Karachi Could Bleed To Pakistan's Death

Pew Research,

#564

Dont bother. Riaz ul Haq is a bigger spin doctor than Romair ever was.

He believes the militants are "assets" to be saved against India. These nutcases actually believe that the war of a 1000 cuts was a correct policy.

{{The US doesn't like any deals other the ones it makes...it demands compliance, not alliance. That's what destroyed Mush, is destroying Zardari, and will destroy Sharif if he plays ball with Americans.}}

Then have some self respect & refuse the aid. You guys act if aid is your frikking birthright. Dont give me crap about Pakistan sacrificing. You hunt with the hound & run with the fox. You are trying the same spin doctoring that Hussen Haqqani is trying. Nice try, no cigar.

Its a good thing the Obama administration recognized this perfidy. There are very good reasons not to trust the Pakis. If you dont trust Americans, stop being a whore.

I agree with tahmed that Pakistan shouldn't be allowed to collapse. At the same time, I dont want my tax dollars buying a condo in Dubai or India-specific weapons.

Re: # 563 Riaz

"Pakistanis need to be smart. They should make/use deals to divide and conquer the insurgents..."

So, what are you suggesting, brother? Can you be clear?

Re: # 559 tahmed: "In Fata, the US vigorously in fact vigorously opposed musharraf's "deal" with the taliban when the military had them on the run. Pakistani commentators were at that time claiming the usual "The US does not understand the local situation, we do". Turned out, the US government was right all along, and instead of "deals" musharraf should have gone all out and wiped these rats out. but these rats were his job security, not to mention his meal ticket, as i mentioned..."

The US doesn't like any deals other the ones it makes...it demands compliance, not alliance. That's what destroyed Mush, is destroying Zardari, and will destroy Sharif if he plays ball with Americans.

The US made similar deals with the Sunnis in Iraq, and earlier, a few centuries ago, it used such deals to isolate and wipe out the entire native population of America.

Let's face it: The US is viewed with strong suspicion by most Pakistanis, for good reasons.

Pakistanis need to be smart. They should make/use deals to divide and conquer the insurgents...we know the Pakistani Taliban are not really a monolith but lots of feuding tribals. The only thing that unites them is not their undeniable religious fanaticism but their common and visceral hatred of America, the "infidel" hegemon and its cronies...like the Northern Alliance, Indians, Israelis and America's identifiable allies in Pakistan.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Re: # 555

riaz mian,

.......... 40% of the budget goes to debt servicing and you see nothing wrong with that ? ....... i suppose you pay 40% of your income as interest on your credit cards ...... no wonder your glass is always full - hopefully your 'faqa masti' will pay off one day .......

........ i hereby appoint you as the president for life of the optimist club ...........

I worded that badly. I mean, how much of the 40% is conditional aid, unconditional loans, and how much money in written off 'aid', or unconditonal aid that Pakistan doesn't have to pay back, that was gifted to it, has Pakistan received. These are the relevant questions.

And does anyone know what percentage of India's budget goes towards servicing debt?

"Absolutely! About 40% of Pak annual budget pays for debt servicing"

+++++

So what percentage of the Indian annual budget pays for debt servicing? And are the debts being serviced by that 40% direct aid which is written off by various donors, or separate and in reality just loans?

40% of the annual budget. That is bad houskeeping.

RiazHaq #554 I dont totally agree here. as i clearly recall, mush was making "deals" of all kinds with the islamists while trying to push aside what he considered his real opposition - namely, the mainstream parties.

In Fata, the US vigorously in fact vigorously opposed musharraf's "deal" with the taliban when the military had them on the run. Pakistani commentators were at that time claiming the usual "The US does not understand the local situation, we do". Turned out, the US government was right all along, and instead of "deals" musharraf should have gone all out and wiped these rats out. but these rats were his job security, not to mention his meal ticket, as i mentioned...

Here is another tidbit from the same newstory:

"Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the Pakistani military's spokesman referred to the Taliban in noticeably respectful terms, even as he complained that it had killed prisoners whose hands had been tied. His language contrasted sharply with the mocking defiance of recent Taliban pronouncements. In the past two days, Taliban spokesmen have asserted that democracy is "infidel" and that the fighters will never lay down their weapons. "

Alla hu Akbar

Tahmed

You had asked, "why does not the military 'take out' the Taliban?" (or something similar). Well, the answer, Inshallah, is in The Washington Post:

"Despite the Taliban's record of rapaciousness, it is hard for the Pakistani military establishment, trained to view Hindu-dominated India as its mortal enemy and inculcated with an Islamist mind-set during the military dictatorship of the 1980s, to accept Muslim insurgents as adversaries. Soldiers home on leave have been taunted for fighting their own people; desertions are rising. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/05/05/ST200905 0501490.html

Re #477

Kindly forgive my limited intelligence. What does it mean and who is the interactor for the statement that :

'fortunately we are better looking than hindoos' ???

Who are these we ???

Re: # 549: "Does Pakistan have to repay the money it receives?"

Absolutely! About 40% of Pak annual budget pays for debt servicing.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Re: # 553: "instead, he chose to be use these taliban as his job security and as a means to milk the Bush administration."

Both US and Pakistan were focused on al Qaeda threat for most of this decade with Bush-Mush agreeing. There was a mistaken belief that Taliban were not and could not become a real serious threat...as former US chair of joint chiefs said, " The Taliban have been eviscerated". Everyone underestimated the rag-tag band of the Taliban. That's what allowed them to regroup and rearm and pose the threat they do now. The incompetence and corruption of Karzai and increasing civilian death toll from US attacks also helped the Taliban. Poppy grown by the warlords who were coddled by the US became a source of funding for the Talibs and the failure to deliver to the people swelled the Taliban ranks. So there is plenty of blame to go around.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Riaz Haq #546 You are right that there was progress in a number of ways during musharraf's time - to what you say, I would add that item 3 in #543 below (i.e. the cell phones, and also the internet and TV) - all took off in pakistan during his time. The source of these changes was in the west, and the investors were private parties and not the pakistan government, but musharraf/shaukat aziz can be credited with not coming in the way.

the damaging thing musharraf did, of course, was not to go all out against the taliban when they first entered pakistan. instead, he chose to be use these taliban as his job security and as a means to milk the Bush administration. and in doing so, he negated (among other things) the positive things to the economy and indeed has brought pakistan on the verge of destruction. We now have a full fledged "civil war", a legacy of musharraf's double game of playing both sides of the fence (taliban, US).

#519, Anil I understand your pain, your entire education at HBS was a fitting into a tyrannous system exercise. You cannot think at the world level you are thinking at the individual country level just like individualism bs that keeps the little men and women busy while those at the top maintain a system that keeps them wealthy and in control. Look at the sea of underdevelopment, regardless of culture or religion in our world and then tell me if your Koreas and taiwans and Japans explain development- they do not, they 'developed' at the expense of whoring themselves and offering strategic leverage to the U.S. and for that the U.S. allows development outside of Europe to a tiny very tiny percent of global population.

TNITC masadi

Riaz:

Your scholarship is impeccable. Are you descended from migrants from India to Karachi?

Khuda Hafiz