[Obama's visit] Why India's realty scam should interest President Obama

[twoplustwoisfour]

Oh? Then you'd better accept, as a Chinese dissatisfaction. to too much India self-evaluation in the relationship between China and Pakistan.

Agreed.

Not everything China and Pakistan do concerns India.

Not everything India and Pakistan do concerns China.

Not everything Indian and US do concerns Pakistan.

 

[Spring Onion]

]so going by that same logic would Pakistan block such a trip ? [/B]A delegation with over 260 top businessmen of a country including a rep from Textron, is the easiest way to increase one's business network and take contact to a global stage. Call it a Christmas sale or a boxing day bonanza, the fact of the matter is that such transactions allow for the development of trade ties and the overall growth of a country. India will benefit a lot from such missions and they should be heavily encouraged. Would love to see when such a high level business delegation visits Pakistan. I really smell something burning nice and bright here.

I feel Pakistan was never part of this business trip of Obama hence i consider all those analysts just harping on something which is not needed in the first place.

In current situation Pakistan has Nothing to sell to the US except offering strategic support viz a viz the region which we are doing and for that presence or visit of Osama is NOT at all necessary since those matters are taken up mostly by Pentagon and their other security apparatus.

And Desi we can not stop such a trip by even a small ranking US official not even of a Chinese official if he wants to visit India because all countries work for their own interests same is the situation with India even India can not stop such a visit by any official to Pakistan.

So we must not be emotional

 

[LaBong]

Oh? Then you'd better accept, as a Chinese dissatisfaction. to too much India self-evaluation in the relationship between China and Pakistan.

You sure you posting in right thread?

 

[huzihaidao12]

You sure you posting in right thread?

Sure , full of Indians, anyway.

 

[jayron]

do you even know that here in Pakistan Dawn.com is considered to be paid heavily by US for propagating against Islam, Pakistan and its army.

I have read Javed Naqvi's write ups on dawn site and trust me he very nicely in sugar-coated sentences supports India and hinduism and criticise Pakistan.

But its again always in sugar-coated manner and since Indians dont read carefully hence you are carried away by few criticising sentences against India

For Jana anything less than spitting on Indians and Hinduism is sugar coated. I have been following Javed Naqui for quite some time. I haven't seen a single positive article about India. Some might start positive but will have veiled criticism of India running all along. May be Dawn is using him to balance its otherwise anti-radical, anti-hatred stance which is unacceptable to most Pakistanis.

 

[karan.1970]

Maybe a little less hypocritical than the Indian press which relegates news of its own domestic Naxalite insurgency, raging over 7-10 times the land area and involving a far greater number of people than anything the Taliban have been able to pull off, to the inside pages, while providing prime banner space to the Pak-Afghan border Or perhaps significantly less hypocritical than an India that talks about the presence of anti-india "terrorists" in Pakistan, while over more than two decades it played host to and was the principal source of funding for Tamil terrorists and the LTTE.

In dear old SMC's words.. A diversion.. ??

Both Naxalite incidents and Pakistan sponsored terror incidents get the same level of visibility. Its just that cross border terror attacks coming from Pakistan is an external threat to the sovreignity of India and Naxalite problem is more of an internal law and order issue. Hence the use of military in the 1st and Police in the second case.

Your Srilanka example is as out of context here. In India Pakistan case, a Pakistani newspaper is preaching to India about an internal aspect of Indian armed forces where the record of Pakistan on the same aspect (corruption in army) is a thousand times worse. On the other hand, what India is pointing to, when it refers to terrorist camps and "safe havens" in Pakistan, it is refering to an external threat that is targeted towards India and is not an internal matter of Pakistan having no impact on India, unlike the Adarsh building scam.

From your response, I can see you got worked up in a tizzy, but let's not get into name calling please. That can cut both ways and it serves very little purpose in advancing the discussion.

No tizzy sir.. Its internet and no one gets killed here.. I have not indulged in any name calling intentionally. If you feel i have, please point out the offending words and I will remove them. I believe scam and dictatorship is not taken as name calling since one of them is included in the thread title and the other is a fairly accepted term

Also, it may be your view that the Army has "scammed the whole country into dictatorship", but that would just mean you know nothing about Pakistan, unfortunately. While their measures were extra constitutional, Army takeovers in Pakistan have never been undemocratic. They have always enjoyed the overwhelming support of the masses, to the point where these takeovers have always been completely smooth and bloodless. This is not your typical coup, and characterizing it as such exposes either incompetence or byzantine intent.

Thats the worst kind of self serving logic that I have heard. Because the coup is bloodless, its democratic. There is a way to remove a govt in democracy. A coup, bloodless or not is not that way. I would have still gone with this if the coup did not result in decade long military rules and restricted it to change of the govt only.. But alas, thats not the case..

By definition, if it is unconstitutional, its illegal (almost). Call it a scam, land grab, extortion, rule of the gun.. your call..

His best friend and roommate from college, a Pakistani, does claim to know them. Obama has reflected on his association with Pakistan/Pakistanis himself. Net-net, he is not inimical towards us and will not do anything tangible to advance India's agenda against Pakistan either.

Never said he will..

Perhaps you are hearing what you want to hear, because I can't find a reference to Obama calling Pakistan a failed state anywhere in the transcript(s). Why exaggerate to make a non-existent point? It just looks desperate.

Point taken on the word failed (this you can blame on Indian media).. but not on stability..Verbatim...

If Pakistan is unstable, that would be bad for India. India does not want the distraction of security in her region.
An unstable Pakistan would be bad for India: Obama - Arab News

Good. But, the USA is certainly interested in these crimes. Enough to make a major motion picture out of the story Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the entire top US military leadership have accepted and acknowledged the US role in all of these "crimes", and they also understand that shirking their responsibility for the second time is not in their own national interest. That was the whole justification for the long term nature of KL and other programmes the US initiated with Pakistan.

Good for Pakistan.. But as I said, this is of no interest to India or the discussion..

Net-net, large countries with regional and extra regional interests pursue their interests despite name calling. Ditto for Pakistan. What is important is not the names we are called, but whether what happens is in our interest or not. The US were called all sorts of names when they decided to march into Iraq. They felt it was in their national interests so they did it despite everything. Let's not get so caught up in rhetoric that we fail to distinguish meaningful developments from the two bit crap spun together by some hack to placate the average idiot on the street.

The issue is not if in the heat of the moment, Pakistan is called a safe haven for terrorists or the source of terrorism cancer. The thing is that so many people have called it so many times that its no longer a statement of impact but a statement in passing. The type cast is so strong that its stuck. National interests are good, but at the cost of becoming an international symbol for terrorism.. I am not so sure..But then your country.. your call...

So far, on this issue of "safe havens" the US' interests are *not* aligned with India. The US is only concerned with NWA. The end game there is nigh and the recent infusion of $2B of military aid suggests that things are going well, despite what is said or written.

The aid is not yet finalized.. The US govt is going to propose it next year to a republican congress. Lets see how that goes down and the returns extracted against this aid. As I said, I would rather have the American president selling me stuff against my money instead of giving me money in return for bombing my citizens in my territory..

India's interests concern Kashmir and associated groups. What was characterized by an Indian scribe as the new "Intifadah" in Kashmir should give you a clue as to whether US, Indian or Martian pressure has changed the ground reality in Kashmir... and please, no segues on Kashmir here. The point is that the US is not going to pressure Pakistan tangibly to do anything which would be beneficial for India. That is the implication people in India are drawing from Obama's comments and I think it is horse manure.

This I totally agree to. US is a non entity in the game of Pakistan sponsored insurgency in Kashmir. Every new tactic by Pakistan involves a learning curve for India. The initial tactic of armed insurgents infiltrating into India took some years to counter. The result is the dramatic change in militancy between 1990s and today. The new and more recent tactic of civilian unrest will go the same way. America really has no role to play. But mostly its Pakistan and its ministers that keep inviting UN and USA to play a role despite multiple refusals. Its a pipe dream that USA will pressure INdia to tangibly do something that is beneficial to Pakistan on the Kashmir issue or any other..

I see your point. And certainly if you listen to the superficial conversation, it is all about Zardari-this and Nawaz-Sharif-that. In other words, stories concerning politicians and their idiocies occupy the airwaves. I might add, that while Pakistanis are certainly pretty "hard on themselves", to borrow a quote from the outgoing US Ambassador to Pakistan, ala Rod Blagojevich, politicians will be politicians in the most developed of countries. What interests me more, and I think what counts more, is the strategic direction Pakistan is presently headed in.

Specific to the billions of dollars of aid from USA, my point was that despite those sweetners, the situation for Pakistan since 1990's has been on a downward spiral except 2-3 years immidiately after 9/11. So I believe the issue is more intrinsic than something that can be sweetened by a few billion dollars of military aid.

In that respect, I see certain defining variables:

1) In its own right, Pakistan is the world's 6th most populous country, and one of the few nations at the cusp of benefiting from a tremendous demographic dividend. Moreover, with less than half the population density of India, Pakistan can deliver far greater resources per-capita than its neighbor. Over the long term, I don't care whether Pakistan develops 5 years faster than India, at the same time or 5 years later. The fact is that with at least twice the per-capita resource availability, the intrinsic potential in Pakistan is far greater in terms of delivering a higher quality of life to its citizenry. These are facts which stem from geographic and demographic realities, not transient factoids that change from week to week on the back page of The Economist. Net-net, Pakistan cannot be ignored. Despite the currently in vogue bad-boy image, everyone is doing business with Pakistan and will continue to do so. Moreover, this business will be done on mutually acceptable terms. Exhibit A, NATO supplies. Exhibit B, the development of weapons despite the wishes of an unnamed "lobby" and hundreds of "Oooo Islamic bomb" articles and books being published in the west. The list is long, but you get the point.

Good for Pakistan and All the best. I do subscribe to Obama's theory of a prosperous and stable Pakistan being good for India..

2) China is the ascendant power and this is the Chinese century. Yes, India is also growing, and so are Brazil, Indonesia and Russia. But it is not possible for any of these states to match China, nor do they appear to be interested in taking on China, with the exception of India.

3) The US is slowly weakening. They will need significant - and I mean *significant* - financial support, help with job creation and trade imbalance assistance. As it stands, the US is going to be running trillion+ $ deficits as far as the eye can see. Short of the Arab countries who have trillions parked in their coffers, China is the only country that holds a serious solution to these problems. The value of the yuan is an incredibly important lever and control of it rests 100% with the Chinese. With over $2T in dollar reserves, and as the largest buyer of T-bills, they have the greatest ability to finance the US economy. As the country with which the US runs its greatest trade deficit, China can help mitigate imbalances more so than any other country. And so on... so China is going to be far more critical to the US than any other single nation. I doubt the US will take China on in deference to the interests of a third country.

4) In its growing "assertiveness" (not my word), China is making very significant strategic moves, many of which hinge on Pakistan. For example, when it was met with hemming and hawing on the issue of supplying Pakistan with 300/350MW nuclear reactors, it announced that it would up the ante and provide a 1GW reactor. And then it raised the stakes further by announcing a fifth nuclear plant that would be exported to Pakistan. The Gwadar port is going to be handed over to the Chinese pending the Supreme Court's decision on the incorrect award to a Singaporean company. These days the Karakoram highway is being widened to a super-highway and extended all the way down into Gwadar... these are things that are happening this very second. And finally you have the "Pakistan is our Israel" comment which has been discussed in quite some detail here. So, Pakistan's interests are well looked after for the next 100+ years.

Same comment as before.. All the best to Pakistan on its path of growth...

Actually, no. Because it isn't "4 down" at all. You are repeatedly missing the point. There is no independent resolution or standalone modification designed to integrate India alone into the SC. If that were the case, then yes, you would be right about "4 down 1 to go". As it stands, the US, China... heck everyone... is hinging India's integration into the SC on overall structural reforms. These reforms will be multidimensional, complex and will involve additional players obtaining SC seats, not just India. So therefore, since even a straw-man for these structural reforms has not yet been articulated - much less agreed to - there is no "4 down". Hypothetically, if China or Russia argue for an Arab League seat, or an OIC seat, and make that part of the reform, and say the US or UK are uncomfortable with this, then what? Do you have 4 votes or 3 votes or no votes? If France has a problem with Germany getting a seat, then what? If Russia or China veto Japan (with whom they both have territorial and otherwise fairly nasty disputes), then what?

The question on which Perm Members will deliberate and vote has not even been *framed* yet. So to count their votes is ridiculous.

I think you didnt get my point.. What does a UNSC seat get India? Not a solution to Kashmir certainly.... Its simply a power play.. More of a prestige issue.. The UN reforms are a decade if not 2 away.. Till then its more of an endorsement of a country's importance on the international scene than anything else. As I said before..Nothing tangible coming out of it, but it provides a ticket to play with the big boys. Just like the G 20. Just like the US nuclear deal. The N deal with the US is still not implemented, however a US endorsement allowed India to get into nuclear trade with every single big nuclear supplier today.

I dont know how it works in Pakistan, but for India, I am pretty thrilled that the president of the strongest country in the world travels to India to sell its wares. Speaks a bit about the growing economic might of India.

Anyway, any country i know of will prefer the president of America coming in to sell American products instead of sending in his generals to ask it to do more about removing terrorist havens from its borders.

 

[karan.1970]

^^ Well when both sides are accusing you of working for the "other" side, you are probably fairly balanced. DAWN certainly meets that criteria. It is an excellent newspaper and has a great reputation.

Why would India accuse Dawn of working for Pakistan. It is a Pakistani Newspaper

 

[Bang Galore]

I know. But I plan to continue poking holes in his eloquent theories whenever I find time.

I once saw him at Khan Market in Delhi. I was torn between giving him a piece of my mind and a piece of my knuckles. I ended up doing neither. My extended lunch session of Lamb Pasta in vodka sauce at Big Chill's saved him.

Silly fellow! The Lamb Pasta in vodka sauce would have gone nowhere.

 

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

What surprises me is that none of the Indian members can kill the message in the article but can kill the messenger at will.

How impressive

Man, you cant take criticism, can you?

The point is not about taking criticism.

The author doesn't do a good job when it comes to conveying his point.

He is using the Adarsh scam to link up atrocities in Kashmir.(though a vague point).

But mentioning Obama and Kashmir ,brings us back to square one.Why should Obama bother about Kashmir,when the world doesn't?

 

[TechLahore]

Why would India accuse Dawn of working for Pakistan. It is a Pakistani Newspaper

Please read Jana's comment again.

 

[Ammyy]

do you even know that here in Pakistan Dawn.com is considered to be paid heavily by US for propagating against Islam, Pakistan and its army.

I have read Javed Naqvi's write ups on dawn site and trust me he very nicely in sugar-coated sentences supports India and hinduism and criticise Pakistan.

But its again always in sugar-coated manner and since Indians dont read carefully hence you are carried away by few criticising sentences against India

Do you even know that who criticizes Pakistan whether any country or any news site or any Political leader that directly become propaganda against Pakistan.

 

[true_indian]

deleted Not necessary

 

[true_indian]

Do you not live in the real world? So everyone consider the interests , the first contacts between China and Pakistan, but also because real interest. But only able to say, human beings have feelings, whether it is government propaganda, or Chinese people get really respect from Pakistan, that is true, however, the reality interest, plus 50 years the friendly feelings, it was not a bad results. We can also develop more confidence and friendly feelings, yes, in reality interest.

What are u saying dude? How is it relevant to current thread?

 

[LaBong]

The point is not about taking criticism.

The author doesn't do a good job when it comes to conveying his point.

He is using the Adarsh scam to link up atrocities in Kashmir.(though a vague point).

But mentioning Obama and Kashmir ,brings us back to square one.Why should Obama bother about Kashmir,when the world doesn't?

This is really a silly attempt at linking up Kashmir and Obama/USA. Last time it was the ghost of Bhagat Singh who acted as a bridge, now the housing scandal!

I have no objection about Naqvi or Dawn trying to link up US and Kashmir, but at least be honest at your approach!

 

[scrumpy]

I am surprised no one here has pointed out that a chief minister had to resign, there is talk of the building being demolished and the armed forces men responsible being court marshalled. There was public outrage once the details of the scam was leaked in the media. The pressure put on the government by the voters is showing effects. Now we have to make sure that this pressure is sustained.

I think this is a good demonstration of how democracy works.