China way to progress

Communism is the base on which china made great progress in every walk of life.
Communist revolution came in china in 1949. Before this, the people of the world did
not know much about the people of china. They considered it a small island. With the passage of time, china proved herself a great power in the field of economics, social and defence.

This is my point of view that China is an agriculture country.
The economy of China is decentralised. There are twenty-six provinces in china. They have been divided into self-sufficient agricultural communes and industrial units. There is an industrial unit in a commune where the agricultural produnts are manufactured. These products are not transferred any where. The people of villages do not have to go to city in search of job. New scientific methods are being introduced in such a way that people are given first preference rather
than machines.

The Chinese women are also hard working. Mao has said that half of China`s progress
is due to its women. They work eight hours per day. They have free facilities like as hospitalisation, nursery, infant schools and fifty-six paid days before child birth.
The chinese workers are very prosperous. Many workers are also housed within the factories. In the agricultural communes, houing is completely free. All medical treatment is entirely free for every chinese worker and only fifty percent is charged to his family members. There is an industrial unit, a kindergarten, a health centre and a cafeteria in every commune. The age of retirement is sixty for man and fifty for women.

Pension is near about fifty to seventy percent of the pay. There are a number of schemes for the needy and disabled. There is one holiday in a week and one week holidays in a year. There are only two national holidays May 1st and October 1st.

All the individuals of china do work day and night for the progress
of their country.

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Re: Afghan corruption: Do as we say, not as we do

Winning a counter-insurgency war is hard, and especially when you don't have reliable partners from within the local population. What makes it even harder is when policies designed to accomplish one goal that have the unintended effect of making other goals harder to achieve. When your own strategy contains such internal contradictions, success will be even more elusive.

Case in point: our commander-in-chief flew to Afghanistan last week to pay a call on Afghan president Hamid Karzai, in part to insist that Karzai do more to root out corruption in his government and in the country more generally. A stern lecture from Obama is unlikely to work, however, because Karzai knows a lot more about incentives and constraints he's facing and the various deals he has to make to stay in power. He's betting that Obama won't be willing to pull the plug and leave him on his own, and I'm sorry to say that Karzai is probably right.

But even as we are telling the Afghans to stop corruption, we are contributing to it by pumping vast sums of cold hard cash into Afghan society. According to yesterday's New York Times, part of our strategy in southern Afghanistan consists of flooding places like Marjah with "hundreds of thousands of dollars a week," in an effort to buy the loyalty of the local population. 

There are three problems here. 

First, as Times reporter Richard Oppel pointed out in his piece, we can't easily discriminate between Taliban sympathizers and other members of the local population, so some of the money we are disbursing is almost certainly going to our enemies. 

Second, other recipients of U.S. cash are quickly targeted by the Taliban, which continues to enjoy signifcant support among the local population. If Oppel's account is accurate, we are basically reminding the local population that cooperating with us is really, really dangerous. Moreover, as William Polk argues here, many local Pashtuns actually oppose these various cash-based "aid programs," because they perceive them (correctly) as designed to aid a foreign occupier's campaign against them, and to strengthen the despised central government.

Third, how can we credibly tell Karzai to "end corruption" (i.e., patronage, drug-dealing, payments to warlords, the exchange of cabinet positions for support, etc.), when we're relying on some of the same tactics ourselves? If our approach is to buy political support by doling out money or other benefits, why are we surprised when Karzai and his henchmen employ more-or-less that same approach back in Kabul? Pumping piles of cash into the local economy (no doubt with little or no accounting) is precisely the sort of policy that itself encourages very corruption that we claim to be opposing.

Even though I don't regard Afghanistan as a vital interest (for reasons I've explained before), I would like to think that our overall strategy was working. Remaining bogged down there is costly, and a significant distraction from other policy problems. So it would be nice if we were making genuine progress in weakening the Taliban, encouraging a political process of reconciliation, and fostering a more effective Afghan government. But it sure sounds like our efforts are at cross-purposes right now, which may be one reason why relations with the Karzai government aredeteriorating. 

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A TALE OF TWO PERVERTS AND HOW ELITIST EDITORS AT STARS AND STRIPES PUT STAFF SGT PHOTO ON PAGE ONE BUT "DOWN-PLAYED" EVEN WORSE CASE OF WEST POINT GRAD, JAG OFFICER, MAJ DAN WOOLVERTON, WHO USED INFANT SON IN CHILD PORN PRODUCTION - WHY IS "BABYSITTER" SICKO JOSHUA SMITH MORE DESERVING OF HEADLINES? "RANK HAS ITS PRIVILEGES" THEY SAY, BUT THIS IS RIDICULOUS

Air Force Staff Sgt. Joshua Smith is a low life scum. We have the utmost contempt for child molesters, and this guy needs to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life at the Leavenworth DB, in case another inmate decides to shank him in the shower room. But skinhead sex criminal, MAJ Dan Woolverton, deserves the big headlines at STARS AND STRIPES, not some NCO.

We wonder why the elitist and out-of-touch editors at STRIPES decided to give Smith the full PAGE ONE treatment, while "downplaying" coverage of an even worse case - that of a West Point graduate and JAG officer - who used his three-month old infant son in a homemade child-porn production?

Smith was nabbed for molesting tots he "babysat" at Ramstein AFB in Germany. He deserves everything he gets. But why is it an Air Force NCO rates front page coverage while Woolverton's story is given kids glove treatment? We didn't hesitate to give it splash-play and were the only media outlet to publish both Woolverton's USMA graduation pix and police mug photo.

It would seem that the major, precisely because he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and sent others to jail for the crimes he committed, ought to go to Leavenworth himself, instead of the country club minimum security lockup in North Carolina where financial swindler Bernie Madoff whiles away his days.

"DIFFERENT SPANKS FOR DIFFERENT RANKS"
AT ONCE-RESPECTED STARS AND STRIPES

As we've pointed out with the Jill Metzger cover-up and payoff, if she hadn't been an officer so well-connected, had an OSI "husband," a retired colonel "daddy," and strange relationship with a four-star general who did somersaults to save her "100% disabled" hide, she might have been court-martialed like an enlisted person.

The Smith case is a blatant example of how the DOD-funded STRIPES seems to discriminate according to rank. "Different spanks for different ranks" is a well known phrase among enlisted members, but "politically-correct" editors on this so-called objective newspaper sure do seem to tend to favor officers over non-coms and EM when it comes to adverse news coverage. Why is it that more and more of their readers are turning to MilitaryCorruption.com to get the unvarnished and uncensored truth about what is really going on in the U.S. military?

We don't suck up to the Pentagon or the politicians. We blast the Democrats as often as we did the Republicans when Bush was in power. One would think STRIPES would wake up to the fact their readership is a lot better educated than the average WWII G.I. They can't be fooled. We know that, from the huge volume of e-mail we get.

Let's try and show a little more fairness in news coverage, editors. Your readers deserve it.

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I was feeling glum about my fellow Americans and how some seem so incredibly ignorant. And like most of us, where do you turn for comfort? Why, YouTube, of course! The place where you can forget your troubles and go on an endless stroll through a landscape of funny and amazing videos.

I found a Bill Maher monologue from about a year ago, in which he hits the nail on the head. America IS full of ignorant people.

It's funny, but frightening too...
                                                     A long time ago, the leaders of this country realized that a functioning democracy requires an educated public. Uneducated people are easy to manipulate and fool, and don't have the knowledge they need to make sensible choices when voting.

Unfortunately, we're still not there. Just listen to some of the statistics Bill Maher gives. Contemplate what those people might be thinking as they go to the polls to vote. How can someone who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old and the sun revolves around the earth be trusted to vote for presidents, senators and congresspersons who will set our science and environmental policies?

Statistics prove that the far right, Tea Baggers and especially the evangelical right, attract uninformed and undereducated people. These groups thrive on ignorance and foster misinformation. So it's no surprise that these are the same people who advocate cutting taxes that support education. They're the same ones trying to reduce our science curriculum to a pile of rubble by injecting anti-scientific creationist drivel into our schools. They're the ones trying to take Thomas Jefferson out of our history books and substitute Ronald Regan.

If we ever do manage to get our schools in order and actually teach our kids what they need to know to be good citizens, the Tea Baggers and radical right will whither and die. They know this.

The only way things are going to get better is if those of us who care keep pushing back. We need to foster education, fight ignorance, keep creationism out of our science, and fight revisionist history.

So, I'll stop whining and get back to work. You too.

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Pakistan Army Chief Demands All Corrupt Ministers Must be Kicked Out of the PPP Tyranny

Pakistan Army Chief Demands All Corrupt Ministers Must be Kicked Out of the PPP Tyranny

Generals in Pakistan Push for Shake-Up of Government

By JANE PERLEZ

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, 28 September 2010 (The New York Times) - The
Pakistani military, angered by the inept handling of the country’s
devastating floods and alarmed by a collapse of the [Pakistan]
economy, is pushing for a shake-up of the [illegally] elected [PPPP]
government, and in the longer term, even the removal of [PPP corrupt]
President Asif Ali Zardari and his top lieutenants [including PPP
corrupt PM Yousuf Raza Gilani].

The [Pakistani] military, preoccupied by a war against militants and
reluctant to assume direct responsibility for the economic crisis, has
made clear it is not eager to take over the [Pakistan] government, as
it has many times before, military officials and politicians said.

But the [PPPP] government’s performance since the floods, which have
left 20 million people homeless and the [Pakistani] nation dependent
on handouts from skeptical foreign donors, has laid bare the deep
underlying tensions between military and civilian leaders.

American officials, too, say it has left them increasingly
disillusioned with Mr. Zardari, a deeply unpopular president who was
[fraudulently and unlawfully] elected two and a half years ago on a
wave of sympathy after the assassination of his wife, former [PPP]
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

In a meeting on Monday that was played on the front page of Pakistan’s
newspapers, the [Pakistan] Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani,
confronted the [PPP] president [Asif Ali Zardari] and his [PPP] prime
minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, over incompetence and corruption in the
[PPPP] government.

According to the press and Pakistani officials familiar with the
conversation, the General demanded that they dismiss at least some
ministers in the oversized 60-member cabinet, many of whom face
corruption charges.

The [PPPP] civilian government has so far resisted the General’s
demand. But the meeting was widely interpreted by the Pakistani news
media, which has grown increasingly hostile to the [PPP] president
[Asif Ali Zardari], as a rebuke to the civilian politicians and as
having pushed the government to the brink.

After the meeting, the [PPP] president’s office issued a statement,
approved by all the men, saying they had agreed “to protect the
democratic process and to resolve all issues in accordance with the
[Pakistan] Constitution.”

A Pakistani official close to the [PPP] president, who was familiar
with the conversation but did not want to be identified, said: “The
president made it clear that he would not leave, come what may.”

“Sanity had prevailed,” the official added.

Since the floods, the [PPPP] government has defended its handling of
the crisis, arguing that any government would have been overwhelmed by
its scale. Still, it is clear that General Kayani, head of the
country’s most powerful institution, and the one that has taken the
lead in the flood crisis, has ratcheted up the pressure on the [PPPP]
government.

Having secured an exceptional three-year extension in his post from
Mr. Zardari in July [2010], General Kayani appears determined to
prevent the [Pakistan] economy from bankruptcy. [Pakistani] Military
officers in the main cities have been talking openly about their
contempt for the Zardari government and what they term the economic
calamity, an unusual candor, reporters and politicians said.

“The gross economic mismanagement by the [PPPP] government is at the
heart of it,” said Rifaat Hussain, a professor and a confidant of the
military [and an ex-official of former PPP regime of Benazir Bhutto].
“And there is the rising public disaffection with the Pakistani
Peoples Party [PPP] under Zardari and Gilani.”

As the [Pakistani] military demands the overhaul, the [Pakistan]
Supreme Court is also pushing the [PPPP] government on corruption by
threatening to remove the [PPP] president’s immunity from prosecution,
a move that would expose him [Asif Ali Zardari] to charges of
corruption in an old money-laundering case in Switzerland [and several
other corruption cases in UK, France, Spain, UAE and the USA].

The [PPPP] government has defied the court’s demand to write a letter
to the Swiss Government requesting a reopening of the case against Mr.
Zardari, who served 11 years in prison in Pakistan on unproved
corruption charges. On Monday, the court granted an extension of two
weeks [until 13 October 2010] for the [PPPP] government to reconsider
its position.

Much of the rising disdain for the [PPPP] government has to do with
the perception among the media and the public of the callous and inept
handling of the floods by the [Pakistani] nation’s wealthy ruling
class.

Mr. Gilani drew public ire for appearing at an ersatz camp for flood
victims set up just for television cameras. It also did not help that
newspapers reported that scores of cartons from the London luxury
store Harrods had arrived at his residence in Lahore at the height of
the flooding. Mr. Zardari, meanwhile, was vilified for visiting his
chateau in France as torrents of water wiped out millions of villagers
in his home province, Sindh.

In his most recent visit to Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, the
American special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the
international community could not be expected to provide all the
billions of dollars needed to repair the flood damage, a warning
interpreted here as a rebuke of the [PPPP] civilian government and its
mismanagement.

But Washington, not unlike Pakistan’s military, is caught, American
officials say, because there is no appetite for a return of military
rule. Nor is there desire to see the opposition politician and former
[PML-N corrupt] prime minister, [Muhammad] Nawaz Sharif, resume
power.

Mr. Sharif, who has also faced corruption charges during his career,
is considered by Washington to be too close to some of Pakistan’s
militant groups, whose members vote in Punjab, the Sharif electoral
base.

As the head of the of the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim
League [PML-N], Mr. Sharif is not ready to come to the fore in any
case, his aides say, because he does not want to be associated with
the paralysis of the current [PPPP] government.

Of mounting concern to the Obama Administration is the potential for
serious unrest if the economy unspools further: inflation by some
predictions will reach 25 percent in the coming period. The price of
sugar has tripled, and the cost of flour has doubled since the Zardari
government came to power.

In particular, Washington wants the [PPPP] government to raise taxes
on the wealthy landed and commercial class, a shortcoming that has
become especially galling as Pakistan’s dependence on foreign donors
rises.

Pakistan’s revenues from taxes are among the lowest in the world: only
2 million Pakistanis of a population of 170 million pay income tax,
according to estimates by the United States.

A report in a leading newspaper, The News, said Monday that Mr. Gilani
and 25 of his ministers, including the [PPPP] finance minister, Hafiz
Shaikh, did not pay income taxes at all, according to sworn affidavits
by the ministers to the Election Commission of Pakistan [ECP].

The alarm about the [Pakistan] economy was first sounded by Mr.
Shaikh, a former officer of the World Bank, who told a meeting of
political and military laeders last month that the [PPPP] government
had enough money to pay only two months’ salaries. The economy was
“teetering on the brink” before the floods but was now heading for the
“abyss,” Mr. Shaikh was quoted as saying.

The [Pakistani] military officers who attended were astounded, Mr.
Hussain and others informed of the meeting said, and have pressed the
[PPPP] government for changes, politicians and diplomats said.

As the [Pakistani] military maneuvers for [regime] change, it is not
immune from criticism. Defense spending is budgeted at 13.6 percent of
total expenditures in 2011, in line with past yearly expenditures even
as the civilian population suffers.

The [Pakistani military's] defense budget remains beyond public
scrutiny, a fact that increasingly irks the public. “Do we even know
how much it costs taxpayers each year to make possible the office, the
home, the car fleets, attendants, guest houses and other amenities
that are enjoyed by the [Pakistan] Army Chief or even a corps
commander?” asked Babar Sattar, a lawyer who often writes about
corruption.

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Pakistan Army kicks out Rehman Malik from GHQ

Its a little old news but I still feel the needed to register my appreciation for the Pakistan Army when on Wednesday they refused entry / expelled / kicked out Mr. No-good Rehman Malik as he went to attend ‘a ceremony’ at the GHQ to pay homage to the army personnel who died during the siege on earlier in the week.

It was also reported in the news that initially the Ministerwas planning to do a grandiose press conference at the memorial, most probably to gain political mileage out of this tragedy, they proceeded to invite the press for ‘unveiling a plaque bearing the names of the slain military personnel’. But when his team got no response from the Army and the GHQ they were forced to call off the press conference and the plaque unveiling. Leaving Mr. Malik alone, twirling his thumbs ‘without protocol’ while he laid a wreath on the memorial and within three minutes he was whisked away back to the capital

I wish someone would have video recorded the expression on Rehman Malik’s face when he was being given the ‘bloody civilian’ treatment courtesy of the Pakistan Army. Many here, may argue that the Army should have accorded this dignitary with full protocol and at best the Army ‘did wrong’ to snub out at the Minister of Interior – quite possibly, but to be honest in my opinion this two-timing crook and his boss should be expelled out of Pakistan for their continued on going corruption which has literally left Pakistan on the global begging table, negotiating its heart and soul to merely exist – For now I would boldly stand to say PAKISTAN ARMY YOU DID US PROUD, would others have the courage to stand up against the corrupt that run our country.

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Corruption & Hypocrisy – No Angels under Khaki Uniform

The bizarre story of the Saudi cook began when Sharif (name changed) bought a piece of land in the Lahore Defence Housing Authority, managed and run by Army Officers, falling prey to the dubious sale of plots, believing that since Pakistan Army was managing it, he would not be swindled. When on a brief vacation to Lahore, Sharif wanted to have a look at the piece of land he had supposedly paid for, the Pakistan Army Brigadier and his juniors in the DHA, gave him the usual frustrating run around. He was never shown his land.

Sharif returned to his job with the Prince but at an opportune moment informed his royal employer of what had happened. The Prince straightway dialed General Pervez Musharraf.
The General, who would not listen to any one else except, of course, some body from Washington, asked his Vice Chief to order an inquiry as the main culprit was Musharraf’s own recently-shifted Corps Commander in Lahore, Lt. General Zarrar Azim.

Since the new Corps Commander wanted the facts, it turned out that the entire hierarchy of DHA, headed by a Brigadier was deep in collusion with some real estate agencies and were minting billions in fraudulent sales to people like Sharif.

The news of the DHA shake-up was broken by Lahore’s Daily “The News” on February 5, 2005. In a report from Lahore it said the military authorities had removed the top management of DHA on alleged corruption in the planned Phases 6-10 of the Lahore Cantonment Cooperative Housing Society (LCCHS). But the newspaper said DHA Administrator Brigadier Abdul Jalil Khan, Director Land, Lt. Col Ikram, Director Transfers Lt. Col Feroz Bhatti and Deputy Director Land Major Razaq had only been shifted and “placed at the disposal of the Station Headquarters.” Obviously because General Zarrar Azim, now posted in the GHQ, protected them.

The military authorities have constituted an enquiry committee, headed by Commandant Signals Brigade of the 4 Corps Brigadier Khalilullah Butt. The enquiry is underway against military officials and some high-profile realtors.” “The realtors include Yousuf Chauhan of the Chauhan Estate, Haji Allah Ditta of Defense Estate Mr Sahir of Sahir Estate. Apart from these, the owners of Panjnad Estate are also being interrogated,” the newspaper reported.

In its own guarded way, since writing negatively about top Army officers is a risky business in Pakistan, The News said: “The trail of the enquiry is expected to lead the investigators to a couple of high-ranking serving military officials as well. It is important to note this enquiry has been initiated on the orders of Vice Chief of the Army Staff (VCOAS), General Ahsan Saleem Hayat. Commander 4-Corps (Lahore), Lt-Gen Shahid Aziz, has played an important role.”

The Daily Times reported that property dealers had acquired several acres of land belonging to the government with fake names, in connivance with land revenue officials, and thereafter gave it to the DHA authorities. “The dealers acquired agricultural land (now DHA phases 5 to 10) and handed that to the DHA free of cost on the agreement that 25 per cent would be returned to them after their inclusion in the society. Due to stark differences in the prices of agricultural and DHA property, this translated into a very lucrative profit for investors.”

The investigations have led to the blacklisting of four major real estate agents in DHA: Chauhan Estate, Defence Estate, Property Talk and Al-Rehman Associate. Their offices were sealed and their records were confiscated. DHA security personnel have been posted outside the offices to ensure no one goes in. This was another way of helping the collaborators otherwise why would the Army not meet legal requirements to prosecute criminals who had swindled billions. Newspapers reported that DHA had allowed the offices to be reopened, but would not deal with them directly or indirectly.
The most disturbing aspect of the whole scandal, feared by some real estate experts, is that in their scramble to make big money, Army Officers working in the DHA may have sold large tracts of lands to Indian buyers who were investing in DHA lands through their Dubai front offices. According to one source one company had been inquiring about buying 500 acres of land near the Pak-India border. Under the mess that was going it, it may have done so already.

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CORRUPTION IN Pakistan: Civil, Military and Religious

Corruption in the sense of civil and military servants and Public officials and politicians of Pakistan pocketing public funds or taking bribes from local and foreign individuals, governments and businessmen, getting expensive land at discounted rates, and surrendering barren land in lieu of scores of millions in bank loans, is too well known and documented by in-country and international agencies, to be worthy of any unusual notice. After all, the country has had the dubious distinction of being on the top of the list of corrupt countries several times. But the factors underlying the problem merit a second look. 

Bribery is as old as human history. It has been variously and euphemistically named tribute, nazar (presentation), facilitation fee etc. What distinguished it from a gift was the element of coercion. Vassals paid it to overlords, aristocrats to the king, traders to state officials, lawbreakers to policemen, and litigants to judiciary officials. 

In India under the British rule, it became an art form. It was generally called “Income from above” implying divine favor; it was most prevalent among the police, minor court officials, and revenue services. . In most instances salaries were grossly inadequate. But corruption, in whatever form, was stigmatized and looked down upon by the majority of people. 

Highly educated persons led Indian independence movement. They were, by and large, men and women of high moral integrity. Lawyers, academics and social workers dominated the Indian national congress. Muslim league on the other hand, except for Mr. Jinnah, who was heads and shoulders above all others in the party and a few middle rank leaders, was led by landlords- usually the progeny of men who had supported the British against their compatriots in the 1857 war of independence. 

After partition, Corruption was kept at the pre-independence level. In the fiduciary sense leaders from Jinnah down were patently honest. Most notably Jinnah and Liaquat the first Prime Minister were men of high probity in every sense. 

The rulers, who followed Jinnah and Liaquat, though corrupt in the political sense, were fiscally upright. Senior civil servants lived with in their means. Affluent fathers won’t consider army officers, as suitable candidates for their daughter’ hand, as they had no prospects. 

Ayub Khan, conspiring with landlord-politicians of the then West, now all Pakistan, not only subverted the newly emerging political process, ushered in an era of corruption at an unprecedented scale. His son Gohar Ayub, a captain in Pakistan Army, served as his agent general. Gohar was awarded highly lucrative licenses for manufacturing plants, imports, trades and industries and along with his father in law who was an army general founded the Gandhara industries and metamorphosed into an industrial magnate almost overnight. Gohar lived the life of a veritable mafia don. In 1965 elections Karachi and Dacca voted against his father. He perpetrated a reign of terror in poorer districts of Karachi. 

The dam that had kept men in authority honest had been breached. From policemen on the beat to highest ranks, from legal clerks to judges, from minor revenue officials to senior administrators, from storekeepers to high-ranking engineers, all government and private agencies were immersed in the morass of the moral decadence. Army officers would have to be super human, and they were not, to resist the temptation. 

Ayub had been weakened by the rigging of the polls in his election against miss Jinnah. 1965 war undermined his credibility further. He handed over the presidency to General Yahya Khan, who conducted an election, which resulted in the victory of Mujib’s Awami league. The establishment, civil and military, aided and abetted by Bhutto, the victor in West Pakistan, unleashed a reign of terror, which ended up in India helping East Pakistanis, and humiliating defeat of the Pakistan army. The country split up. 

Bhutto took over in West Pakistan, now all of Pakistan. He had been making pious noises about an egalitarian society. 

Corruption rose to higher levels in Bhutto’s time. The hither to un-blemished ranks of education and postal workers also joined in. Once Foreign Service was highly coveted and the brightest entrants into civil service chose it as a career. Now number one choice was police, followed by administrative services, customs, Income Tax. 

Bhutto took on all comers and forced them to submit. Then he made the fatal mistake of taking on the USA. The inevitable happened. Army, supported by all opposition political parties and foreign interests overthrew him. He was imprisoned and hanged after palpably irregular court proceedings. 

Zia Ul Haq introduced army officers from generals to mid-level ranks into civilian jobs. His loud protestations and proclamation of Islamic law/justice/government not withstanding, he let the military Governors of provinces rake in the armament and drug money on unprecedented scale. The take was so colossal, that a big feudal lord Nawab of Hoti offered to exchange his enormous land-holdings for a month’s income of Governor Lt General Fazle Haq of the NWFP. 

Zia had plunged Pakistan into the proxy war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Now money and materiel from the USA poured in. Army was the conduit and did not hesitate to sell, even as advanced equipment as Stinger missiles, to the highest bidder. Americans decided to send an audit team. Before they could arrive, an ammunition dump (Ojhri Camp) was set to fire. That killed hundreds but covered illicit sales. 
The USA and Pakistan patronized and nurtured Al-Qaida and the Taliban. Now they are suffering. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. 

Soviets gave Afghans the chemical technology of refining raw opium into heroin. Pakistan became the leading international drug trafficking highway. They also gave assault rifles (Klashnikov) to all and sundry in Afghanistan. Afghan sold most of them to arm dealers. Prior to Zia Ul Haq, the word heroin was taken for heroine- an eminent cinema actress like Noor Jehan or Rekha. At the end of his rule there were over a million heroin addicts, now estimated at five millions and at the mention of the word no one thought of Bollywood heart throbs. Klashnikov could be rented for a few dollars an hour. 
Now teachers would not let students pass their examinations unless tutored privately and postmen won’t deliver mail unless tipped. An education department beurocrat was incensed at not being told by his physician, that the latter’s daughter was appearing in an examination, he supervised. The daughter could have done him the favor of asking for any score she desired. Customs official proclaimed that they earned tens of millions for the Government and had the right to keep a million or two in their pockets. Bribery had become respectable. Prospective mothers in law preferred a peon in Income Tax department to a physician to wed their daughters. I built a hospital in Pakistan and we were on the panel of several nationalized industries. We had to pay 20% of the bill as kick back. 

Finally Zia committed the same mistake all dictators do, took on powers too big for him and went down in a blaze, not of glory, but that of an airplane crash. 

The civilian interregnum between Zia and Musharraf could not stem the tide of corruption, even if they wanted to. We are all familiar with English palaces of Benazir, London West end apartments of Nawaz Shareef (equivalent of upper east side in Manhattan) and Swiss bank accounts of both. A California based Pakistani news magazine, Pakistan link, published a list of Pakistani U.S $ billionaires. Besides Benazir and Nawaz, four Generals and two civil servants graced the list. 

Nawaz Shareef grew too big for his britches. He hounded a CJ out of office, fired a Navy chief, but when he demanded the resignation of the army chief, and to play it safe, appointed a Mohajir Musharraf, as the new chief, he hammered the last nail in his prime ministerial coffin. 

Musharraf provoked a clash on ice bound kargil heights. Indian Army, caught napping, lost several thousand soldiers. The Indian government threatened to attack Pakistan. The Indian threat of all out war frightened Nawaz out of the little wit, he had. With tail between his legs, he flew to Washington DC to plead with Clinton to get him out of the mess. Clinton put the prestige of the US president’s office on line and persuaded the Indian Prime Minister to agree to a cease-fire. 

Army cried foul. Their holy warriors had shed their blood in vain. The hapless Nawaz, trying desperately to retrieve lost ground, tried to find a replacement for Musharraf. The generals closed their ranks; Nawaz could only persuade the Army’s intelligence chief to agree to step in. 

Musharraf on the way back from a goodwill trip to Sri Lanka, was on a plane. Nawaz tried to keep the plane from landing in Karachi-to no avail. The local army commander took over the airport. 

Musharraf landed and after conferring with armed forces officers made the usual patriotic and pious noises, consolidated his rule, promised elections, easily co-opted erstwhile followers of BB and Nawaz into the government, all in short order. 

It was only befitting that Musharraf outdo previous military dictators. He inducted lower rank army officers into civilian jobs as well. At one time, an army captain presided over a police station along with the usual police inspector and a major sat besides a district officer etc. 

With its usual hypocrisy, the world community initially shunned Musharraf, but come 9/11, and after an initial mating ritual, Musharraf declared Pakistan open territory for “coalition forces” became darling of the west, was lionized in London and Washington DC and granted the much coveted sojourn at Camp David. Money and material started to flow in again, with the army again playing the middleman and dipping its hand in the till. Musharraf even managed to retrieve his secular colors and tried to leash religious fanatics It was inevitable that Musharraf should commit a blunder. Incensed by the CJ’s decision to block the sale of the steel mill at fire sale price and depriving him of a sizable commission (and credibility) Shaukat persuaded him to dysfunctionalize Iftikhar Chaudhry. 

The lawyers launched a movement to restore the CJ, organized a long march to Islamabad, but lost their nerve at the last minute (or did not want to undermine the establishment totally). During the period Musharraf had to order an assault on the “Red mosque” in Islamabad, where Taliban had collected a vast horde of arms, and were openly defied government authority. But Musharraf was grievously hurt by both events. 
Unable to find an alternative, the USA sent Benazir to prop Musharraf up and told him to schedule an election. Unable to avenge the Red Mosque directly on Musharraf, Taliban, it is widely believed, took care of her. 

Election were postponed, but Benazir’s party won a plurality in the parliament, and presumably after getting approval of the USA, got rid of Musharraf and installed Benazir’s husband into the presidency. 

Not too long after that the government surrendered a big chunk of territory in the North West to Taliban. It seems only a question of time for the rest of the country to go under. 

Contempt of court is an antiquated and quaint term in Pakistani context. Remember Zia packed the Supreme Court to get guilty verdict against Bhutto. All the dictators proclaimed an ordinance, drafted by a legal Machiavelli, Sharifuddin Pirzada, legal framework order, which the high judiciary have to sign on to, or lose their job. Pirzada is, by no means, the only one to blame. The Supreme Court blessed the first dismissal of lawfully constituted Government as far back as 1954. 

Now Pakistani social workers, reformers and do-gooders have caught on to the NGO game. All kinds of issues are catered to, from victims of sexual crimes, honor killings, barter of women, gender discrimination, wife abuse, prisoner abuse, flesh trade, violation of civil rights, to desertification and illiteracy. The parliament in Pakistan has also been Ngoised. They were given fourteen million dollars to improve their function. Nearly all NGO funding comes from the good old USA corporations. The NGOs are naturally beholden to donors and take care to eulogize America. Thus not only a comprador class has been created, but the class camouflages itself in reformist garb. It is, to date, the most insidious and effective invention to subvert the struggle for human, civil and economic rights of the common man. 

Nearly all third countries have the same problem. That the richest country in the world, the USA is awash in scandals- Enron, Abramoff, Tom Delay, assorted members of the congress to name but a few of the recent ones, is but a poor consolation. 

It is really not tot difficult to explain why Pakistani society is much more corrupt than the Indian one. It started off with a tremendous handicap. On paper it was supposed to get one fourth of the total assets of undivided India. In practice, it got much less. Its territory was much less developed. Most of industries, most of skilled and educated person, and most of the administrative personnel in the region had been non-Muslims. KE Medical in Lahore had only two Muslim professors. NED Engineering College in Karachi had no Muslim professors. Non-Muslim staff left for India. Teachers, administrators and technical persons migrated from India, but could not do much in a country bereft of infrastructure. 

The government took on, was enticed into, or had the moral obligation to, depending on your point of view, wage a war in Kashmir at a time it could ill afford to. The government of India used the conflict to with hold funds from the government of Pakistan. If the Nizam of Hyderabad had done helped out with a donation of a billion rupees, Patel and other right wing congress politicians would had seen their dream of the collapse of Pakistan come true. The real and perceived threats and conflict in Kashmir transformed the country into a security state and empowered the armed forces. 
The insecurity engendered by total chaos attendant upon partition, break down of administration and bleak economic prospects, compounded by evils of the feudal system, the underpinning of religion, and the knee jerk reaction of doing opposite of what India did, drove Pakistan into the arms of the neo-imperialist Anglo-American block. 

Signing the “mutual” defense treaties, Baghdad pact, Seato, and later Cento etc, which did little to strengthen Pakistan, and embroiled the country into anti-soviet policies, were stark failures of foreign policy. 

Major part of budget was wasted on defense and loan servicing. Little was left to promote industry, create jobs, fund education or provide social services. Political institutions were not developed either, resulting in alienation of East Pakistan, Sindh, NWFP and Baluchistan, roughly in that order. The role played by the feudal lords, Mullahs, bureaucrats and the armed forces stunting the growth of the country are beyond the scope of this paper, but the end result has been persistent poverty, population explosion, lack of industrial development, and poor social services. Cosmetic measures will not do. The social structure has to be overhauled. The whole basis of foreign and domestic policies has to be changed. 

Pakistan would under no conceivable circumstances be able to wrest control of Kashmir from with force of arms. The campaign should be restricted to peaceful diplomatic negotiations in which the real victims the people of the state should be fully involved.
 
We should down size our armed forces to perhaps a quarter of what they are. That should be sufficient for any contingency. Retrenchment of armed forces will more than compensate for loss of aid accruing from the so-called anti-terrorist stance. Abolition of the feudal system, provincial autonomy, induction of representative government , along with investment in social services and industry, should be taken in hand.. 

How this radical change can come about, what agency will mediate it, and what political dispensation will be able to even take first steps, is another study. 
1. Gandhara was huge enterprise and had all kinds of mining and manufacturing concessions.

2. I was a resident Medical officer in a surgical department in civil hospital Karachi and personally treated tens of scores of injured working class people.

3. For convenience and brevity I group them together as the evil Quad. I must hasten to add that inspiration for the term came from Mao

4. The charade of elections under the supervision of the current dispensation followed by installation of Tweedledum or Tweedledee under control of an incumbent army chief will not usher in bourgeoisie democracy.

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