give a talk on the great achievements of his Party. I was driven to the schools by Ali Reza who manages the Trust. When the car entered his College having about a thousand or morestudents it opened my eyes. It appeared as if I was visiting some institution in a western country, well organized. The College must be spread on over fifty acres or even more. Magnificent building recently constructed. What classes and arrangements . I never had such schools in my life. I entered the Assembly Hall and it was superb. It was all better than I had at Aligarh. Thestudents were well disciplined the lodging rooms for the resident schools were recently built with bed and pillows and quilt and every thing provided. I asked the Principal what is he expenditure He said a million Rupees per month. There werestudents from all over Pakistan including Sindh, Baluchistan, KPK, AJK, GB reasonably well represented. It has four Boys Schools and college, three Girls Schools, all services provided including health car, they run in all 17 scholls, medical Units, vocational units, Mosques and Islamic centers, etc. I might say I have never seen this high standard any where The crowning statement about their philanthropic work is that Their brochure on their organization states Ali Trust Pakistan the family trust does not accept any donation from outside My hat off to such committed philanthropist family and its head. Not a penny of foreign aid. There are two ladies charitable organizations who are doing creditable social uplift and women empowerment through their cottage industry. One is Bahbud founded by the lady Akhter Riazuddin , an intellectual , and her associates It has branches in Lahore, Multan and Karachi besides Islamabad and Pindi. However, it gets some financial aid from foreign countries, Japan, Us, Germany , Canadian, etc. The other small level womens organization is Shahida Azims Mashal ( Candle of Hope) and her associates , set up in what used to be a village of mud houses but now becoming a kind of small suburb. These organizations are run by an elected executive committee of highly motivated ladies,. It is remarkable how they have on their little resources build a complex for handicrafts, a girls High School,medical help center, a handicraft center, a dispensary for the women of the village even a maternity center. However, they receive some small foreign assistance.