Through the Looking Glass

IRP Survey

2011-11-01T16:49:00.001+05:00

Click on the link below to give your feedback:
Survey: Lessons From Pakistan’s Project Implementation Failures

Endgame Zardari; or goodbye to all of this

2009-03-13T23:47:00.000+05:00

Islamabad diary

Ayaz Amir

This is not a tragedy. It is a self-manufactured farce-- a crisis wholly self-invented --which cannot go on much longer without irreparably compromising the nation's already embattled wellbeing and security. In other words, if the paladins pretending to run Pakistan are given free rein for some more time, even for a few more days, there won't be much left to save. In that eventuality we might as well invite Baitullah Mehsud, virtual Emir of Waziristan, and Maulana Fazlullah, very much Emir of Swat, to descend from their mountain fastnesses and march on Islamabad.

More than any madressah, it was General Pervez Musharraf with his stupid actions who gave a fillip to Taliban power. President Asif Ali Zardari professes himself to be an enemy of the Taliban. By sowing discord in Pakistan, in reality he is proving to be their best friend. Our American godfathers, to whom we owe so many of our troubles, should savour the irony of it all. Asif Zardari was their Karzai in Islamabad, someone who was supposed to fight the Taliban better than the discredited Pervez Musharraf. But by proving an all-round disaster he is undermining everything.

His detractors, of whom there was never a shortage, had no illusions about him. But his supporters, internal and external, thought the leopard might just change his spots. They have been proved wrong. Zardari is not even Karzai. He is proving himself a pale copy of the original, which only underscores our luck. Karzai is the quintessential American puppet but compared to Zardari he begins to look like a national hero.

To call Zardari's recent actions reckless is to invest them with a measure of dignity. Hitler was reckless. So, in some of his late military adventures, was Napoleon. Zardari's ill-considered actions are plain silly, revealing a capacity wholly inadequate and disproportionate to the challenges Pakistan faces, or the job in which providence -- not the people of Pakistan -- placed him.

Anyone even dimly aware of what's what in Pakistan knows that the Dogar Supreme Court -- there's no other word to describe it -- walks in Zardari's shadow. Zardari has been Dogar's great protector and Dogar has done all in his power to return the favour. So it is scarcely to be wondered at if most people have traced to the presidency the footprints of the Supreme Court decision disqualifying the Sharifs from holding public office. This is what sparked the present crisis.

For any adventurer that one adventure should have been enough. Not Zardari who went on to compound his initial folly by imposing governor's rule in Punjab. This left no room for a cover-up. It revealed the twisted vision taking shape in his mind: the desire to seize control in Punjab.

In normal times this would have been considered part of the normal pattern of Pakistani politics. But with the northwest and Swat lost to the Taliban, terrorism spreading to other parts of Pakistan -- as evidenced by the audacious attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore -- tensions with India unresolved and the US breathing down our necks to get our act together and "do more", who so bold as to say these are normal times? At such a time to open another front in Punjab was not just suicidal but insane.

Pakistan is now reaping the fruits of this insanity. Al Qaeda's purposes are served if there is turmoil in Pakistan. But even if it had wanted to, Al Qaeda could not have scripted the present unrest sweeping Pakistan. This required the artistic flair of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of Pakistan, Asif Zardari.

Pakistan is no stranger to undeserved leadership. But this one takes the prize.

What about the army? Well, the army is part of Pakistan. If ordinary citizens are worried, why shouldn't it be worried? From domestic security to external challenges, it has its hands full, and it is more over-stretched now than in any of its wars with India. It would have to be out of its mind to even contemplate seizing power. But it is too much to expect it would remain unmoved at the spectacle of the Supreme Commander leading the country over the edge.

Indeed, not learning anything from our history, and unmindful of the consequences, everyone is hurtling towards the precipice. Those watching Pakistan are increasingly given to saying that this country is consumed by a death wish. On top of all this angst, we get Zardari. Our sins may be great but this is punishment for sins we have not committed.

If Pakistan is to be saved the pantomime being enacted in the presidency has to end. This shouldn't necessarily mean getting Zardari to quit the presidency. But it does mean clipping his powers so that instead of igniting new fires we can concentrate on tackling the fires already raging..

How is this possible? The outlines of various possibilities have already been sketched in the media. A consensus is emerging on the role of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. If he were to assert himself, this crisis can be resolved. The first thing to do is call an immediate session of the Punjab assembly to ascertain who commands a majority. This would bring down the political temperature at once and also create space for discussing how best to resolve the judicial crisis.

Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab, has done the impossible. He has made himself more unpopular than Zardari. He has also turned himself into an object of ridicule. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make ridiculous. It is in everyone's best interests, including perhaps his own, that he should go.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and his ambitious cousin, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, have also performed the impossible. At a time when they could have washed all their sins by adopting a principled stand and coming out openly against the politics of Zardari and his Punjab minion, Salmaan Taseer, they have been frantically hunting for political advantage: trying to secure for themselves either the chief ministership of Punjab or the chairmanship of the Senate. They will get neither but they have lived up to their reputation of being unprincipled adventurers.

There is a strong section of opinion within the PML-N -- but which doesn't include Nawaz Sharif -- favouring an alliance with the Chaudhrys.. Which only proves that no single party has a monopoly on short-sighted politics.

But to return to Gilani, he can only be effective if he has army backing and if the Americans also play along. Short of stepping into the arena itself -- a move sure to have disastrous consequences -- the most attractive option for the army is to work from the sidelines and stiffen Gilani's spine so that, in a remarkable turn of events, he becomes the instrument to cut Zardari down to size.

Zardari as unfettered president is a disaster Pakistan can no longer afford. But Zardari as figurehead president -- a continuing embarrassment for Pakistan, yes, but a embarrassment hidden safely behind the tall façade of the presidency -- is something most Pakistanis can live with.

Our American friends must be tearing their hair. Pakistan is key to their endeavour in Afghanistan and Pakistan is in a mess. Since mid-term elections are not an immediate option, this rules out any fresh players (PML-N?) at the centre. This leaves Gilani, or rather a combination of Gilani in front and army chief, Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani, in the shadows. And the PML-N holding the fort in Punjab. And some way to settle the question of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry's future. Not an ideal solution but the best under the circumstances.

Just three weeks ago Zardari had the initiative while the PML-N was on the defensive. Now Zardari is cornered while Nawaz Sharif is very much in the ascendant, his moral position and his party's standing stronger than ever. When Harold Wilson said that a week was a long time in politics how could he have known that to no country would his adage apply better than Pakistan?

In one sense, however, we have to be grateful to Zardari. Had he been cautious and prudent, eschewing adventurism, he could have been around for four more years. Imagine the calamity this would have been. By shooting himself in both feet, thus ensuring a premature end to his days of unrestricted glory, he has done Pakistan a favour. This is the only silver lining in the present crisis.

So perhaps Mao had a point when he said, "There is great disorder under the heavens and the situation is excellent."

The News: Friday, March 13, 2009

neo-Cricket in Pakistan?

2009-03-13T23:44:00.003+05:00

Courtesy: The News

Afterthoughts

2009-02-18T11:29:00.003+05:00

Courtesy: The News

For Peace in Afghanistan

2009-02-18T11:23:00.003+05:00

AFGHANISTAN is in flames and so is Pakistan. The attack on Marriott Hotel in Islamabad has brought the war on terror right before the eyes and ears of those who had previously found themselves safe amid the green surroundings of Islamabad.

The war is no longer being fought in remote, ungoverned Fata or scenic Swat but right at our doorstep. Pakistan is no longer a frontline state in the war on terror, it is now a state fighting this war.

Can there be peace in Pakistan without peace in Afghanistan? This is an intriguing question and the answer history gives us is in negative. The border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan are so closely linked culturally, linguistically and through blood ties that it is impossible to separate them. Adding to that is the problem of a weak central government in Afghanistan that has abetted the resurgence of regional fiefdoms. Afghan society continues to be traumatised with the ominous spectre of war and Pakistan remains precariously balanced between order and chaos, with the war spilling over its borders at an alarming pace.

The US and its Nato allies are bent upon vanquishing any opposition in Afghanistan. The Afghans have potent weapons in their armoury in the form of their recent experience of the anti-Soviet struggle, the emergence of a new generation of diehard military commanders, and, above all, centuries-old memories of opposition to foreign occupation. Adding to that are traditions of avenging deaths. As more are killed in their homes or on the battlefields, the family members of the dead feel a debt of honour to take up arms against those responsible for their deaths.

Increasingly, a parallel is being drawn between Afghanistan and Vietnam. Like the Viet Minh communist guerrillas, Afghans are seasoned fighters. Secondly, they have access to sanctuaries across the border in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Despite its efforts, the Pakistan Army has not been able to completely dislodge them. Finally, they, hand in glove with their associates in Pakistan, have now repeatedly attacked US and Nato supply lines in Pakistan forcing the allied forces to start looking for longer but safer land routes through Central Asia.

It so appears that more than anything else, the presence of foreign troops seen as an occupying force has destabilised Afghanistan. They are seen in the light of the Crusaders, and as there to fight the Afghans, not to help their country. No amount of money allocated for the reconstruction of Afghanistan can take away the stigma of being a society under foreign domination.

A different perspective comes from a BBC story last year about the presence of some Muslim troops in Afghanistan. The story mentioned the presence of troops from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey and Albania that were serving in Afghanistan at that time, alongside British and US soldiers — quietly and without fanfare. However, unlike their western counterparts, the response they received from the local Afghans was warm and receptive.

The Islamic connection bonded them well with the Afghans who trusted them. They ate and prayed with them. Despite the risk posed by roadside bombs and ambushes, the level of trust established with the villagers was quite high. People were not afraid that they would disrespect or burn their mosques. There is no doubt that in Afghanistan introducing oneself as a Muslim has its advantages. There is a level of camaraderie/solidarity that a non-Muslim will take a long time to earn.

Nevertheless, according to the BBC, the Muslim troops’ role was difficult. They were being seen as friends of the US and Nato and thus as supporters of the foreign occupation of Afghanistan — and indirectly of the highly unpopular government of President Hamid Karzai, enough to alienate any Afghan. Still, the level of acceptance accorded to Muslim troops was easier to translate into personal friendships.

BBC especially referred to the Emirati model meant primarily to meet the religious needs of Muslims and later to build schools and clinics. This approach is different from the humanitarian aid provided by many western NGOs who do not understand the sensitivities of the local Muslim population. The building of a mosque may symbolise the beginning of a long and lasting relationship in the ultra conservative Afghan society. When a common chord is struck, it may be possible to understand each other better.

This Emirati blueprint needs to be replicated throughout Afghanistan on a large scale to have some wider and lasting impact. For this, three things are imperative: first, the arrival of larger number of foreign Muslim troops that can stabilise Afghanistan; secondly, the withdrawal of US and Nato troops who symbolise foreign occupation; and thirdly, the establishment of a broad-based popular Afghan national government.

Some Islamic countries whose strategic stakes in Afghanistan are minimal could provide a reasonable number of soldiers. Their presence should serve as an anchor of peace in most of Afghanistan. The departure of western armies and perhaps the removal of their handpicked government would eliminate much of the pretext for war.The arrival of Muslim troops could be made possible under the common platform of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). Many Arab countries who are flush with petrodollars can contribute in funding this intervention. The biggest obstacle is that OIC has been dormant for quite some time. However, it still exists as a body politic and this move may be a catalyst for awakening it from its deep slumber. Whether that is possible is a big question mark. Recent events in Palestine show that this may remain a dream only.

Published in Dawn

Musharraf's Legacy

2008-08-26T12:56:00.003+06:00

Musharraf's LegacyGeneral (r) Musharraf has resigned. With this, a long autocratic rule has ended. His departure is being trumpeted as the triumph of democracy over dictatorship. It is no wonder that the ruling coalition is celebrating the exit of General Musharraf. However, surely, the powers-that-be also played their pivotal role and polled their casting vote in forcing the General's exit. Whatever the case, a long innings is over.

Those who rule their countries are generally concerned about their place in history. Whether these are elected rulers like M/s Bush and Blair or autocratic ones like General Musharraf, they all would like to know how history will judge them. The fact is that greater the concentration of power in one individual, greater is his responsibility for decisions taken during his tenure in power. In case of an autocratic ruler, it is quite likely that a future historian may judge him more harshly than a democratically elected leader for the unchallenging authority of the former to make a decision.

General Musharraf enjoyed one man rule for a long period of time. Even when an elected government was installed in the country, it enjoyed little independence and credibility. Every parliamentarian went head over heels to please the "boss". Everyone knew from where the fountain of power flowed.

Musharraf's claim to limelight was hardly enviable. He was the architect of Pakistan's Kargil misadventure. This not only isolated the country in the international arena but also depicted Pakistan in the image of an irresponsible country. At a time when Pakistan was also facing severe economic crisis due to its decision to go nuclear, Kargil further confirmed the misapprehensions of international community. Instead of getting any aid or soft loans, we further alienated those who could have helped us in this hour of need.

Kargil proved that General Musharraf was the commando hawk, every one feared, could dare where angels feared to tread. Subsequent wranglings with the elected government of Nawaz Sharif and blame game for the Kargil debacle only served to deepen the misgivings about the General.

Whether it was sheer folly on the part of Sharif brothers or a deliberate act of aggression, only a future historian will judge, but General Musharraf won the final round in the poker game of power and became the Chief Executive of the country. No time could have been more misapportune for an army general to topple an elected government with a "heavy mandate". The country's economy was in ruins and it was on the brink of default. Search for foreign exchange was as desperate as for the Holy Grail.

Not much was expected from a hawkish commando general who knew nothing about economic management. But the beginnings were good, not on the economic front but in introducing good governance and promising accountability. However, the one man rule, despite all the trappings of power and flashy display of authority, is hollow from inside and needs legitimacy and popular support.

The result was that all the good initiatives in the early days soon got lost on the shadowy trail of expediency when the Chief Executive chose his team of political yes-men. The basis for the selection of Kings Party was not honesty and fair play but who can switch loyalties and cry himself hoarse in his defense. There were so many who should have been nabbed for corruption and loot of public money but were conveniently let off for enjoying the comforts of his company.

9/11 was a watershed not only for the world but more importantly for General Musharraf. His infamous about-turn against old jehadi comrades-in-arms endeared him to the US. This provided his pariah rule international acceptance and restored economic bloodline for the country's jugular vein. However, this decision made by one man in the reclusive confines of his office deeply divided the country. The wound of this division was so deep that every outfit and institution in the country had to face resistance from within for terminating those they had resurrected over the years.
Musharraf may have saved Pakistan from immediate destruction (and that too is open to question), but there is no doubt that as a result of this one-man decision, war against religious militants came to be seen as Musharraf's war, lacking in popular support. Large parts of the country became no-go areas even for the army and suicide bombings became norm of the day.

One aspect of this division was internal strife in parts of NWFP and Baluchistan that now borders on full scale insurgency. An elected leader would have tried to find a political solution to the problem. But General was more than a soldier, he was a consummate commando. He understood only one language and conveyed his messages through the force of a bullet. The result is a situation not much dissimilar to the one in East Pakistan, where Pakistani army was left fighting not only the insurgents but also a population sympathetic to their cause. Violent death of Akbar Bugti has proved a clarion call for Baluchis to pick up arms.

Despite these deepening fissures in the national polity, Musharraf offered firm leadership at a critical time, when the country was sandwiched between a belligerent US in Afghanistan and aggressive India bent upon punishing Pakistan after terrorist attack on its parliament later that year. Musharraf normalized relations with India and put Kashmir on the backburner. Kashmir, it so appears, is now a non-issue between the two countries and its resolution through a plebiscite now belongs to the realm of history.

Musharraf, however, cultivated close relations with the US. Both needed each other. General's agencies handed over hundreds of terror suspects to the United States. Despite his claim to espouse liberal ideals, there are so many "missing" persons in the General's Pakistan - a gruesome reminder of despotic regimes in banana republics. There is hardly any doubt that like his buddy Bush, he brushed aside the notions of rule of law and justice to fight the war on terror. Despite this, the US still called him an ambivalent ally in this fight. He still did not do enough to crush the Talibans in Pakistan's tribal belt. The commando general did not always pull the trigger at the behest of his master.

The War on Terror opened both military and non-military channels for dollars to flow in the country. By the mid-point of Musharraf's nine year rule, a combination of stable political regime, sustained economic policies and foreign aid resulted in rapid growth in the country. However, these policies promoted consumerism in the country never practiced before. The economic growth did not stem from investment in manufacturing and infrastructure projects but through growth in the service sector. Imports were funded through foreign remittances and privatization proceeds.

The result of this short term policy has been that the country, flushed with borrowed money, fritted away an opportunity that could have put it on a fast growth trajectory. Infrastructural bottlenecks are now beginning to choke every productive activity in the country. Musharraf was not the architect of these economic policies but he was the one to choose his team. He deserves appreciation and condemnation for whatever his team mates did.

Another hallmark of Musharraf’s rule was liberalization of media. Scores of new TV channels opened which were allowed freedom to criticize the government. It is not clear whether government pre-empted the power of internet and explosion of media the world over or whether it was a genuine and sincere effort on its part to provide this freedom. Whatever the case, there is no doubt that Musharraf government brought the media genie out of the bottle.

This genie also played its role in his downfall through coverage of forces opposing the General. When he tried to curtail its freedom, the reaction was outright condemnation from the public. In the last phase of his rule, Musharraf was battling the very democratic forces he had helped unleash earlier. Media was one such force where battle lines were clearly drawn. Musharraf won a few battles but lost the war.

Another front that eventually sapped the General’s strength was opened against the superior judiciary. This was like Hitler invading Russia. Apparently, the blitzkrieg was so well-planned. The day Chief of the Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, summoned the Chief Justice of Pakistan to his office and summarily asked him to quit was perhaps the worst day of his professional career. Before that he was in control; the opposing forces were looking for a leader to unnerve and unsettle him. With a simple "No", Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry became the voice and symbol of the resistance. From that day on, Commando General was on a retreat.

The unceremonious sacking of the Chief Justice finally proved even to those who were his reluctant supporters that the General-President only loves himself. Every subsequent step was meant to consolidate his grip on power and outgun the judiciary. Judicial activism of the Chief Justice no doubt embarrassed the executive and its head on more than a few occasions, but it was more than a simple case of embarrassment. What angered Musharraf was the courage of his “nominee” to be independent and be his own man. Imposition of emergency rule (a quasi-martial law) was the final move to checkmate the judiciary that failed to rescue the beleaguered President cum COAS.

Musharraf's fight with the two pillars of state (judiciary and media) finally brought him to the ground. With legislature and executive firmly in his bag, powerful Pakistan army subordinate to him and US supporting him as an anchor of stability in the country and an important pawn in the war on terror, he was confident to remain in power for ever. The sad saga of Musharraf’s downfall shows that a trickle can become a torrent to wash away the laurels you reiterate in your swan song.

Musharraf's legacy is a mixed one. Decisions taken by him have far reaching implications both globally and locally. Whatever pain and suffering he imposed on the country, it seems that the future historian would approve of his legacy in a number of ways. Despite his ignominious departure, Musharraf did something for Pakistan that no other dictator did before him. It was during his rule that Parliament completed its tenure of five years for the first time in the 60 years history of the country. It was for the first time that government changed hands from one party to another through peaceful means. He left the reins of power in the hands of Chairman, Senate in accordance with the constitution of the country. Neither Ayub Khan nor Yaha Khan, two military dictators before him, had done so. They flattened the edifice, they had built, with their own hands. General Zia did not have this opportunity; so less said the better. Musharraf also restructured the administrative framework by introducing District Governments. His resignation from the office of President also puts him in a positive light. He was no doubt forced out, but still he did not cling to the Titanic of power going down and taking everything under with him.

2008-06-24T20:37:00.010+06:00

Courtesy: Dawn

Next Eleven and Pakistan in 2050

2008-06-05T01:03:00.001+06:00

In my previous article "BRICs and World Economic Map in 2050", I talked about the economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs). I also mentioned that the authors of the concept, Goldman Sachs Consulting Group, have developed a typology of Next Eleven (N-11) countries, which do not have the potential to be BRICs, but at least have a strong probability to be lightweights in the global economy. Pakistan is also included in the list along with Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam. In this article, I compare Pakistan with other N-11 countries.

Like BRICs, the common ground for the selection of N-11 is their large population size. However, except for population and good economic potential, the N-11 are a diverse group in terms of their level of economic and market development as well as integration in the world economy. As in the case of BRICs, the authors have used variables grouped under Macroeconomic stability, Macroeconomic conditions, Technological capabilities, Human capital and Political conditions to determine the speed with which N-11 will be able to converge or catch up with the developed economies.

If we compare Pakistan with other N-11 countries in 2005, we find that it is only second to Indonesia in terms of population. However, in terms of the size of GDP, it is 6th in the league table, ahead of Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Philippines and Vietnam. The distressing part is that by the magic year of 2050, Pakistan will slide down to be the 9th largest economy in N-11, only Iran and Bangladesh being smaller to her. However, in terms of Income per capita, Iran with a smaller population will race ahead of Pakistan, placing it at lowly number 10, ahead of only Bangladesh.

In terms of overall Global Environment Score (GES), signifying the probability of catching up with G-7 countries, Pakistan is amongst the low performing bottom three countries; bracketed with Bangladesh and Nigeria. South Korea is a clear leader in N-11, followed by Mexico, Vietnam, Iran, Egypt, Philippines, Turkey and Indonesia in respective order. If we look at individual indices, on which GES has been based, we understand why Pakistan does not make even to the middle of the list.

In terms of Macroeconomic Stability variables, Pakistan performs very poorly and has 1st, 4th and 6th place for high inflation, high government deficit and high external debt respectively.
In terms of Macroeconomic Condition variables, Pakistan is at the very bottom for investment and comes at second last (above Bangladesh) for openness.
In terms of Technological Capabilities variables, Pakistan is placed at 10 (above Bangladesh) for use of computers and third from the bottom (above Nigeria and Bangladesh) for the number of telephone lines and the use of internet.
In terms of Human Capital variables, Pakistan is placed at 9th place for schooling and life expectancy above Nigeria, and Bangladesh.
In terms of Political Conditions variables, Pakistan is better than only Nigeria for political stability; is ranked at 7th for rule of law (above Iran, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nigeria); and is placed at 8th for corruption (above Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nigeria).

In all these variables, Pakistan has been indexed below the developing country mean.
The good news is that these results are based on the 2000-05 period and do not take into account the recent political and economic developments in the country. Pakistan's excellent macroeconomic performance in the last two/three years has not found a place here. Similarly, excellent work done in the areas of higher education and telecommunications is also not included in the index. The authors also concede that trade openness in Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan has increased significantly over the past several years. The latter three countries, along with Indonesia, have also seen a pronounced rise in FDI shares.

Countries like Egypt, Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Pakistan face significant structural weaknesses, and are much more likely to fail in meeting the projections than those whose political and economic conditions are more stable today. A common feature of these countries is their marked weaknesses in political conditions. Fiscal management is another general area of concern. Nigeria's life expectancy, levels of education in Bangladesh, and investment rates in the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt also stand out as important issues.

In the social sector too, there is a need for significant improvement. To take the example of health care, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria spent less than $25 per head on health each year in 2005. Pakistan is a marked under-performer, spending just $13 per person on health care in 2003, a figure that has fallen 13% since 1998.

Some of these countries are already aware of these problems and are trying to solve them. Nigeria has set a goal of cracking down on corruption, Turkey is trying to reform with a focus to integrate with the European Union, Vietnam has joined the WTO, and the government in Pakistan has undertaken important reform measures in the banking, tax and corporate governance areas which aim at boosting growth over the next few years.

The story of BRICs and N-11 is not just about growth; rather it denotes a seismic shift in the pattern of global economic activity. The way things are in the country, Pakistan will have to really perform really well on political, social, technological and economic fronts to catch up with other countries. A large but illiterate and sick population will hardly accredit her to be an economic lightweight on the world map.

World economic map in 2050

2008-05-19T19:33:00.006+05:00

ECONOMISTS tend to divide the world in terms of economic development or growth potential. We have a group of G-7 countries, which are the most industrialised and the richest. Also, there is a group of OECD countries as well as a cluster of emerging economies.

There is, however, another set of countries which have been further differentiated from the emerging economies and called BRICs. Goldman Sachs, an international consulting group, in its 2003 paper coined this acronym. BRICs stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Because of their development potential, recent growth trajectories and equally, if not more importantly, geographic and demographic size, these are the countries which, it is suggested, have the capacity to make a global impact and be a major force in the world economy. If everything goes smoothly, and there is no economic miracle either, then the authors project China could become the largest economy in the world by 2041, India the third largest by 2035, and the combined BRICs GDP could exceed that of G-6 (G-7 minus Canada) by 2041.In its December 2005 paper, the same consulting group extended this concept even further and discussed the probability of the ‘Next Eleven’ economies catching up with and becoming like BRICs. Pakistan is also included in this group of the famous Next Eleven, bracketed with countries like Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam.

Before examining Pakistan’s potential to be a tour de force in the global economy, it would be appropriate to look at the factors that have been taken into account to declare a country a potential BRICs. The first and foremost, to our surprise, is demographic profile. According to the authors, without a sizable population, even economic miracles like Hong Kong and Singapore cannot have a global impact in spite of their high levels of income and living standards.

The authors also developed a Growth Environment Score (GES) to rank each of 170 countries for their performance under closely inter-linked performance categories. Stable macroeconomic policies ensure low inflation, tight monetary policy and reduction in fiscal deficit.Openness to trade and foreign investment is a prerequisite for rapid economic development, and one of the many important signs of healthy macroeconomic conditions. This provides greater access to better investment rates, modern technology, larger markets and greater employment opportunities. There is also a positive correlation between openness and profits, productivity and output at the micro level.

Another factor that constitutes part of GES is technological capabilities. These relate to penetration of PCs, phones and the Internet. These signify the presence of an educated workforce as well as their linkage with the global world.

Quality of human capital is also a core determinant of the GES. There is hardly any doubt now regarding a close and statistically strong association between education and economic growth. According to one estimate, one additional year of schooling leads to 0.3 per cent faster annual growth over a 30-year period.

Political stability and rule of law depend on institutions which include legal systems, functioning markets, health and education systems, financial institutions and government bureaucracy. Their quality is crucial to the promotion of trade and investment in the country. Institutional capacity is needed to introduce efficiency in the system and execute stable macroeconomic policies in the country.

Though all the BRICs countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) score differently on these criteria, as a whole they come in the top half of the rankings for developing countries and above the developing country mean. China ranks most high (16th), followed by Russia (44th), while Brazil and India are further behind at 58th and 60th respectively. Had this been the only criteria, some other countries such as South Korea would have been part of BRICs, but it is their bigger size that lends them greater weight.

The GES individual scores highlight where there is room for improvement. Brazil scores relatively well on measures of political stability, life expectancy and technology adoption, but quite poorly on investment, education levels, openness to trade and government deficit. Historically, the performance of Brazil on the macroeconomic front has been pretty poor and it seems to carry this baggage along.Russia also scores well in terms of education, fiscal position, external debt position, openness to trade, technology adoption and life expectancy, but is placed at less than an ideal position in terms of political measures (political stability, corruption), investment rates and inflation.

India scores relatively well in terms of rule of law, external debt and inflation, but quite poorly in terms of levels of secondary education, technology adoption and fiscal position. It, along with Brazil, also lags behind in terms of the openness of its economy.China ranks well above the mean on macroeconomic stability, investment, openness to trade and human capital. Its rankings on technology adoption are more mixed (PC usage is still quite low) and corruption measures are also a little worse than the mean.

The GES scores are likely to be based on data provided by individual countries (for example World Bank Indicators) and surveys which are based on individual perceptions of businessmen working in those countries. The latter are likely to be subjective and biased. However, there is still some general truth in the analysis which merits our attention.

This article has been published in daily Dawn on May 19, 2008.

Improving public services

2008-05-05T20:05:00.002+05:00

THE previous government’s priority was economic growth. There was hardly a day when this mantra was not repeated in the media.

Howsoever sound the macro-economic fundamentals for the rich, the poor could not identify themselves with ‘Glossy Pakistan’. Acute shortages of essential food items and price hikes on election eve, whether orchestrated or real, put the final nail in the coffin of the previous government.

The new government has not started with tabula rasa or a clean slate. It carries historical baggage and is conditioned by the global economic and business environment. However, it can still take steps to improve public services for the poor. The basic issue here is not the availability of resources. Rather in most cases, the infrastructure is there.

We have hospitals, Basic Health Units and schools built not only in urban but also in many rural areas. These may not be of a high standard, but most of them do have the basic amenities available. The issue is not ‘hardware’ but ‘software’ — management of the available resources.

It is not that the buildings or desks or chairs are not important. Our primary complaint is about the quality of the syllabus and teachers. In a government hospital, what pinches us is the fact that we feel ignored and insulted when we visit one. In our big cities, decent public transport is like the emperor’s new clothes. Not many can see government contribution to it. There is a need to re-engineer the way public services are delivered to the people.

Education: Anyone who has the means would send his kids to a private school. We all know and observe that most private schools have been housed in rented buildings meant for residence. The teachers are mostly girls who may not even be graduates. In most of the cases, they are not well-paid either. However, since these schools work in a ‘market’, they cater for the needs of their ‘clients’. Teaching of English and/or the Quran is made available from day one and we are made to believe that our children are given personal attention. We are also confident that the teacher will not be absent from class.

Compare the private schools to government schools. Buildings are likely to be old and the furniture shabby. In many instances, buildings may be insufficient and furniture totally missing. That is a cause for worry, but what is more mortifying to note is that teachers in most cases are least interested in teaching. English, which is now synonymous with good education, is not given priority.

There is no arrangement for nadhra or hifz of the Quran. The schools, in other words, do not cater for the demands of the market. They are free but a choice of the last resort.

What we need to do is to create a synergy between providers and customers. Change the syllabus in line with the needs of the day. Improve the quality of teachers by paying them better salaries. Every year, we waste millions of rupees on donor-funded projects, but continue to pay the teachers meagre salaries. It is time to create a different salary structure for them and make this job a first choice for the best minds.

There is a need to activate parent-teacher councils that are supposed to exist with designated functions and responsibilities. Only parents of students studying in that school should be its members. These councils should act as a liaison between parents, schools and the education department, and give a sense of ownership and participation to everyone.

Teachers should be recruited for schools and not for the district/province. The present practice of transfers should be abolished. It will give the policymakers some time to think about education policy and strategy.

Health: Our government hospitals are chaotic like our traffic on the road. Visit to a government hospital means spending the whole day there. No doubt, there is a need for walk-in clinics, but it should also be possible to book an appointment on a time and date mutually convenient. We must also have a patient’s charter that defines the rights and responsibilities of both the hospital and the patient.

All over the world, public private partnership has been adopted to upgrade facilities in hospitals. Expensive medical equipment is procured by the private sector and is used in a government hospital for a fee. We should also capitalise on its potential to the advantage of the common man.

Public transport: When it comes to public transport, we will undoubtedly be at the bottom of any league table. Consumers have been left at the mercy of the transport mafiosi whose lobby has scuttled every attempt to regulate them. Availability of a decent integrated public transport is a litmus test for the effectiveness of any government in this country. Cities like Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi/Islamabad are bursting at the seams and there is no respite from the daily ordeal of the public transport mess. Neither underpasses nor overhead bridges will help resolve the problem of the poor. Signal-free corridors are for the rich to whiz past in their cars.

The poor need underground/overhead metro. They need new and modern buses. There have been tall claims by every government, but nothing came out of any initiative. If nothing is possible, the government should at least take one step: it should make it mandatory for everyone responsible for the public transport system in the city to use it everyday. None of them must use official or private cars under any circumstances.

We do not need greenfield projects like New Islamabad Airport. The image of a country is built more by its healthy and educated working class than grand projects. Even otherwise, a democratically elected prime minister should be more interested in the general welfare of the many rather than a few. There is no shame if we do not have the best airport in the capitals of the world, but it is a real disgrace if the capital of the country cannot boast of a couple of government schools that are everyone’s first choice.

The prime minister, I hope, knows that people are not fools; they understand when a government takes decisions for their benefit. He can hope that improvement in the provision of public services will, in the long run, compensate for the rise in fuel and food prices in the country.

The writer is a Visiting Fulbright Scholar from Islamabad, currently based in the University of Florida. iramkhan@fulbrightweb.org

It has been published in Dawn on May 5, 2003.

Cartoon: Winner's Streak

2008-04-25T18:34:00.003+05:00

Rule of Law and the Heart of Darkness

2008-04-17T19:10:00.003+05:00

Nation states are like individuals and act on the basis of rational expectations. Rather it will be fair to say that individuals may at times behave irrationally, making individual preferences based on personal whims and prejudices rather than rational choices. But nation states, representing collective wisdom of the multitudes, are less likely to do so. In today’s world, relations among the comity of nations are strictly based on selfish motives rather than altruistic intentions. Self-interest more than Ideology dictates the terms of bilateral or multilateral relations. However, we in Pakistan continue to live in a world of our own. We naively expected an American armada to rescue a disastrous situation in East Pakistan. Similarly, we were shocked when the Americans left us to our own devices after winning the war in Afghanistan. On what basis did we expect to be rewarded on both occasions? Didn't both the parties benefit from their mutual relationship? The partnership was no doubt between the unequal but there is no doubt that the weaker party also benefited from it.

From the 1950s onward, we intermittently befriended the US, not out of love, but because our national interests were aligned. US needed Pakistan for its fight against communism and we provided a safe haven to them. Pakistan needed US aid and military hardware to advance her geo-economic interests and we did that. In the 1980s, Pakistan wanted to save itself from being sandwiched between two hostile countries, while the United States engaged the Soviet Union indirectly in a nose-bleeding war for the latter and also had the opportunity to avenge its defeat in Vietnam. On both occasions, it was self-interest that brought us together.

No doubt, the US acted in a short sighted manner when it left the Afghans in the middle of a civil war. Here it was clearly lack of judgment on her part to behave in such a disinterested fashion. The consequences of this decision were faced not only by the Afghans, her neighbours and the US but also the world at large. It is a historical fact that the US again got interested in Pakistan and Afghanistan when its own interests were at stake there.

However, total faith on self-interest as a guiding principle can make the arena of international relations similar to a place where law of the jungle prevails; "Might is always Right". In such a scenario, no legal or moral value has universal currency. Take the example of justice or rule of law. We know and hear ad nauseam about its significance in society. This is given paramount importance in the national life and character of all industrialized western countries. (This does not mean others do not care about it.) However, despite the presence of a sound and dynamic judicial system at home, these countries did not deter from invading another country for reasons which we later found out were doctored by them. Rule of law is supreme in their countries but they do not desist from using secret bases and hideouts in other countries to torture prisoners. They are also silent, when due to spatial and linguistic twists, prisoners of war are denied rights admissible to them under the Geneva Convention and incarcerated without trial for long periods of time.

Today's international order, devoid of any universal value, reminds one of 'The Heart of Darkness' when hiding behind purely materialistic motives, a part of the world puts on the mantle of a missionary to 'civilise' the inhumane, barbaric and unenlightened other parts of the world. Where the Darkness actually lied and who needed to be civilised is not even a matter of conjecture. Today's world does not seem to be much different either.

In a replay of history, we are talking about the ideals of Democracy, Justice and Rule of Law which the civilised world wants to 'export' to the 'other' world. Some countries historically behaved and still continue to behave as if they have exclusive right over these ideals. However, their open support for dictators around the world shows the fallacy of their much-trumpeted love for them. 9/11 became the catalyst that brought the genie out of the bottle. The whirlwind became too strong to resist. The American public, convinced through threats of clear and present danger, was made half-heartedly to get along. The bitter pill has only been couched underneath a sweet coating of exalted ideals.

What is not understood is that foreign occupation is breeding hate and terrorism which is used as an excuse for further repression and further use of force. This new version of democracy under occupation has sickened the people of countries that have been subjected to it and have forced them to reminisce about safe though less free days under a repressive dictatorship. This vicious cycle of foreign occupation, repression and terror leading to more repression can only break with the departure of elements that are seen as occupying forces by the people of the country. Only universal application of democracy leading to and leading from justice and rule of law will allow the 'elected' rulers to step outside the siege of mercenaries and/or fortified green zones.

When a country goes to war to protect its vital economic interests, these are not the ones that enable its citizens to live peacefully, but are those that enable it to make war more violently. Oil rather than wheat or rice has been a cause of international conflict today. (Water may be an exception in the future.) The holy grail of the civilized world is unhindered access to oil and the immediate reward of war is billion dollar contracts. Notions of Democracy, Justice and Rule of law are a major casualty, notwithstanding the loss of hundreds of thousands of innocent human lives.

What we need today is universal acceptance of certain values that are applicable both nationally and more importantly, internationally. These exist but need to be accepted and implemented in both letter and spirit by every nation. This will not grant hegemony to one nation or sets of nations over the others but will ensure the emergence of a safe and peaceful world where we all can live in amity.

The blogpost has been published in Dawn Pakistan.

A New Agenda for a New Beginning

2008-04-15T08:51:00.004+05:00

The new Prime Minister has taken the oath of office. The post-election euphoria is now over. The hurly burly of nominating a Prime Minister has also passed. Now it is time for serious business. The tasks before him are onerous. Perhaps never before in the history of Pakistan has any Prime Minister faced bigger challenges. The international milieu, internal strife and misrule of previous years have led to a situation best described by W.B. Yates in his poem “The Second Coming”:

“TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

However, all hope is not lost and with the new government, there is talk of a new beginning, rebirth and rejuvenation. The oath of office of Prime Minister by Makhdoom Yusuf Raza Gilani is not a second coming in a religious sense, but it definitely can be a new beginning for government of the people, by the people and for the people in Pakistan.

While the new Prime Minister will be making economic decisions for improving the lives of common man and there is already talk about planning for the first hundred days of the new government, this writer would like to suggest some measures, both symbolic and concrete, that this government should be taking:

Turn the Presidency in Islamabad into a library... We Pakistanis are no bibliophiles. Our literacy rate, number of books published and per capita readership of newspapers is a sufficient proof of that. However, this does not mean that we do not have a tradition of learning and scholarship. There are centers of excellence for various disciplines and there exist impressive libraries in the country. Quaid-e-Azam Library in Lahore, one of the finest around, has been housed in a palatial building that once accommodated a club. Its conversion into a library has a symbolic meaning and gesture. What I would propose is that the new Chief Executive should also set precedence by relocating The National Library of Pakistan to the Presidency. The building, situated in the heart of Islamabad and representing the spirit and mood of the city, is an ideal place for this purpose. The National Library, as it exists today, has been housed in a low profile building of insignificant architectural stature in a side alley of the Constitution Avenue. Placing it at a pivotal place will give it the prominence it deserves and will symbolize the continuation of a tradition of scholarship and learning that was once the hallmark of Muslims in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent.

PM to move to modest premises... The Prime Minister of Pakistan currently lives in a Spanish/Portuguese style villa hidden well behind the Federal Secretariat in the middle of nowhere. This newly built outhouse is secluded, reclusive though exclusive and sends a signal of some one living in solitary confinement. The Prime Minister represents the people of Pakistan and should ideally live amongst them, and if possible in a house similar to theirs. This reminds me of no place other than 10 Downing Street which, at least from outside, looks like the same house I had lived in as a student in a relatively poor and run down area of Manchester. What I would suggest to the new Prime Minister is to leave the Prime Minister House and move to the “Minister's enclave”, a well-guarded but less reclusive locality. It is also in the hub of Islamabad and with scores of houses of similar design and size in that street, it also looks less exclusive. No one expects the Prime Minister of an elitist society like Pakistan's to sit on a prayer mat like Imam Khomeini of Iran or live in a mud house like so many rural Pakistanis, but it will not be unfair to expect from him to live with other ministers. After all, he is the first among equals.

Dissolve Prime Minister Secretariat... The Prime Minister Secretariat is an ever growing necropolis of bureaucracy. Increasing in size and functions, it has centralized, in the name of coordination, many functions and tasks that should be done at ministry and department levels. The government's loss of grip on power and decline in credibility are perhaps directly proportionate with the increase in directives being issued from the Prime Minister Secretariat. These ad hoc orders issued for gaining interim political mileage are followed and coordinated by the Prime Minister Secretariat to ensure their implementation. Following the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers of the provinces also have their own separate and independent Secretariats, coordinating the implementation of their directives. It so seems that no one pays a heed to the orders of either the Prime Minister or the Chief Ministers and they need a battery of bureaucrats to ensure that someone does listen to them.

It is also pertinent to note that the PM Secretariat is a relatively new phenomenon. This did not exist at the time of ZA Bhutto. In his days, the task of assisting the Prime Minister in office was performed by the Cabinet Division. This changed when insecure Prime Ministers tried to be well head above shoulders their cabinet colleagues. Therefore, a separate office with the name of PM Secretariat was created and was headed by a Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, being the head of the Cabinet, it is the Cabinet Division that should provide necessary assistance to him and his cabinet. What I would propose is that the new Prime Minister should disband the PM Secretariat and use the Cabinet Division as his secretariat.

Rationalization of Privatization Program... Pakistan has adopted privatization as an essential component of its economic reform package. Unfortunately, this privatization looks more like “'piratization” or “internationalization” of government assets. There have been instances of rogue privatizations when public enterprises were sold to interest groups for peanuts. Privatization of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) was another such dubious transaction. PSM was being sold to a consortium that included a company which is already establishing a Steel Mill within its vicinity. The sale of PSM would have created a virtual private monopoly. Thankfully, the Supreme Court of Pakistan annulled the decision to privatize PSM. What I would propose is that the new government should adopt a cautious policy toward privatization and should divest prudently to local investors who can steer flagship Pakistani companies in the international business arena.

Milbus... Incumbent Chief of Army Staff has recalled a large number of army officers working on civilian posts. While this needs to be appreciated, there is a need to do more. According to Washington Post article (June 27, 2007), the military dominates the corporate world and reportedly runs a $20 billion portfolio of businesses from banks to real estate developers to bakeries. The new government should ensure that the armed forces of Pakistan are not engaged in business activities. No serving officer is posted in any of its so called 'welfare' offices or trusts. Only retired officers may serve there. The present tradition of Army generals patronizing and heading different business ventures of Pakistan Army should be prohibited.

According to Georges Pompidou, a former French Prime Minister and President, a statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation. A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service. The new Prime Minister has already proclaimed that he will act as a servant of the people. We all wish him best of luck but he needs to do more than just rely on his good luck.

A revised version of this blog has been published in Daily Dawn

Turkish Winter of Secular Discontent

2008-02-22T02:39:00.008+05:00

Turkey’s parliament has voted to lift a ban on headscarves at universities. This has been termed as a major victory for Justice and Development Party (AKP) in defiance of Turkish secular ideals. The constitutional reform package tabled by the ruling party and backed by opposition secular Nationalist Action Party (MHP) received 411 yes votes in a house of 550. The package amends the constitution to read that the state will treat everyone equally when it provides services such as university courses and that no one can be barred from education for reasons not clearly laid down by law, an allusion to young women who wear headscarves. The Turkish President Abdullah Gul, a former AKP member, is expected the sign the bill into a law. The main opposition Republican People's Party has shown its intent to challenge the law in the Constitutional Court on grounds that it violates a key article of the constitution that protects secularism.

Secularists, including the army, the judiciary and progressive intelligentsia, see the headscarf as a political symbol that signifies the death of secular republic founded by Kamal Ataturk more than eighty years ago. Interestingly, it was not Ataturk who banned headscarves from Turkish universities, though he actively promoted the adoption of western dress and showed his dislike for anything remotely associated with Turkey’s Islamic past. By and large, this new thinking remained confined to the emerging bourgeoisie. Traditional Anatolian families continued to favour headscarves tied loosely below the chin. Headscarves were banned after the 1980 military coup when army, the patron and protector of Turkish secularism, found it a threat to Turkish image as a modern secular state. These bans were strictly enforced in universities in Turkey. However, not all universities went along. The rector of Bogazici University, for example, consistently welcomed students wearing scarves and supported their right to education. She is not an Islamist. She is a scientist and a feminist who believes that a university should welcome students of all ethnic and religious backgrounds.
The new legislation brings to the surface fault lines that have existed between Islam and secularism as long-standing rivals in modern Turkey. Secularism remained a deeply ingrained ideology for decades. However, to many western observers the vote is an acknowledgement that Turkey has become a more religiously conservative society. The right of religious women to enter universities with their heads covered is to them a severe blow to Western enlightenment. However, polls consistently show that about 60 percent of people in Turkey favour allowing women to wear traditional head scarves in public.

The fact is that Turkey has changed dramatically over the last few decades with economic prosperity increasing the ranks of the middle class, and observant Muslims beginning to outnumber Western-looking elite in the cities. This process started in the 1950s, when people began migrating from Turkish more observant heartland. Initially the impact was limited since these neo-urbanites were poor and had little voice. Their educational level was also low. However, new generations born in the cities inherited the Islamic outlook from their elders and tried to reconcile this with modern secular Turkish urban society. Tensions mounted when they tried to enter universities and took public sector jobs. Their headscarves were seen by the secular elites as an affront, symbol of a ‘decadent’ Turkey mired in its Islamic past. So they were banned. The class divisions emerged leading to the revival of Islamist parties like Rafah party in secular Turkey. Secularism, however, has continued to take front stage. Even this recent change in the constitution has been made in the name of secularism.

Turkish secularism, especially in the post 1980 ban on headscarves, has a distinct French flavour that precludes intellectual pluralism. The more austere French version prohibits personal display of religious symbols or conventions in state institutions, focusing respectively on neutrality between religions, and (more, if not equally, importantly) prohibition of religious associations in state activities. It was the "prohibitory" aspect that was the central issue in the French decision to ban head scarves worn by Muslim women students, on the ground that it violates secularism. It can be argued that such a prohibition can not be justified specifically on the grounds of secularism, if we accept its 'neutrality' interpretation that has powerfully emerged in some other European countries. Being secularly neutral demands that the state be 'equidistant' from different religions and need not discriminate for or against any person individually – irrespective of his or her religion – based on his decision what to wear, so long as members of different faiths are treated symmetrically. A constitutional or legal binding (like the on in France or Turkey) on an individual what to wear and what not to wear violates the principle of neutrality between religions as long as the members of other religions do not impose it on others. However, being equidistant between different religions does involve a rejection of favouring one over another. On the basis of this principle, registered religious (Jewish, Catholic, Islamic) schools in some secular countries are entitled to state subsidies. State once again remains equidistant from the religious and ideological moorings of these schools. The same is true of hospital trusts established by religious associations.

Turkish parliament has also taken a similar stand when it invoked the principle of secularism, the principle of the right to education, individual rights and freedoms and democracy while passing the constitutional amendment. After passing the bill, petitions were signed on both sides of the political divide. Those who supported the proposed legislation belonged not only to the Islamist AKP, but also were many others belonging to the democratic networks that supported it on the principle of secularism based on state neutrality. They also made a distinction between “religion as faith” and “religion as identity”, something not understood by the secular Turkish elitists.

Wall Street Journal in its article dated Feb 11, 2008 has called the constitutional amendment “a sign of Turkey's democratic maturity”, referring to the fact that both Islam and secularism can co-exist by respecting each others space. In case it fails, Turkey will be left with secular authoritarianism practiced by its military in the name of protecting the secular republic.

This article has been published in "Dawn".

Cartoon: Invasion of Iraq

2008-02-12T02:00:00.003+05:00

Going bankrupt: The US's greatest threat

2008-01-30T23:14:00.000+05:00

By Chalmers Johnson

The military adventurers of the George W Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room", the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neo-conservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.

As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries.

Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay - or repudiate. This utter fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (such as causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching.

There are three broad aspects to our debt crisis. First, in the current fiscal year (2008) we are spending insane amounts of money on "defense" projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the United States. Simultaneously, we are keeping the income tax burdens on the richest segments of the American population at strikingly low levels.

Second, we continue to believe that we can compensate for the accelerating erosion of our manufacturing base and our loss of jobs to foreign countries through massive military expenditures - so-called "military Keynesianism", which I discuss in detail in my book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. By military Keynesianism, I mean the mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy. The opposite is actually true.

Third, in our devotion to militarism (despite our limited resources), we are failing to invest in our social infrastructure and other requirements for the long-term health of our country. These are what economists call "opportunity costs", things not done because we spent our money on something else. Our public education system has deteriorated alarmingly. We have failed to provide health care to all our citizens and neglected our responsibilities as the world's number one polluter. Most important, we have lost our competitiveness as a manufacturer for civilian needs - an infinitely more efficient use of scarce resources than arms manufacturing. Let me discuss each of these.

The current fiscal disaster
It is virtually impossible to overstate the profligacy of what our government spends on the military. The Department of Defense's planned expenditures for fiscal year 2008 are larger than all other nations' military budgets combined. The supplementary budget to pay for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not part of the official defense budget, is itself larger than the combined military budgets of Russia and China. Defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history. The United States has become the largest single salesman of arms and munitions to other nations on Earth. Leaving out of account Bush's two on-going wars, defense spending has doubled since the mid-1990s. The defense budget for fiscal 2008 is the largest since World War II.

Before we try to break down and analyze this gargantuan sum, there is one important caveat. Figures on defense spending are notoriously unreliable. The numbers released by the Congressional Reference Service and the Congressional Budget Office do not agree with each other. Robert Higgs, senior fellow for political economy at the Independent Institute, says, "A well-founded rule of thumb is to take the Pentagon's (always well publicized) basic budget total and double it."

Even a cursory reading of newspaper articles about the Department of Defense will turn up major differences in statistics about its expenses. Some 30-40% of the defense budget is "black", meaning that these sections contain hidden expenditures for classified projects. There is no possible way to know what they include or whether their total amounts are accurate.

There are many reasons for this budgetary sleight-of-hand - including a desire for secrecy on the part of the president, the secretary of defense and the military-industrial complex - but the chief one is that members of Congress, who profit enormously from defense jobs and pork-barrel projects in their districts, have a political interest in supporting the Department of Defense.

In 1996, in an attempt to bring accounting standards within the executive branch somewhat closer to those of the civilian economy, Congress passed the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act. It required all federal agencies to hire outside auditors to review their books and release the results to the public. Neither the Department of Defense, nor the Department of Homeland Security, has ever complied. Congress has complained, but not penalized either department for ignoring the law. The result is that all numbers released by the Pentagon should be regarded as suspect.

In discussing the fiscal 2008 defense budget, as released to the press on February 7, 2007, I have been guided by two experienced and reliable analysts: William D Hartung of the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative and Fred Kaplan, defense correspondent for Slate.org. They agree that the Department of Defense requested $481.4 billion for salaries, operations (except in Iraq and Afghanistan), and equipment.

They also agree on a figure of $141.7 billion for the "supplemental" budget to fight the global "war on terror" - that is, the two on-going wars that the general public may think are actually covered by the basic Pentagon budget. The Department of Defense also asked for an extra $93.4 billion to pay for hitherto unmentioned war costs in the remainder of 2007 and, most creatively, an additional "allowance" (a new term in defense budget documents) of $50 billion to be charged to fiscal year 2009. This comes to a total spending request by the Department of Defense of $766.5 billion.

But there is much more. In an attempt to disguise the true size of the American military empire, the government has long hidden major military-related expenditures in departments other than Defense. For example, $23.4 billion for the Department of Energy goes toward developing and maintaining nuclear warheads; and $25.3 billion in the Department of State budget is spent on foreign military assistance (primarily for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Republic, Egypt, and Pakistan).

Another $1.03 billion outside the official Department of Defense budget is now needed for recruitment and reenlistment incentives for the overstretched US military itself, up from a mere $174 million in 2003, the year the war in Iraq began. The Department of Veterans Affairs currently gets at least $75.7 billion, 50% of which goes for the long-term care of the grievously injured among the at least 28,870 soldiers so far wounded in Iraq and another 1,708 in Afghanistan. The amount is universally derided as inadequate. Another $46.4 billion goes to the Department of Homeland Security.

Missing as well from this compilation is $1.9 billion to the Department of Justice for the paramilitary activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; $38.5 billion to the Department of the Treasury for the Military Retirement Fund; $7.6 billion for the military-related activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and well over $200 billion in interest for past debt-financed defense outlays. This brings US spending for its military establishment during the current fiscal year (2008), conservatively calculated, to at least $1.1 trillion.

Military Keynesianism
Such expenditures are not only morally obscene, they are fiscally unsustainable. Many neo-conservatives and poorly informed patriotic Americans believe that, even though our defense budget is huge, we can afford it because we are the richest country on Earth.

Unfortunately, that statement is no longer true. The world's richest political entity, according to the Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook, is the European Union. The EU's 2006 GDP (gross domestic product - all goods and services produced domestically) was estimated to be slightly larger than that of the US However, China's 2006 GDP was only slightly smaller than that of the US, and Japan was the world's fourth-richest nation.

A more telling comparison that reveals just how much worse we're doing can be found among the "current accounts" of various nations. The current account measures the net trade surplus or deficit of a country plus cross-border payments of interest, royalties, dividends, capital gains, foreign aid, and other income.

For example, for Japan to manufacture anything, it must import all required raw materials. Even after this incredible expense is met, it still has an $88 billion per year trade surplus with the United States and enjoys the world's second-highest current account balance. (China is number one.) The United States, by contrast, is number 163 - dead last on the list, worse than countries like Australia and the United Kingdom that also have large trade deficits. Its 2006 current account deficit was $811.5 billion; second worst was Spain at $106.4 billion. This is what is unsustainable.

It's not just that our tastes for foreign goods, including imported oil, vastly exceed our ability to pay for them. We are financing them through massive borrowing. On November 7, 2007, the US Treasury announced that the national debt had breached $9 trillion for the first time ever. This was just five weeks after Congress raised the so-called debt ceiling to $9.815 trillion. If you begin in 1789, at the moment the constitution became the supreme law of the land, the debt accumulated by the federal government did not top $1 trillion until 1981. When Bush became president in January 2001, it stood at approximately $5.7 trillion. Since then, it has increased by 45%. This huge debt can be largely explained by our defense expenditures in comparison with the rest of the world.

The world's top 10 military spenders and the approximate amounts each country currently budgets for its military establishment are:

1. United States (FY08 budget), $623 billion
2. China (2004), $65 billion
3. Russia, $50 billion
4. France (2005), $45 billion
5. Japan (2007), $41.75 billion
6. Germany (2003), $35.1 billion
7. Italy (2003), $28.2 billion
8. South Korea (2003), $21.1 billion
9. India (2005 est.), $19 billion
10. Saudi Arabia (2005 est.), $18 billion

World total military expenditures (2004 est.), $1,100 billion
World total (minus the United States), $500 billion.

Our excessive military expenditures did not occur over just a few short years or simply because of the Bush administration's policies. They have been going on for a very long time in accordance with a superficially plausible ideology and have now become entrenched in our democratic political system where they are starting to wreak havoc. This ideology I call "military Keynesianism" - the determination to maintain a permanent war economy and to treat military output as an ordinary economic product, even though it makes no contribution to either production or consumption.

This ideology goes back to the first years of the Cold War. During the late 1940s, the US was haunted by economic anxieties. The Great Depression of the 1930s had been overcome only by the war production boom of World War II. With peace and demobilization, there was a pervasive fear that the Depression would return.

During 1949, alarmed by the Soviet Union's detonation of an atomic bomb, the looming communist victory in the Chinese civil war, a domestic recession, and the lowering of the Iron Curtain around the USSR's European satellites, the US sought to draft basic strategy for the emerging Cold War. The result was the militaristic National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) drafted under the supervision of Paul Nitze, then head of the Policy Planning Staff in the State Department. Dated April 14, 1950, and signed by president Harry S Truman on September 30, 1950, it laid out the basic public economic policies that the United States pursues to the present day.

In its conclusions, NSC-68 asserted: "One of the most significant lessons of our World War II experience was that the American economy, when it operates at a level approaching full efficiency, can provide enormous resources for purposes other than civilian consumption while simultaneously providing a high standard of living."

With this understanding, American strategists began to build up a massive munitions industry, both to counter the military might of the Soviet Union (which they consistently overstated) and also to maintain full employment as well as ward off a possible return of the Depression. The result was that, under Pentagon leadership, entire new industries were created to manufacture large aircraft, nuclear-powered submarines, nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and surveillance and communications satellites. This led to what president Dwight D Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address of February 6, 1961: "The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience." That is, the military-industrial complex.

By 1990, the value of the weapons, equipment, and factories devoted to the Department of Defense was 83% of the value of all plants and equipment in American manufacturing. From 1947 to 1990, the combined US military budgets amounted to $8.7 trillion. Even though the Soviet Union no longer exists, US reliance on military Keynesianism has, if anything, ratcheted up, thanks to the massive vested interests that have become entrenched around the military establishment. Over time, a commitment to both guns and butter has proven an unstable configuration. Military industries crowd out the civilian economy and lead to severe economic weaknesses. Devotion to military Keynesianism is, in fact, a form of slow economic suicide.

On May 1, 2007, the Center for Economic and Policy Research of Washington, DC, released a study prepared by the global forecasting company Global Insight on the long-term economic impact of increased military spending. Guided by economist Dean Baker, this research showed that, after an initial demand stimulus, by about the sixth year the effect of increased military spending turns negative. Needless to say, the US economy has had to cope with growing defense spending for more than 60 years. He found that, after 10 years of higher defense spending, there would be 464,000 fewer jobs than in a baseline scenario that involved lower defense spending.

Baker concluded:

It is often believed that wars and military spending increases are good for the economy. In fact, most economic models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment.

These are only some of the many deleterious effects of military Keynesianism.

Hollowing out the American economy
It was believed that the US could afford both a massive military establishment and a high standard of living, and that it needed both to maintain full employment. But it did not work out that way. By the 1960s, it was becoming apparent that turning over the nation's largest manufacturing enterprises to the Department of Defense and producing goods without any investment or consumption value was starting to crowd out civilian economic activities.

Historian Thomas E Woods Jr observes that, during the 1950s and 1960s, between one-third and two-thirds of all American research talent was siphoned off into the military sector. It is, of course, impossible to know what innovations never appeared as a result of this diversion of resources and brainpower into the service of the military, but it was during the 1960s that we first began to notice Japan was outpacing us in the design and quality of a range of consumer goods, including household electronics and automobiles.

Nuclear weapons furnish a striking illustration of these anomalies. Between the 1940s and 1996, the United States spent at least $5.8 trillion on the development, testing and construction of nuclear bombs. By 1967, the peak year of its nuclear stockpile, the US possessed some 32,500 deliverable atomic and hydrogen bombs, none of which, thankfully, was ever used.

They perfectly illustrate the Keynesian principle that the government can provide make-work jobs to keep people employed. Nuclear weapons were not just America's secret weapon, but also its secret economic weapon. As of 2006, we still had 9,960 of them. There is today no sane use for them, while the trillions spent on them could have been used to solve the problems of social security and health care, quality education and access to higher education for all, not to speak of the retention of highly skilled jobs within the American economy.

The pioneer in analyzing what has been lost as a result of military Keynesianism was the late Seymour Melman (1917-2004), a professor of industrial engineering and operations research at Columbia University. His 1970 book, Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War, was a prescient analysis of the unintended consequences of the American preoccupation with its armed forces and their weaponry since the onset of the Cold War. Melman wrote (pages. 2-3):

From 1946 to 1969, the United States government spent over $1,000 billion on the military, more than half of this under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations - the period during which the [Pentagon-dominated] state management was established as a formal institution. This sum of staggering size (try to visualize a billion of something) does not express the cost of the military establishment to the nation as a whole. The true cost is measured by what has been foregone, by the accumulated deterioration in many facets of life by the inability to alleviate human wretchedness of long duration.

In an important exegesis on Melman's relevance to the current American economic situation, Thomas Woods writes:

According to the US Department of Defense, during the four decades from 1947 through 1987 it used (in 1982 dollars) $7.62 trillion in capital resources. In 1985, the Department of Commerce estimated the value of the nation's plant and equipment, and infrastructure, at just over $7.29 trillion. In other words, the amount spent over that period could have doubled the American capital stock or modernized and replaced its existing stock.

The fact that we did not modernize or replace our capital assets is one of the main reasons why, by the turn of the 21st century, our manufacturing base had all but evaporated. Machine tools - an industry on which Melman was an authority - are a particularly important symptom.

In November 1968, a five-year inventory disclosed (page 186) "that 64% of the metalworking machine tools used in US industry were 10 years old or older. The age of this industrial equipment (drills, lathes, etc.) marks the United States' machine tool stock as the oldest among all major industrial nations, and it marks the continuation of a deterioration process that began with the end of World War II. This deterioration at the base of the industrial system certifies to the continuous debilitating and depleting effect that the military use of capital and research and development talent has had on American industry. Nothing has been done in the period since 1968 to reverse these trends and it shows today in our massive imports of equipment - from medical machines like proton accelerators for radiological therapy (made primarily in Belgium, Germany and Japan) to cars and trucks.

Our short tenure as the world's "lone superpower" has come to an end. As Harvard economics professor Benjamin Friedman has written:

Again and again it has always been the world's leading lending country that has been the premier country in terms of political influence, diplomatic influence, and cultural influence. It's no accident that we took over the role from the British at the same time that we took over ... the job of being the world's leading lending country. Today we are no longer the world's leading lending country. In fact we are now the world's biggest debtor country, and we are continuing to wield influence on the basis of military prowess alone.

Some of the damage done can never be rectified. There are, however, some steps that this country urgently needs to take. These include reversing Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the wealthy, beginning to liquidate our global empire of over 800 military bases, cutting from the defense budget all projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the United States, and ceasing to use the defense budget as a Keynesian jobs program. If we do these things we have a chance of squeaking by. If we don't, we face probable national insolvency and a long depression.

Chalmers Johnson is the author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, just published in paperback. It is the final volume of his Blowback Trilogy, which also includes Blowback (2000) and The Sorrows of Empire (2004).

Cartoon: Pakistan's Democracy

2008-01-08T00:23:00.002+05:00

Of a Heroin in Pakistani Politics

2008-01-08T00:23:00.001+05:00

I heard the sad news of Benazir Bhutto's assassination in a hotel in Pensacola, where I was staying for the night on my return from Houston, Texas. I and my wife were really shocked by it.

Though never fond of the lady because of the corruption and mismanagement during her two stints in power, her death is really tragic. It also signifies how polarized and intolerant the society in Pakistan is. I would attribute three immediate causes for her death:

The way US had promoted and brokered a deal between her and General Musharraff, she was seen as too pro-US. She had in fact never tried to hide the fact that the road to prime minister house in Pakistan lied through Washington. In an interview on international media, she had also supported US invasion of Iraq. She made sure that she was seen as a staunch US ally. No one else in the country had tried to so obsequiously advocate US policies.
Her meeting with Hamid Karazi, president of Afghanistan, which signified coalition of the willing to to root out Taliban. She had been warned not to meet him. Perhaps she did so at the behest of the US. It was like starting a war against Taliban before she had a gun in her hand.They had one and got her first.
She had agreed in an interview to some foreign correspondent that she would offer access to Mr. A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic program, to International Atomic Energy Agency and US authorities. The man is under virtual house arrest these days because of allegations that he has sold nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea. For some hawks, this was not acceptable. This might have been seen by them as the first step towards compromising on Pakistan's nuclear program as whole.

After her death, she has been called an icon of democracy, a symbol of Pakistani federation and what not. Even those political commentators who had been critical of her for supporting General Musharraff are eulogizing her efforts for the restoration of democracy. She is being portrayed as

We are such stuff as Dreams are made of!

The outpouring of grief on her tragic death makes sense but attributing such things to a lady whose record in power was dismal, if not outright shameful, is not understandable. She was a totally pragmatic and practical woman who knew what she wanted: power and authority (which she considered her birthright). Her father's death and subsequent events in her life had killed any germs of idealism in her. Yes, she should not have died the way she died, but those who heap excessive praise on her only talk about her struggle against dictators but forget political compromises she made especially the ones more recently.

Her death was followed by loot and arson unheard of in the country before. This only indicates the presence of a greater malaise in our society as pointed out by Mr. Arif Hasan in his article in Dawn. According to him, this was not just the outpouring of grief but of anger against something more sinister. In his own words:

"...you see nothing but burnt-out cars, trucks and trailers, attacked universities and schools, destroyed factories and government buildings and banks, petrol pumps and ‘posh’ food outlets — all symbols of exploitation; institutions where the poor cannot afford to study; businesses where they cannot get jobs; government offices where they have to pay bribes and where they are insulted and abused.

This is not a law and order situation but an outpouring, not only of grief but of anger against corruption, injustice and hunger. Many of the food-carrying vehicles were looted and around their burnt remains there is still evidence of the flour and sugar they were carrying. It is important to note that along the highway no khokhas, small eating places and modest shops had been burnt or damaged."

Benazir Bhutto was also a beneficiary of this system. She lived in a palatial house and had erected a facade of democracy and love for the poor. Her father's hanging and her struggle against dictators to wrest control and power (for herself) in the name of the poor, helped her maintain this facade. In life, reluctant to yield the limelight, she had sidelined rivals such as her own brother and more recently, Mr. Aitzaz Ahsan, who remains under house arrest at General Musharraf’s behest, but wields enormous moral authority.

In any case, her unnatural death has re-opened old wounds especially in the province of Sindh where she was from. She lost her life because she had become too bold and daring in expressing her views. This is common knowledge that whoever comes to power in Pakistan will not deviate from certain policies sacrosanct to Washington, but no one else had accepted this so openly. To her killers, she had reached a point of abject surrender bordering on recklessness.

Pakistan's flawed and feudal princess

2008-01-03T08:20:00.000+05:00

It's wrong for the West simply to mourn Benazir Bhutto as a martyred democrat, says this acclaimed south Asia expert. Her legacy is far murkier and more complex

William Dalrymple
Sunday December 30, 2007
The Observer

One of Benazir Bhutto's more dubious legacies to Pakistan is the Prime Minister's house in the middle of Islamabad. The building is a giddy, pseudo-Mexican ranch house with white walls and a red tile roof. There is nothing remotely Islamic about the building which, as my minder said when I went there to interview the then Prime Minister Bhutto, was 'PM's own design'. Inside, it was the same story. Crystal chandeliers dangled sometimes two or three to a room; oils of sunflowers and tumbling kittens that would have looked at home on the Hyde Park railings hung below garishly gilt cornices.

The place felt as though it might be the weekend retreat of a particularly flamboyant Latin-American industrialist, but, in fact, it could have been anywhere. Had you been shown pictures of the place on one of those TV game-shows where you are taken around a house and then have to guess who lives there, you may have awarded this hacienda to virtually anyone except, perhaps, to the Prime Minister of an impoverished Islamic republic situated next door to Iran.

Which is, of course, exactly why the West always had a soft spot for Benazir Bhutto. Her neighbouring heads of state may have been figures as unpredictable and potentially alarming as President Ahmadinejad of Iran and a clutch of opium-trading Afghan warlords, but Bhutto has always seemed reassuringly familiar to Western governments - one of us. She spoke English fluently because it was her first language. She had an English governess, went to a convent run by Irish nuns and rounded off her education with degrees from Harvard and Oxford.

'London is like a second home for me,' she once told me. 'I know London well. I know where the theatres are, I know where the shops are, I know where the hairdressers are. I love to browse through Harrods and WH Smith in Sloane Square. I know all my favourite ice cream parlours. I used to particularly love going to the one at Marble Arch: Baskin Robbins. Sometimes, I used to drive all the way up from Oxford just for an ice cream and then drive back again. That was my idea of sin.'

It was difficult to imagine any of her neighbouring heads of state, even India's earnest Sikh economist, Manmohan Singh, talking like this. For the Americans, what Benazir Bhutto wasn't was possibly more attractive even than what she was. She wasn't a religious fundamentalist, she didn't have a beard, she didn't organise rallies where everyone shouts: 'Death to America' and she didn't issue fatwas against Booker-winning authors, even though Salman Rushdie ridiculed her as the Virgin Ironpants in his novel Shame.

However, the very reasons that made the West love Benazir Bhutto are the same that gave many Pakistanis second thoughts. Her English might have been fluent, but you couldn't say the same about her Urdu which she spoke like a well-groomed foreigner: fluently, but ungrammatically. Her Sindhi was even worse; apart from a few imperatives, she was completely at sea.

English friends who knew Benazir at Oxford remember a bubbly babe who drove to lectures in a yellow MG, wintered in Gstaad and who to used to talk of the thrill of walking through Cannes with her hunky younger brother and being 'the centre of envy; wherever Shahnawaz went, women would be bowled over'.

This Benazir, known to her friends as Bibi or Pinky, adored royal biographies and slushy romances: in her old Karachi bedroom, I found stacks of well-thumbed Mills and Boons including An Affair to Forget, Sweet Imposter and two copies of The Butterfly and the Baron. This same Benazir also had a weakness for dodgy Seventies easy listening - 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree' was apparently at the top of her playlist. This is also the Benazir who had an enviable line in red-rimmed fashion specs and who went weak at the sight of marrons glace.

But there was something much more majestic, even imperial, about the Benazir I met when she was Prime Minister. She walked and talked in a deliberately measured and regal manner and frequently used the royal 'we'. At my interview, she took a full three minutes to float down the 100 yards of lawns separating the Prime Minister's house from the chairs where I had been told to wait for her. There followed an interlude when Benazir found the sun was not shining in quite the way she wanted it to. 'The sun is in the wrong direction,' she announced. Her hair was arranged in a sort of baroque beehive topped by a white gauze dupatta. The whole painted vision reminded me of one of those aristocratic Roman princesses in Caligula.

This Benazir was a very different figure from that remembered by her Oxford contemporaries. This one was renowned throughout Islamabad for chairing 12-hour cabinet meetings and for surviving on four hours' sleep. This was the Benazir who continued campaigning after the suicide bomber attacked her convoy the very day of her return to Pakistan in October, and who blithely disregarded the mortal threat to her life in order to continue fighting. This other Benazir Bhutto, in other words, was fearless, sometimes heroically so, and as hard as nails.

More than anything, perhaps, Benazir was a feudal princess with the aristocratic sense of entitlement that came with owning great tracts of the country and the Western-leaning tastes that such a background tends to give. It was this that gave her the sophisticated gloss and the feudal grit that distinguished her political style. In this, she was typical of many Pakistani politicians. Real democracy has never thrived in Pakistan, in part because landowning remains the principle social base from which politicians emerge.

The educated middle class is in Pakistan still largely excluded from the political process. As a result, in many of the more backward parts of Pakistan, the feudal landowner expects his people to vote for his chosen candidate. As writer Ahmed Rashid put it: 'In some constituencies, if the feudals put up their dog as a candidate, that dog would get elected with 99 per cent of the vote.'

Today, Benazir is being hailed as a martyr for freedom and democracy, but far from being a natural democrat, in many ways, Benazir was the person who brought Pakistan's strange variety of democracy, really a form of 'elective feudalism', into disrepute and who helped fuel the current, apparently unstoppable, growth of the Islamists. For Bhutto was no Aung San Suu Kyi. During her first 20-month premiership, astonishingly, she failed to pass a single piece of major legislation. Amnesty International accused her government of having one of the world's worst records of custodial deaths, killings and torture.

Within her party, she declared herself the lifetime president of the PPP and refused to let her brother Murtaza challenge her. When he persisted in doing so, he ended up shot dead in highly suspicious circumstances outside the family home. Murtaza's wife Ghinwa and his daughter Fatima, as well as Benazir's mother, all firmly believed that Benazir gave the order to have him killed.

As recently as the autumn, Benazir did and said nothing to stop President Musharraf ordering the US and UK-brokered 'rendition' of her rival, Nawaz Sharif, to Saudi Arabia and so remove from the election her most formidable rival. Many of her supporters regarded her deal with Musharraf as a betrayal of all her party stood for.

Behind Pakistan's endless swings between military government and democracy lies a surprising continuity of elitist interests: to some extent, Pakistan's industrial, military and landowning classes are all interrelated and they look after each other. They do not, however, do much to look after the poor. The government education system barely functions in Pakistan and for the poor, justice is almost impossible to come by. According to political scientist Ayesha Siddiqa: 'Both the military and the political parties have all failed to create an environment where the poor can get what they need from the state. So the poor have begun to look to alternatives for justice. In the long term, flaws in the system will create more room for the fundamentalists.'

In the West, many right-wing commentators on the Islamic world tend to see the march of political Islam as the triumph of an anti-liberal and irrational 'Islamo-fascism'. Yet much of the success of the Islamists in countries such as Pakistan comes from the Islamists' ability to portray themselves as champions of social justice, fighting people such as Benazir Bhutto from the Islamic elite that rules most of the Muslim world from Karachi to Beirut, Ramallah and Cairo.

This elite the Islamists successfully depict as rich, corrupt, decadent and Westernised. Benazir had a reputation for massive corruption. During her government, the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International named Pakistan one of the three most corrupt countries in the world.

Bhutto and her husband, Asif Zardari, widely known as 'Mr 10 Per Cent', faced allegations of plundering the country. Charges were filed in Pakistan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States to investigate their various bank accounts.

When I interviewed Abdul Rashid Ghazi in the Islamabad Red Mosque shortly before his death in the storming of the complex in July, he kept returning to the issue of social justice: 'We want our rulers to be honest people,' he said. 'But now the rulers are living a life of luxury while thousands of innocent children have empty stomachs and can't even get basic necessities.' This is the reason for the rise of the Islamists in Pakistan and why so many people support them: they are the only force capable of taking on the country's landowners and their military cousins.

This is why in all recent elections, the Islamist parties have hugely increased their share of the vote, why they now already control both the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan and why it is they who are most likely to gain from the current crisis.

Benazir Bhutto was a courageous, secular and liberal woman. But sadness at the demise of this courageous fighter should not mask the fact that as a pro-Western feudal leader who did little for the poor, she was as much a central part of Pakistan's problems as the solution to them.

William Dalrymple's latest book, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857, published by Bloomsbury, recently won the Duff Cooper Prize for History

The Case of Musharraf and the Drunk Uncle

2007-11-16T23:08:00.000+05:00

by Muhammad Hanif

Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf deserves our sympathy. Not because he has been forced to carry out a coup against his own regime, not because his troops are being kidnapped en masse by Pakistani Taliban and then awarded Rs 500 for good behaviour, not because he himself has become a prisoner in his Army House and can't even nip out for coffee and Paan as he used to, but because he has utterly lost his grip over grammar.

In my 15 years in journalism, I have covered three coups. And as I walked towards my office last Saturday, I had the cynicism of someone who has seen it all before. As I entered the BBC offices on a chilly Saturday afternoon in London, a senior Pakistan hand, who like me had interrupted his cosy weekend to cover the story, wondered aloud why the general was taking so long before appearing on national television and explaining his actions.

"His speech writer is too old for all this excitement. He is probably taking his time," I said. Barrister Sharifuddin Peerzada has midwifed every single coup in Pakistan and when General Musharraf took over in 1999, we had to wait until 3 am for him to address the nation. The nation listened to his 10 minutes of neatly turned out verbosity and, relieved, went to sleep. Peerzada may lack in democratic credentials, but he cares about his syntax. Last Saturday as I arrived at my desk, Musharraf had already started his address. And it was immediately clear to me that he had fallen into that aging dictator's familiar trap: He had written his own speech.

I exaggerate because he only occasionally glanced at his notes and for 40 minutes talked, well, gibberish; the kind of stuff that only journalists and think-tank- /wallah/s would take seriously. I was so unsettled "not by what he was saying, but by the way he was saying it " that I listened to the entire speech again last night.

I have been accused of punctuation abuse often enough to take these things in my stride, but for the 40 minutes that General Musharraf spoke in Urdu, he didn't use one proper sentence.

He replaced his verbs with hand gestures, nouns slipped off his shrugged shoulders, adjectives quivered under his desk.

And when he said, "Extremists have gone very extreme," it suddenly occurred to me why his speech pattern seemed so familiar. He was that uncle that you get stranded with at a family gathering when everybody else has gone to sleep but there is still some whisky left in the bottle. And uncle thinks he is about to say something very profound - if you would only pour him one last one.

Consider this; in the middle of his speech when everyone was silently urging him to get to the point, losing the thread of his diatribe about how judicial activism was responsible for the rise of jihadis in Pakistan, he abruptly said, "I have imposed emergency," then looked into the camera, waved his hand in a dismissive gesture and said, "You must have seen it on TV."

He forgot to mention that he had pulled the plug on /all/ television channels except the State-run television. It might sound like old-school dictator talk, but just imagine if somebody took away your television and then told you, 'Oh, did you see that thing on TV?'

For those who haven't suffered General Musharraf's regime directly, he can come across as a rakish figure, a daredevil who easily switches between his camouflage commando uniform and designer suits and then half sleeved shirts for attending fashion shows - his favourite cultural activity before he was forced to abandon it because of security concerns.

His CV is impressive: Here is a man who can manage the frontline on America's war and terror, get rid of three prime ministers and scores of generals and still find time to write an autobiography and then get George W Bush to endorse it in front of the world media.

I visited Delhi soon after Musharraf's failed Agra summit and he seemed to have earned the grudging respect of the Delhi elite. My Indian colleagues looked at stone-faced Vajpayee and wondered, why can't the new shining India have a handsome leader like Musharraf. One south Delhi resident claimed that his wife had started watching Pakistani channels obsessively just to get a glimpse of our commando President.

I reminded my Indian friend of Musharraf's Kargil adventure. "How come you have forgotten your Kargil widows so soon?" I said. "Well come off it, he is a bit of a matinee idol from the fifties," I was told. I am not a big fan of period Bollywood, so I kept quiet.

As I watched the speech this Saturday, I wondered if my Indian friend's wife saw the same Musharraf that I saw on my screen. He was like that uncle that I mentioned earlier, who after a couple of drinks not only wants to explain the meaning of life, but also why he is the most misunderstood man in the world, how your aunt never valued him, why the world is run by a cabal of Jewish gays and why Japanese technology is a disgrace.

You want to take the bottle away and tell him to get some sleep. He wants to tell you he loves you more than his own son and now can you pour him another drink.

I am not even remotely suggesting that Musharraf was drunk when he addressed the nation. No, it was something far more sinister. He seemed to be having an out of body experience, there he sat in his /sherwani /reading an order written by his uniformed alter ego, wagging a finger at himself, accusing his own government of spreading terrorism.

And let's not forget that when I say Pakistani government, I mean General Pervez Musharraf.

Here are some random things he said. And trust me, these things were said quite randomly:

Yes, he did say, "Extremism / bahut /extreme /ho //gaya // hai / (/extremism has become too extreme /)."

"/Hum se koi darta hi nahin /(/nobody is scared of us anymore /)."

"Islamabad /mein /extremist /bharay houay hain /(/Islamabad// is full of extremists/)."

"/Hakumat ke andar hakumat bana rakhi hai/ (/there is a government within government/)."

"/Har waqt bas /court /ke chakkar lagatey rehtay hain /(/officials are being asked to go to the courts every other day /)."

"Officials /ki beizzati kartay hain /(/officials are being insulted by the judiciary/)."

At one point he appeared wistful when reminiscing about his first three years in power - "/mera /total control /thha / (/I had total control /)." You were almost tempted to ask: What happened then, uncle?

But obviously, uncle didn't need any prompting. He launched into his routine about three stages of democracy. He claimed he was about to launch the third and final phase of democracy (the way he said it, he managed to make it sound like the Final Solution). And just when you thought he was about to make his point, he took an abrupt turn and plunged into a deep pool of self pity.

This involved a long-winded anecdote about how the Supreme Court judges would rather attend a colleagues' daughter's wedding rather than just get it over with and decide that he is a constitutional President.

As I said, I have heard some dictator speeches in my life, but nobody has gone so far as to mention someone's daughter's wedding for imposing martial law in the country.

When for the last few minutes of his speech he addressed his audience in the West in English, I suddenly felt a deep sense of humiliation. This part of his speech was scripted. Sentences began and ended. I felt humiliated that my President not only thinks that we are not evolved enough for things like democracy and human rights, but because we can't even handle concepts like proper syntax and grammar.

Abraham Lincoln was quoted. The slow and painful evolution of Western democracy was evoked. Idealists were told to manage their expectations and then there was the obligatory poetic flourish: "I would not let this country commit suicide."

Sure, a colleague chipped in, I would rather strangle it with my own hands.

As he closed his speech with a rather poetic "forever Pakistan, forever," and the national anthem started to play, it occurred to me that our whole nation is probably feeling like a Kargil widow by now. With no cable television to console her sorrows.

Read in CounterPunch.

Mushy: Handsome in Uniform

2007-11-08T02:55:00.000+05:00

By MAUREEN DOWD

President Bush came to the steps of the Capitol yesterday for a Second Inaugural do-over. Here is the text of his revised speech:

ON this day, when we celebrate the durable wisdom of our Constitution, we must remember: Constitutions don’t work for everyone. It’s not a one-size-fits-all type deal.

We are led, by recent events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the repression of liberty in other lands.

Once I thought my daddy was a wimp for cuddlin’ up real close with dictators, tradin’ stability for freedom. But now I gotta admit, that’s a darn fair trade. As I told Mushy last night on that cool, high-tech videophone I got in the Sit Room, the best hope for expanding peace is expanding dictators.

In America’s ideal of freedom, we are ennobled by a heart for the weak. But we must also have a heart for the strongmen.

Sometimes when the soul of a nation speaks, we must listen. But if that soul is housed in a bunch of trial lawyers wearing identical dark suits and calling my man Mushy a “dog,” I say, bring on the batons. Police tear-gassing lawyers is really just a foreign version of tort reform, which I support.

Those lawyers should be in jail. Mushy told me they were reckonin’ to represent Osama when General-General catches him. Which will be any day now. He’s a man of his word.

I don’t blame Mushy for dissolving that disloyal Supreme Court. When I needed to subvert the democratic process during the 2000 recount, my Supreme Court was totally supportive.
House arrest for that fired chief justice sounds very relaxin’, especially if he’s got a feather pillow.

I think Mushy should put Benazir Bhutto under house arrest in Karachi. They call her “a kleptocrat in an Hermès scarf.” I call her a chaos magnet.

She’s slippery. One minute she’s overlooking Mushy’s flaws, the next she’s appalled by them. I’m not even sure what nickname to use. Her friends called her Pinky at Harvard and Bibi later. I think I like Pinky. From the day of our foundin’, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave.

But I looked into Mushy’s eyes and saw a master, a man committed to helping us fight terror. And sometimes we must fight terror with tyranny. He promised me he’d be a more low-key autocrat, stop wearing that scary uniform — at least when he’s playing tennis.

From now on, it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of tyrannical movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending democracy in our world so liberty can thrive.

We will persistently clarify the moral choice before every ruler and nation: Choose oppression, which can work, as we see with our Arab allies, or freedom, which — O.K., I admit it this once — we can’t make work in Iraq.

America’s influence is not unlimited. And unfortunately for the oppressed, Mushy’s open defiance is helping to further undermine America’s influence. But we will use what influence we have left to pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains and that human beings aspire to live at the mercy of bullies.

I’m gonna have to sweet-talk Laura on coming around on Burma. I might even have to kiss her hand, like Sarko.

Condi was very worried about Mushy suspending the Constitution, but Vice says Constitutions are for sissies. He doesn’t see anything wrong with Mushy’s press blackout. He thinks we can learn a few lessons from him.

Vice says if we had someone decisive like Mushy in Iraq instead of those floppy Iranian puppets we put in power, we’d be a lot better off.

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will ignore your oppression and excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will not stand with you.

The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to mistrust them. Stop your journey of progress and justice, and America will not only walk at your side, we’ll give you billions of dollars and lots of big-ticket stuff, like F-16s — no strings attached. And we’ll take you at your word that you have no intention of using them against India.

In the long run, there is justice without freedom, and there can be human rights once the human rights activists have been thrown in the pokey.

Three years ago, I believed that the most important question history would ask us was: Did our generation advance the cause of freedom?

But now I am older and wiser. I know that the most important question history will ask us is: What’s a little martial law between friends?

(Click on the title to go to the NY Times website)

The Evolution of Aesop's Fables.....

2007-10-29T22:22:00.000+05:00

(This was forwarded to me through an e-mail. It is interesting though I find the analogies misleading)

That is great. We poor ants moved to Canada. And some to UK, Australia and USA. The rest of our grasshopper family is where they belong. Would the grasshoppers may get mad at me if I send it to them? But its just a possibility that we could become the grasshoppers and they the ants?

Traditional Version
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the Summer away. Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Modern Version
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

Geo TV, BBC, ARY, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Asma Jahangir stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house. Imran Khan goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter. Amnesty International and Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry criticize the Pakistan Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper. The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance).
Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Islamic parties call for "Hartal" in Frontier and Baluchistan demanding a Judicial Enquiry.
MQM Coalition in Sindh immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers. Sheikh Rasheed allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Pakistan Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Shalimar'. Punjab Govt. makes ' Special Reservation ' for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services.
Finally, the President drafts an ordinance ' Anti State Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act' [ASTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the winter. Mobilizes state agencies.

The Ant is fined for failing to comply with ASTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, it's home is confiscated by the NAB and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by PTV.

Nawaz Sharif calls it ' A Triumph of Justice!'
Benazir calls it ' Democratic Justice'.
MQM calls it the 'Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden'.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz invites the Grasshopper to address the National Assembly.

Many years later...
The Ants have since migrated to the US, Canada, UK and Middle East, have worked harder than they did before, set up a multi-billion dollar business. 000s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation somewhere in Pakistan …

As a result of losing a lot of hard working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers at state expense, Pakistan is still a developing, albeit a democratic country!

Moral: Democracy, the triumph of mediocrity over merit.

2007-07-20T09:32:00.002+05:00

Reinventing Government: Building Trust in Government

2007-07-11T10:10:00.001+05:00

United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) held 7th Global Forum on Reinventing Government- Building Trust in Government on 26-29 June, 2007 in Vienna. I had the opportunity to attend the Forum and benefit from intriguing and provocative discussions on the topic. I was also part of the two day workshop on “Restoring Trust in Government through Public Sector Innovations” and acted as a rapporteur for one of the groups. This write – up is based on different thoughts and ideas emerging from the Forum. For those interested in the official version of Forum's outcome, please consult Vienna Declaration.

Keeping in view the contemporary environment, I believe, the title of the Forum should have been “Building Trust in Government through the Private Sector.” Building Trust in Government is neither an innovation nor a reinvention; rather it indicates going back to the ethos of the public sector, which the neo-liberal ideologues regard as trivial and unimportant. New Public Management has taken the government to backstage. The World Bank and IMF have shown distinct preference for the private sector by promoting privatization, liberalization and deregulation. The result is that it is no longer “Government” we talk about but “Governance” which is public – private sector neutral.

The biggest manifestation of the rise of the private sector is privatization. Now, instead of building Trust in Government, the provision of public services is being transferred to the private sector. With the privatization of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC), Government of Pakistan has absolved itself of the responsibility of providing electricity to the citizens of Karachi, a megapolis of more than 10.00 million people and the country’s largest industrial hub and financial center. Previously, Government and its representative public sector corporation were blamed for power failures. From this year, government will not be blamed for the inefficiency of KESC. Even when some condemned the government for power failures (called load shedding in Pakistan), it conveniently responded that it is not its business any longer. There have been riots in Karachi due to power failures lasting for 10-12 hours every day and industrial output has been down. Government has, however, remained ensconced in its ivory tower, urging the private sector company to improve its service. Privatization shows that since governments cannot earn trust of the people by providing public services in an efficient manner, they decide to hand over services to the private sector.

Justice, accountability and public trust are the three conditions/ principles for stable institutions in any country. With markets at the forefront, Governments are needed to regulate the private sector and this need has never been greater before. Global integration has a cost especially for the poor and Governments have to intervene and develop public policies so that globalization is a win-win situation. With globalization, governments are compared everywhere, so they have to function efficiently. ICT can be one way of communicating with the people, but likewise, people can also communicate and show whether they have trust in the government. Rewards for trust are immeasurable. In Scandinavian countries, a large percent of incomes goes to governments as tax revenue, but the citizens are still satisfied with their governments because they get excellent public services in return.

Governments normally compare themselves with the previous years. However, they should also compare themselves with everybody else. Even if they are better than last year, but are slower than other states in the region, there is a need to improve their governance. There has been a lot of talk and emphasis in recent years on Business to Business (B2B) interaction. What I feel is that there is an even greater need for Government to Business (G2B) and Government to People (G2P) initiatives.

Local knowledge is important for innovation to make it sustainable and earn trust of the people. For this, community should be involved and should have trust in the innovation being introduced. This will also help in reducing resistance from change that often comes with innovation and is a big impediment from within the community rather than from outside. An innovation imported and transplanted from abroad, without involving the community and in disregard to local knowledge, will not take roots and is bound to fail.

Innovation should also be seen in its proper context. Some things may be innovation for developing countries but may not be so for the developed world, which have already crossed a certain threshold. United Nations has presented an e-procurement system as an excellent innovative model for developing countries and has also awarded it Public Service Award. However, this is a common practice in the developed countries. There are extreme examples of countries such as Cambodia, where there has been talk about peace and reconciliation after the civil war. Political stability, rule of law and presence of a legal framework in the new regime are considered an innovation in that country. Similarly, in Bangladesh, open press and media has increased trust in government. This has been possible due to the presence of a non-partisan caretaker government. Since the country has never experienced a free and open media, this is an innovation for Bangladesh. Developed countries have crossed this stage long time before and are thinking about innovation in a new perspective. This shows that the innovation can at best be contextual.

Effective leadership is important for introducing innovation and vice versa. To be an effective leader, it is sometimes necessary to deviate from a conventional line and try to be different and innovative. This leadership does not have to be at the national level; rather political will on the part of local officials is must for adopting innovative practices. Degree and extent of innovation is also predicated on societal values introduced since childhood, family primordial ties including race, religion and neighborhoods. It is also important that a solid database and information sets exist about needs of an individual and society as a whole. Implementation and monitoring mechanisms should also be in place to ensure that innovation takes roots and if there are any adjustments to be made, these are made in time and to the necessary extent. It is not simply knowing what others are doing but what is important is understanding how it was implemented and how can we replicate it according to our needs? On the one hand, innovation knows no limits, and on the other, it is also important to remember that small changes make a lot of difference. Innovation does not have to be radical. It is possible to tailor ideas to specific situations and local conditions.

Governments have to earn trust, rather than expect it to be there when they are elected. At the time of elections, there are promises, expectations and suspicions. It is by their actions that governments will earn confidence and trust of their people. Trust can be earned even when lost, but with a great deal of effort. However, like a rope that has snapped once, it will continue to show the scars resulting from the break, how well it is mended. It will never be the same strength and durability.

Drinking and Its Risks

2007-06-29T14:00:00.000+05:00

By Judy Peres |Tribune staff reporter

You eat your veggies, you exercise at least a few times a week, you gave up cigarettes and hormone-replacement pills, and you have a glass of red wine every day, all because you care about your health.

But one of these things is not like the others.

While your attention has been elsewhere, scientists have amassed persuasive evidence that drinking alcohol -- any form of alcohol, even in moderate amounts -- can pose a serious threat to your health.

Researchers have known for nearly 20 years that drinking alcoholic beverages can cause cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus and liver. But those diseases don't get much publicity. This year, the International Agency for Research on Cancer added breast and colon cancer -- two of the four major killer cancers -- to the list of malignancies known to be fostered by alcohol.

The risk is "dose dependent," meaning the more you drink the higher the risk.

According to comprehensive reviews of the scientific evidence, people who average just over one drink a day (100 grams of alcohol in a week's time) increase their chances of developing colon cancer by about 15 percent. For those who consume about four drinks daily, the risk is 40 percent higher.

Women who have one to two drinks a day increase their breast cancer risk by 13 percent. With four drinks, the risk is 50 percent higher. That's twice the increase in relative risk attributed to Prempro, the hormone pill tested in the Women's Health Initiative, the well-known study that found the risks of hormone replacement outweigh the benefits.

Last month, yet another study reinforced the fact that even a glass or two of wine a day increases breast cancer risk. Yes, even red wine.

Drinking small amounts of alcohol -- a shot of hard liquor or a glass of beer or wine -- on a consistent daily basis does have a few proven health benefits.

Specifically, it reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes caused by blocked arteries by 10 to 15 percent. That's probably because alcohol increases good cholesterol and prevents blood platelets from clumping together.

"On the other hand, alcohol is detrimental for more than 60 diagnoses," said Juergen Rehm, head of public health and regulatory policies at the Ontario Center for Addiction and Mental Health.

"That red wine stuff -- how it was supposed to be protective -- was hyped completely out of whack by the media," Rehm said. "And whatever protective effect there is, is not about the red wine -- it's about the alcohol."

According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alcohol consumption is the third-biggest cause of preventable death in the U.S., after smoking and obesity. The centers estimate that in 2001, the most recent year for which data is available, drinking caused nearly 93,000 deaths.

That includes more than 12,000 cancer deaths, comparable to the 13,674 killed in alcohol-related traffic accidents.

The same data show that about 30,000 fatal heart attacks were prevented by moderate alcohol consumption, which is defined as fewer than two drinks a day for men and less than one drink a day for women. But Dr. Robert Brewer, head of the CDC alcohol team, said the evidence for alcohol preventing heart attacks is less reliable.

"We need to be cautious about interpreting the studies that suggest a benefit," said Brewer. "People who drink moderately are different from people who don't drink -- they exercise more, they have better medical insurance, their body-mass index is lower." In other words, they might have had fewer heart attacks because of factors other than alcohol intake.

Scientists don't know exactly how alcohol changes the cancer picture. Some researchers are analyzing the influence of alcohol on estrogen levels, which can affect the risk of breast cancer. But alcohol also affects liver function, which could impair the body's ability to get rid of potential cancer-causing agents.

The good news for worried drinkers, Rehm said, is that quitting seems to eventually reverse the added risk.

In a study published last month in the International Journal of Cancer, Rehm and his colleagues showed that the risk of head-and-neck and esophageal cancer decreased significantly within 10 years of giving up booze and was the same as that for non-drinkers after 20 years.

Klatsky co-wrote the study released last month that found even one or two drinks a day raised a woman's breast cancer risk. But there was no increased risk for those who reported having a few drinks a week.

"I don't know where the threshold is," said Klatsky, referring to the amount of alcohol above which breast cancer risk goes up. But "I don't want women to fear they can't have a glass of champagne at a wedding."

Klatsky pointed out that the risk-benefit analysis will be different for each person.

(For full story, click on the title above that would take you to Chicago Tribune web edition)