Defending drones
February 13th, 2013
Ultimately, the most serious challenges to US drone policy will not come from the protests of international human rights organisations or public denunciations by the governments in whose territories these strikes are carried out. The US has always been resistant to outside criticism of its policies, and such criticism has never, in the past, forced a policy rethink. Anti-drone voices also fall short when it comes to suggesting an alternative to drone strikes, expect perhaps by arguing that conflict itself should be avoided, which is an unrealistic view at best and utopian at worst. Moreover, the countries in which drone strikes are carried out, like Pakistan, protest only for domestic public consumption while privately encouraging the strikes and even allowing the use of their territories for bases from which the drone strikes are carried out.
If any checks will thus be imposed on the use of drones by the United States, it will most likely be as a result of domestic pressure exerted upon the state through the US judicial system. This is the context in which the justice department’s leaked 16-page document providing a legal justification for strikes on American citizens must be viewed. This document is a shorter, declassified version of a 2010 Justice department memo drafted to justify the killing of Anwar Awlaki, a US citizen and alleged al Qaeda member, in a 2011 drone strike. The Justice department document was likely drafted in response to, or in anticipation of, a suit filed by Awlaki’s father against his son’s inclusion in the CIA’s ‘kill list’. While conducting drone strikes on foreign citizens in foreign countries is apparently not an issue, it seems the US government is cognisant of the potential can of worms it opens when targeting US citizens who have been deemed “imminent threats”. The memo itself basically states the obvious: if you’re an al Qaeda member plotting to attack the United States or its citizens, and if arresting you is impossible, then you may be legally targeted.
Beyond its legal implications for the United States, this document also unwittingly provides a rationale for other states to use similar legal justifications for targeting their own citizens in foreign territories — something that may return to haunt the US in years to come.
Nuclear reactions
February 13th, 2013
The presence of Iran on the world’s list of nuclear states has been a sore point for years with the US and its allies. The argument runs that Iran is an ‘irresponsible’ state, given to making threatening comments directed against the US and countries closely affiliated with it. But does this argument really hold any weight, does it really make any sense? Also on a purely moral basis, why should certain nations be allowed to maintain huge arsenals of nuclear weapons, while others are rebuked for doing so? Is there any way of saying if Washington is really more responsible than Tehran? This cannot after all be a scientific measure, and in its time Washington has been guilty of many actions that would not be considered responsible.
The broader issue of nuclear weapons and their nature, of course, exists. It can, logically enough, be argued that these weapons are inherently immoral. Indeed, we just need to look at the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima at the end of World War II, or the lingering after-effects of the nuclear leak at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine in 1986, or the more recent one in Japan in 2011 to be persuaded of this. The images from these places remind us of just what nuclear weapons do; the kind of prolonged suffering they inflict. They should not be a part of our world.
But, of course, this rule should then be equitably applied. The same principle should hold true for every nation – whether or not it is a US ally. The singling out of Iran is simply a demonstration of bias, given the number of countries which hold nukes. The strategies used have, in fact, turned Iran into a pariah state, and this is possibly the most dangerous thing of all. More rationality needs to be shown when addressing the delicate matter of Iran’s nuclear weapons, and more equality demonstrated towards other nations – even while at a broader level a stronger global campaign is needed against all nuclear weapons, no matter which nation they belong to.
Becoming a fiscal pariah
February 13th, 2013
For the first time in the past few years, Pakistan’s external debt and liabilities have come down to $65.8 billion — a decrease of $600 million.
However, the fact is that all is not what it seems to be. We have not suddenly adopted stricter fiscal discipline and started paying off our debts so efficiently that our liabilities are going down.
There are a few other reasons for this. One aspect is the fall of the US dollar against most other currencies. This has resulted in windfall gains — because Pakistan holds debt in about 20 currencies — a lot of which were also wiped out because the rupee was one of the few currencies that did not strengthen against the dollar.
One other reason — and perhaps, one with more far-reaching implications — is the gradual reduction in annual budgetary support by financial institutions like the Asian Development Bank (ADB), following in the footsteps of institutions like the World Bank, which has stopped budgetary disbursements pending a Letter of Assessment about the health of Pakistan’s economy by the IMF. The IMF is not likely to issue this letter.
The ADB has also stopped project disbursements until Pakistan completes the project initiation process.
Simplistically put, the reduction in foreign loans is a good thing. However, a fiscal or monetary system is anything but simple. Pakistan relies on foreign loans for pretty much everything from development spending, to project financing, to bolstering its foreign exchange reserves and most of all, to ensure it can meet its debt servicing requirements. And now, as external funding seems to be drying up — historically lenders have been providing a budgetary cushion of $3-4 billion a year — our forex reserves are under threat and the last quarter of the current fiscal year will be a very critical period. Debt servicing costs will continue to rise as a halt in the slide of the rupee is not expected. It is also expected that interest rates will no longer fall, they might actually increase, which will also increase the cost of debt financing.