This thread will be an eye opener to you....
Pakistan's History of Fudging Economic Growth Rate Numbers.
Pakistan double game cuts both ways....
- Thread starter satyam
- Start date
Pakistan's History of Fudging Economic Growth Rate Numbers.
An economy which was showing 5-6% of growth till the month mushraff was in power tanked with in 2 months of his leaving the office.such was the effect of economic crisis.but then pakistani economy is closed market economy like india's???
LETHALFORCE
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a lot of the textile industry was destroyed by China.
double dealing
Now its canada's turn to accuse pak of double game....
When 91,000 classified military documents are leaked about a continuing war, there is bound to be controversy. But as one who spent six years in Afghanistan – first as Canada's ambassador, then as deputy head of the United Nations mission there – my first reaction was how true to life it all was. Here is the hall-of-mirrors, see-saw world of counterinsurgency – in all its complexity.
But alarm bells soon started ringing for me. Intelligence sources have been named – a windfall for the Taliban that they are likely toasting. The cost of this betrayal will be measured in lives, undercutting efforts to build trust village-by-village in Kandahar, Helmand and elsewhere.
Look at the sheer scale of the WikiLeaks' material – and its lack of context. In the Afghanistan I knew, civilians were struggling to rebuild an economy and institutions. In the documents, the country is depicted as a howling, naked battlefield. It is a caricature, which will feed prevailing prejudices.
There is, however, at least one genuine insight: dozens of reports tagging the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – the branch of Pakistan's military charged with most aspects of its Afghan policy – as the main driver of the conflict. So long as cross-border interference goes unchecked, prospects for peace remain dim.
By any measure, the conflict is escalating. According to the UN, the number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from January to April was twice the 2009 figure. In June alone, 104 foreign soldiers were killed, including four Canadians – the highest monthly toll to date.
In Pakistan, Taliban-led suicide attacks since 2007 have killed an estimated 3,400 – mostly civilians. Thousands more have been killed in operations to root militants out of Swat, Bajaur, Kurram, South Waziristan and elsewhere.
Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are now in the grip of a single escalating conflict, punching eastward from Khyber Pakhtunwa (the former Northwest Frontier Province) into Punjab's heartland, as well as westward toward Kabul, Kandahar and Kunduz.
As a direct consequence, reconciliation has failed to get off the ground: the Pakistan-based Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the official name for the Taliban and its allies – clearly prefer to fight.
GENERAL ASHFAQ KAYANI V. THE REST OF THE WORLD
As the War Logs make clear, the principal drivers of violence are no longer, if they ever were, inside Afghanistan.
Consider the following:
First, in February, Pakistan's security forces began arresting a dozen or so Taliban leaders – whose presence on their soil they had always noisily denied – presumably because these insurgent commanders had shown genuine, independent interest in reconciliation.
Second, the chief of Pakistan's army staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, this year once again successfully resisted U.S. pressure to launch military operations in Baluchistan and North Waziristan, where the Islamic Emirate is based.
Third, Gen. Kayani told Mr. Karzai this spring that the condition for peace in Afghanistan would be the closing of several Indian consulates, while offering to broker deals with Islamic Emirate leaders, whom he considers a "strategic asset."
Fourth, Gen. Kayani blithely told a Washington audience that he remained wedded to "strategic depth" – that is, to making Afghanistan the kind of proprietary hinterland for Pakistan, free of Indian or other outside influence, which it was from 1992 to 2001.
This is not empty rhetoric. Gen. Kayani is saying he wants to call the shots in Kabul. To do so, he is prepared to support the principal outfit launching suicide attacks in Afghanistan's cities. He is backing the Islamic Emirate's effort to wreck an Afghan-led nation-building process.
The Pakistan army under Gen. Kayani is sponsoring a large-scale, covert guerrilla war through Afghan proxies – whose strongholds in Baluchistan and Waziristan are flourishing. Their mission in Afghanistan is to keep Pashtun nationalism down, India out and Mr. Karzai weak.
It has nothing to do with Islam, whose principles they trample; indeed, the flower of Afghanistan's ulema (religious leaders) have been among their victims.
Gen. Kayani and others will deny complicity. But as the WikiLeaks material demonstrates, their heavy-handed involvement is now obvious at all levels.
To understand the context of this fraught relationship, read a report called The Sun and the Sky: The Relationship of Pakistan's ISI to Afghan Insurgents, by Matt Waldman, a former Oxfam policy adviser now at Harvard. It is a chilling tale. When the scale of this complicity is fully exposed, it will rank high on the list of modern scandals.
FULL CIRCLE
By any measure, Afghan society has recovered smartly since 2001. The latest annual growth in gross domestic product was 22 per cent – despite the global crisis. Government revenue increased by 60 per cent in 18 months. Annual inflation has been minus 12 per cent, as domestic agriculture substituted for pricey imports.
A renaissance has continued in media and culture. Schools, clinics and new rural infrastructure have opened the door to better lives.
Despite thickets of corruption, several Afghan ministries have combined integrity with delivery.
On July 20, 60 donor nations and 12 international organizations met at Kabul to assess progress. The highlight was Hamid Karzai's speech – his best as Afghan President to date.
Leaving aside last year's controversies, he articulated priorities rooted in national consensus.
He returned to the theme of his country as a crossroads and roundabout for Asia, arguing that trade, mineral wealth and sound public finances, wisely pursued, can make Afghanistan's new institutions affordable.
The country has now come full circle – reclaiming the sense of purpose it embraced in 2002-04.
The symbol of this restored strategic impulse is Mr. Karzai's revived collaboration with his outstanding former finance minister (and 2009 presidential rival), Ashraf Ghani. Such political vision has the potential to deliver results.
But larger-scale institution-building will take years.
Afghanistan's army and police were effectively dissolved in 1992; serious efforts to restore them were launched only in 2003 and 2005 respectively.
BOTH COUNTRIES' CITIZENS CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE
Few Pakistanis rejoice in the ISI's duplicity.
Most see the ISI's strategy for the outrage it is. It has brought their military into disrepute, sullied Pakistan's good name and unleashed unprecedented strife in its streets. Pakistani influence at Kabul is at its lowest ebb since 1947.
The vast majority of Pakistanis do not equate their national interest with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Indeed, The Dawn, Pakistan's largest daily, warned in an editorial after the Kabul conference against any precipitate U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Pakistan's army's interference in Afghanistan's recovery violates a key provision of the UN Charter, on non-interference – and at its new scale, it represents a threat to international peace and security. It deserves serious discussion in multilateral forums, including the UN.
Most citizens of both countries want to see the Taliban defeated, and legitimate governments strengthened. The trade deal signed by Afghanistan and Pakistan on July 20 – the first since partition – is a good start.
A similar deal on the border would be historic.
Without Pakistani military support, all signs are the Islamic Emirate's combat units would collapse like a house of cards. Peace and reconciliation would prosper.
So long as this unholy alliance continues, Afghans will continue to succumb to the mistaken view that the U.S. and its allies are deliberately turning a blind eye to Taliban resurgence, despite our sacrifices to date.
Turning the corner on this issue will require a concerted show of will – and much tougher action in the eyes of the new storm of violence in North Waziristan and Baluchistan.
The shrine bombed in Lahore on July 1 holds Ali Bin Usman Hujwiri Ghaznavi, a saint who travelled to the Indus basin from what is now Afghanistan in the 11th century, becoming one of the anchors of Islam in South Asia.
As we begin a second decade of the second millennium, his legacy – one rooted in a rich, tolerant concept of religion; as well as strong relations then between Lahore and Ghazni (Islamabad and Kabul today) – remains worth defending.
For all the damage the WikiLeaks data dump could cause, at least they have brought our attention back to where it should be – to the real obstacles to peace.
Chris Alexander was ambassador of Canada to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009. The views expressed in this article are entirely his own. The Long Way Back – his book on Afghanistan's story since 2001 – will be published by HarperCollins in 2011.
Now its canada's turn to accuse pak of double game....
The huge scale of Pakistan's complicity
When 91,000 classified military documents are leaked about a continuing war, there is bound to be controversy. But as one who spent six years in Afghanistan – first as Canada's ambassador, then as deputy head of the United Nations mission there – my first reaction was how true to life it all was. Here is the hall-of-mirrors, see-saw world of counterinsurgency – in all its complexity.
But alarm bells soon started ringing for me. Intelligence sources have been named – a windfall for the Taliban that they are likely toasting. The cost of this betrayal will be measured in lives, undercutting efforts to build trust village-by-village in Kandahar, Helmand and elsewhere.
Look at the sheer scale of the WikiLeaks' material – and its lack of context. In the Afghanistan I knew, civilians were struggling to rebuild an economy and institutions. In the documents, the country is depicted as a howling, naked battlefield. It is a caricature, which will feed prevailing prejudices.
There is, however, at least one genuine insight: dozens of reports tagging the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – the branch of Pakistan's military charged with most aspects of its Afghan policy – as the main driver of the conflict. So long as cross-border interference goes unchecked, prospects for peace remain dim.
By any measure, the conflict is escalating. According to the UN, the number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from January to April was twice the 2009 figure. In June alone, 104 foreign soldiers were killed, including four Canadians – the highest monthly toll to date.
In Pakistan, Taliban-led suicide attacks since 2007 have killed an estimated 3,400 – mostly civilians. Thousands more have been killed in operations to root militants out of Swat, Bajaur, Kurram, South Waziristan and elsewhere.
Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are now in the grip of a single escalating conflict, punching eastward from Khyber Pakhtunwa (the former Northwest Frontier Province) into Punjab's heartland, as well as westward toward Kabul, Kandahar and Kunduz.
As a direct consequence, reconciliation has failed to get off the ground: the Pakistan-based Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the official name for the Taliban and its allies – clearly prefer to fight.
GENERAL ASHFAQ KAYANI V. THE REST OF THE WORLD
As the War Logs make clear, the principal drivers of violence are no longer, if they ever were, inside Afghanistan.
Consider the following:
First, in February, Pakistan's security forces began arresting a dozen or so Taliban leaders – whose presence on their soil they had always noisily denied – presumably because these insurgent commanders had shown genuine, independent interest in reconciliation.
Second, the chief of Pakistan's army staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, this year once again successfully resisted U.S. pressure to launch military operations in Baluchistan and North Waziristan, where the Islamic Emirate is based.
Third, Gen. Kayani told Mr. Karzai this spring that the condition for peace in Afghanistan would be the closing of several Indian consulates, while offering to broker deals with Islamic Emirate leaders, whom he considers a "strategic asset."
Fourth, Gen. Kayani blithely told a Washington audience that he remained wedded to "strategic depth" – that is, to making Afghanistan the kind of proprietary hinterland for Pakistan, free of Indian or other outside influence, which it was from 1992 to 2001.
This is not empty rhetoric. Gen. Kayani is saying he wants to call the shots in Kabul. To do so, he is prepared to support the principal outfit launching suicide attacks in Afghanistan's cities. He is backing the Islamic Emirate's effort to wreck an Afghan-led nation-building process.
The Pakistan army under Gen. Kayani is sponsoring a large-scale, covert guerrilla war through Afghan proxies – whose strongholds in Baluchistan and Waziristan are flourishing. Their mission in Afghanistan is to keep Pashtun nationalism down, India out and Mr. Karzai weak.
It has nothing to do with Islam, whose principles they trample; indeed, the flower of Afghanistan's ulema (religious leaders) have been among their victims.
Gen. Kayani and others will deny complicity. But as the WikiLeaks material demonstrates, their heavy-handed involvement is now obvious at all levels.
To understand the context of this fraught relationship, read a report called The Sun and the Sky: The Relationship of Pakistan's ISI to Afghan Insurgents, by Matt Waldman, a former Oxfam policy adviser now at Harvard. It is a chilling tale. When the scale of this complicity is fully exposed, it will rank high on the list of modern scandals.
FULL CIRCLE
By any measure, Afghan society has recovered smartly since 2001. The latest annual growth in gross domestic product was 22 per cent – despite the global crisis. Government revenue increased by 60 per cent in 18 months. Annual inflation has been minus 12 per cent, as domestic agriculture substituted for pricey imports.
A renaissance has continued in media and culture. Schools, clinics and new rural infrastructure have opened the door to better lives.
Despite thickets of corruption, several Afghan ministries have combined integrity with delivery.
On July 20, 60 donor nations and 12 international organizations met at Kabul to assess progress. The highlight was Hamid Karzai's speech – his best as Afghan President to date.
Leaving aside last year's controversies, he articulated priorities rooted in national consensus.
He returned to the theme of his country as a crossroads and roundabout for Asia, arguing that trade, mineral wealth and sound public finances, wisely pursued, can make Afghanistan's new institutions affordable.
The country has now come full circle – reclaiming the sense of purpose it embraced in 2002-04.
The symbol of this restored strategic impulse is Mr. Karzai's revived collaboration with his outstanding former finance minister (and 2009 presidential rival), Ashraf Ghani. Such political vision has the potential to deliver results.
But larger-scale institution-building will take years.
Afghanistan's army and police were effectively dissolved in 1992; serious efforts to restore them were launched only in 2003 and 2005 respectively.
BOTH COUNTRIES' CITIZENS CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE
Few Pakistanis rejoice in the ISI's duplicity.
Most see the ISI's strategy for the outrage it is. It has brought their military into disrepute, sullied Pakistan's good name and unleashed unprecedented strife in its streets. Pakistani influence at Kabul is at its lowest ebb since 1947.
The vast majority of Pakistanis do not equate their national interest with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Indeed, The Dawn, Pakistan's largest daily, warned in an editorial after the Kabul conference against any precipitate U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Pakistan's army's interference in Afghanistan's recovery violates a key provision of the UN Charter, on non-interference – and at its new scale, it represents a threat to international peace and security. It deserves serious discussion in multilateral forums, including the UN.
Most citizens of both countries want to see the Taliban defeated, and legitimate governments strengthened. The trade deal signed by Afghanistan and Pakistan on July 20 – the first since partition – is a good start.
A similar deal on the border would be historic.
Without Pakistani military support, all signs are the Islamic Emirate's combat units would collapse like a house of cards. Peace and reconciliation would prosper.
So long as this unholy alliance continues, Afghans will continue to succumb to the mistaken view that the U.S. and its allies are deliberately turning a blind eye to Taliban resurgence, despite our sacrifices to date.
Turning the corner on this issue will require a concerted show of will – and much tougher action in the eyes of the new storm of violence in North Waziristan and Baluchistan.
The shrine bombed in Lahore on July 1 holds Ali Bin Usman Hujwiri Ghaznavi, a saint who travelled to the Indus basin from what is now Afghanistan in the 11th century, becoming one of the anchors of Islam in South Asia.
As we begin a second decade of the second millennium, his legacy – one rooted in a rich, tolerant concept of religion; as well as strong relations then between Lahore and Ghazni (Islamabad and Kabul today) – remains worth defending.
For all the damage the WikiLeaks data dump could cause, at least they have brought our attention back to where it should be – to the real obstacles to peace.
Chris Alexander was ambassador of Canada to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009. The views expressed in this article are entirely his own. The Long Way Back – his book on Afghanistan's story since 2001 – will be published by HarperCollins in 2011.
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ganesh177
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Remember the statement of bush back then. Either you are with us or against us.
So dont just wish, but start realising what will happen to pakistan if pakistan dont support the WOT.
neo29
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Everyone knows what Pakistan is doing. From funding Taliban, Haqqani's , local jihadi elements and insurgency in Kashmir. Why isnt anyone dong anything about it?
For sure if Pakistan did not Nuclear weapons then NATO would have bombed them by now. Nuclear weapons are the only reason why US and NATO are going soft on Pakistan.
For sure if Pakistan did not Nuclear weapons then NATO would have bombed them by now. Nuclear weapons are the only reason why US and NATO are going soft on Pakistan.
France Takes Harder Line on Pakistan Than U.S.
At least we have the French to count on when it comes to calling Pakistan to the carpet on its support of the Taliban.
The government of France is joining Britain in taking a tough stand on Pakistan for its double-dealing with the Taliban in Afghanistan. From Reuters:
French officials have said little in public about the WikiLeaks reports but the Foreign Ministry said President Asif Ali Zardari's visit would allow Paris to "tackle questions of security and the fight against terrorism, the regional situation, as well as economic cooperation" with Pakistan.
"We have to hope that President Sarkozy will talk about the Afghan question," said Christophe Jaffrelot, senior research fellow at the Centre for International Studies and Research at the Sciences Po institute in Paris.
"Pakistan has two sides to it, which sometimes puts our troops in danger," he told France Info radio. "Objectively, it is our ally. All our reinforcements pass through there but at the same time it uses all the resources from the West to conduct its own policies and back Islamic groups, including the Afghan Taliban."
France, which has 3,500 troops in Afghanistan, has lost 45 soldiers in Afghanistan since it took part in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 to oust the Islamist Taliban movement and fight its al Qaeda allies.
Zardari's visit to Paris has been overshadowed by his trip later in the week to Britain, whose Prime Minister David Cameron has infuriated Pakistan by suggesting Islamabad was not doing enough to fight terrorism.
The U.S. response, on the other hand, has been underwhelming. Just one day prior to the release of the WikiLeaks documents, which provide more evidence of Pakistan's collusion with the Taliban, the Department of Defense issued a preemptive press release praising Pakistan's fight against the Taliban. Further releases praising the Pakistani government have since been published. Yesterday, President Obama praised Pakistan for its fight against al Qaeda. And the U.S. is now preparing to open up the channels to allow Pakistan to import an export version of the unmanned predator.
Washington continues to operate under the assumption that by praising and buying off the Pakistani government and its military (the real power in Pakistan), it will somehow lead the Pakistanis to do what it hasn't done for nine years: End its support for the Taliban and eliminate it once and for all.
