Why Pakistan won't fail

[53fd]

Quite an interesting article that puts the reality into perspective, & a refreshing change from all the hogwash & propaganda we hear from the Western media about Pakistan.

PAKISTAN, October 18, 2011 - Although international observers worry Pakistan could fail, which would destabilize the region, possibly providing radical Islamists both a base of operations and access to nuclear weapons, they underestimate the strength of democracy and democratic institutions in the country.

The primary concern of Westerners is that with a strong Taliban presence in Pakistan, the Taliban and other radical Islamic groups could take over the government expanding extremist influence in Pakistan, allowing terrorists to access nuclear weapons. Theoretically this would allow terrorists to travel around the world carrying nuclear weapons in their backpacks.

Fears may not be ungrounded:

In June, the Pakistani military announced that, a few days following the US operation to kill Osama Bin Laden, it had detained Brigadier General Ali Khan for alleged ties to Hizbul Tehrir (HuT), an Islamic militant group. Khan has spent 25 years in the military, serving with UN peace keepers in Bosnia.

Various media outlets report that Pakistan officials frequently warn militants in tribal areas of imminent attacks, giving the terror suspects time to flee.
In May, Pakistani Taliban insurgents stormed the Naval Air Station in Karachi and destroyed two surveillance aircraft supplied by the US. According to CNN and other sources, they acted with inside information on the layout and security of the station.

In 2008, there were reports that radicals in the Swat valley of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (KPK) province forced residents to follow strict Islamic law. dictating the common people to observe the strict laws of Islam. There was also a report of an attack on the General Headquarters of the Army of Pakistan in Rawalpindi by militant Islamists. Some sources report that those incidents did not take place, however.

Despite the presence of the Taliban and radical Islamists in Pakistan, the country is stable and during the 64 years since independence, Pakistan has developed strong democratic institutions, civil society, and respect for human rights.

The Pakistani Constitution provides for democratic elections and a bi-cameral parliament with the lower house of Parliament being the National Assembly, and the upper house the Senate.

The Pakistani public elects the National Assembly through direct elections, and those representatives select the Prime Minister. The legislature is an independent organization that works to formulate new laws according to the needs of the people of Pakistan.

Pakistan holds free and fair democratic elections. The election commission has powers to independently conduct elections of national and provincial assemblies. Over hundred political parties are registered by the election commission of Pakistan.

The Pakistani military is ruled by a civilian authority. The Army is a professional organization, consisting of millions of regular and reserve troops. Noted for its professionalism and dedication to the civilian government and democracy, it is the best institution in Pakistan. Domestically, the army works to keep Pakistani citizens safe and to protect the rights of the public. Pakistan’s army has participated in numerous peace keeping operations as part of the United Nations forces.

Pakistan also has active local governments and a vibrant civil society, active in all departments of the country. Local governments run the departments through the Union Council and at the village level in Pakistan. Civil society, including numerous unions and other types of organizations, are extremely active – without government interference – in the country.

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are also working in Pakistan and civil society is growing rapidly. Educational institutions provide world class education to its students in all the basic and applied subjects. For women, there are many universities that provide education to only women. Pakistan produces more than 10,000 medical doctors each year, and an even higher number of engineers

Print and electronic media in Pakistan are extremely active and are also free from government control. There are approximately one hundred television channels providing news and entertainment. There are also hundreds of newspapers.

Pakistan is a stable, free democracy and is not threatened by radical Islam or the Taliban as some may think. While those groups do exist in Pakistan today, Pakistan’s democratic institutions and civil society are not at risk of failing to those radicals. Moreover, Pakistan’s army is strong enough to safeguard its weapons, including nuclear, from theft by radicals.

In every sense, Pakistan is a country that is progressing in every field of life, and is not likely to collapse and threaten the stability of the region or the world.

Why Pakistan won't fail | Washington Times Communities

 

[Perceptron]

More about the author Qaiser Farooq Gondal

Qaisar Farooq Gondal is an ordinary moderate muslim living in Pakistan. He is facing the challenge of living in a country which is rapidly loosing its friends in the global community because of its policies. He is trying to bring close people of Pakistan and America in an attempt to avoid any catastrophe. He is a physician by profession but enjoys writing and feels more in control of the things through his literary efforts.

Bearing in mind that this is a Pakistani opinion, i do not see any change in the so-called hogwash we hear/read in the Western media ; The shrill voices in the NYT/WP/ABC/PBS/CBS will continue to remain so, as long as the Pakistan's interest is orthogonal to America's. And the drawdown of 2014 will have no effect on their stance to point out the duplicity of Pakistan.

 

[53fd]

More about the author Qaiser Farooq Gondal
Bearing in mind that this is a Pakistani opinion, i do not see any change in the so-called hogwash we hear/read in the Western media ; The shrill voices in the NYT/WP/ABC/PBS/CBS will continue to remain so, as long as the Pakistan's interest is orthogonal to America's. And the drawdown of 2014 will have no effect on their stance to point out the duplicity of Pakistan.

I believe this is the Washington Times. I know Indians think everything a white man says is written in stone, but instead of shooting the messenger, try to refute the points he has made in this article.

 

[American Pakistani]

More about the author Qaiser Farooq Gondal
Bearing in mind that this is a Pakistani opinion, i do not see any change in the so-called hogwash we hear/read in the Western media ; The shrill voices in the NYT/WP/ABC/PBS/CBS will continue to remain so, as long as the Pakistan's interest is orthogonal to America's. And the drawdown of 2014 will have no effect on their stance to point out the duplicity of Pakistan.

FT.com / Columnists / David Pilling - Pakistan, the state that refuses to fail

here is for you

Just 18 months ago Hillary Clinton declared there was an “existential threat” to Pakistan. The Taliban had occupied the picturesque Swat valley and imposed sharia law only 100 miles from Islamabad. With militancy on the rise in almost every corner of the country and bomb blasts thundering across its cities, the nuclear-armed state did indeed appear to be in peril.

Only weeks after the US secretary of state’s intervention, Pakistani troops poured into Swat. Several hundred militants were killed and more than 2m refugees fled in the biggest internal displacement of people since the Rwandan genocide. The Swat campaign was “a watershed moment”, according to Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab and an ally of the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari. “It was a battle for life and death. If we hadn’t survived that, who knows?”

Who knows indeed. Yet watershed moments are hardly a rarity in Pakistan, a state that lurches from crisis to crisis like a bus stuck in first gear (and lacking brakes and headlights to boot). Since the army imposed a tenuous order on Swat, Pakistan has been buffeted by the mother of all floods, a fresh wave of suicide bombings and what Maleeha Lodhi, former ambassador to the US, calls “layer upon layer of economic crises”.

Yet Pakistan has survived. In its partial victories against Islamist militants it may even have made some kind of progress. It is all too easy to think of Pakistan as a failing – even a failed – state. But it might be better to see it as the state that refuses to fail.

To appreciate just how remarkable this is, cast your mind back to this dangerous year’s catalogue of fire and brimstone. First, following its victory in Swat, the army turned its attention on South Waziristan, bombarding militants in lawless areas bordering Afghanistan. Many considered that an important step, given the well-documented links between the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency and tribal militants, part of Pakistan’s quest for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan.

Second, and partly as a result of the army’s offensives, there has been a wave of counter-attacks on hotels, mosques and police stations. Last October, militants mounted a brazen raid on the supposedly impregnable headquarters of the 500,000-strong army. That led to alarm that men with beards and a less-than-glowing feeling towards America were getting perilously close to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

Third, Pakistan has had to adapt to a dramatic shift in US policy towards Afghanistan. In December, President Barack Obama ordered a surge of 30,000 extra troops, a military intensification that has sent militants scurrying across the border into Pakistan. Worse from Islamabad’s point of view, the US president has committed to drawing down those troops from next summer, a retreat, if it happens, that would once again leave Pakistan alone in a nasty neighbourhood.

Fourth, the economic outlook remains precarious. Pakistan just about avoided a balance of payments crisis which, at one point, saw its reserves dwindle to just one month’s import cover. But respite has come at the cost of being in hock to the International Monetary Fund, which has extended some $7bn in loans. With tax receipts at a miserable 9 per cent of output, it is unclear how it will make ends meet.

As if these man-made calamities were not enough, Pakistan has been drowning in the worst floods in its history. At one point, no less than one-fifth of the country was under water. Imran Khan, the cricket idol turned politician, describes seeing buffalo swept up in the engorged rivers like pieces of paper. With crops failing, millions made homeless and the threat of disease looming, many warned that the flood would prove the final straw for Pakistan.

Remarkably it has not been. Why not? A partial explanation for Pakistan’s staying power is that it has become an extortionary state that thrives on crisis. Islamabad is well versed in the art of prising cash out of panicked donors by sidling ever-more convincingly towards the abyss. Not even the most ardent conspiracy theorist could accuse Pakistan of manufacturing its own floods. But, as documents released by WikiLeaks confirmed, the state has long maintained a deeply ambiguous relationship with the very elements threatening to tear it apart.

There are more benign explanations too. The strength of civil society has helped. Many refugees from the floods, like those from Swat, have found temporary shelter with the networks of friends and relatives that bind the country together. The army’s response to the floods has also underscored, for better or worse, the efficiency of the state’s best-run institution. Even the civilian administration, weak and discredited as it is, has clung on. If, as now seems plausible, Mr Zardari can survive, power could yet be transferred from one democratically elected administration to another for the first time in Pakistan’s 63-year history.

One should not overstate Pakistan’s resilience. The world is rightly alarmed at the mayhem that rages at its centre. But, if you care to look on the bright side, you might conclude that, if Pakistan can survive a year like this, it can survive anything.

david.pilling@ft.com
Financial Times.

 

[American Pakistani]

because it is already failed...

Same as India is failed state, oops sorry SUPA PAWA.

 

[53fd]

The Pakistani military is ruled by a civilian authority. The Army is a professional organization, consisting of millions of regular and reserve troops. Noted for its professionalism and dedication to the civilian government and democracy..

Pakistan is ruled by military most of the time.

The Supreme Court is the highest authority in Pakistan. The Pakistan military is accountable to it as well.

 

[Mike2011]

Same as India is failed state, oops sorry SUPA PAWA.

Well for pakistan, we need new definition of fail..

 

[American Pakistani]

The Pakistani military is ruled by a civilian authority. The Army is a professional organization, consisting of millions of regular and reserve troops. Noted for its professionalism and dedication to the civilian government and democracy..

Pakistan is ruled by military most of the time.

Pakistan is ruled by those who are supported by masses, most Pakistanis support military in the past & many still does, also people are witnessing that all civilian govt looted poor Pakistanis money & deposit it in their bank accounts in foreign countries. History shows Pakistan had performed briiliant during military rule & worst during civilian, recent proof is Musharraf vs Zardari, "Farq saaf zahir hai"

 

[Mike2011]

The Supreme Court is the highest authority in Pakistan. The Pakistan military is accountable to it as well.

I stopped reading after that.. there are countless military coups in pakistan. Civilian PM is hanged under military rule.

The statement tells the credibility of author.

 

[Filmmaker]

It is in India interest that Pakistan don't fall further. world don't need another Afghanistan (Osama's time)

 

[53fd]

I stopped reading after that.. there are countless military coups in pakistan. Civilian PM is hanged under military rule.

The statement tells the credibility of author.

So what? The military is accountable for its actions to the Supreme Court, which is a civilian institution. The Supreme Court is the highest authority of Pakistan, plain & simple.

 

[American Pakistani]

Well for pakistan, we need new definition of fail..

Some times it is soo annoying, how will you define failed state???? If you call Pakistan failed state because of lawless Waziristan(North & South) than why India is not failed state than as whole North East India is out of Indian control.

 

[EastWest]

The Pakistani military is ruled by a civilian authority. The Army is a professional organization, consisting of millions of regular and reserve troops. Noted for its professionalism and dedication to the civilian government and democracy, it is the best institution in Pakistan. Domestically, the army works to keep Pakistani citizens safe and to protect the rights of the public. Pakistan’s army has participated in numerous peace keeping operations as part of the United Nations forces.

This statement alone makes the whole article a big joke....
Since when did Pakistan Army put itself under a civilian authority...??
Which civilian authority ordered the Pakistan army to do coup on 1958, 1977 and 1999 ???

May be Pakistan army had secret orders from their Prime Ministers to do coup against them and this writer was the only witness to it..


Washington Times needs a serious quality check team..
Who was the target audience of this article??

Kindergarten kids ?
Drafting a complaint to the paper now...

 

[53fd]

I guess no one really wants to discuss the article here then.

 

[Mike2011]

So what? The military is accountable for its actions to the Supreme Court, which is a civilian institution. The Supreme Court is the highest authority of Pakistan, plain & simple.

Accountable and Control is two different words. They have different meaning as well. This is also plain and simple.