US funding for military
THE sanctioning of $1bn in military aid to Pakistan by the US Congress will be hailed in many quarters in Pakistan as a sign of improving relations between Pakistan and the US and evidence of trust in the leadership and strategy of army chief Gen Raheel Sharif.
But a few will want to ask a more basic question: why does Pakistan still need US funds to fight militancy inside Pakistan? The billion-dollar military funds that Pakistan will receive in the year ahead is a decade old programme, beginning in a period when the country first began to militarily confront the militant threat and when the military was neither fully prepared nor properly resourced to fight militants. But a decade is a long time and during it the Pakistani military has developed indigenous strategies to fight militants, so why is the state still so reliant on outside funding for military operations here? Consider that $1bn is roughly Rs100bn, a significant chunk of not just the overall military budget each year but an overwhelming proportion of the extra funds that are allocated for specific military operations. So were the aid to be suddenly withdrawn or were Pakistan to surprisingly reject it, it would have wrenching budgetary consequences in the short and even medium term. But aid alone should not be the consideration here. Consider that in the fight against militancy narrative matters, especially the narrative being propagated by the militants to recruit and motivate its fighters. The annual cash doled out to Pakistan by the US makes for a straightforward and alarming narrative for militants to spread: that Pakistan is still doing all that it does in terms of military operations and counterterrorism measures because it is being paid to do so by the US. While simply untrue not only is the fight against militancy a Pakistani fight too, it is being fought here because the state understands its necessity for the security and stability of Pakistan the militant narrative will always gain some traction, if only because military aid continues to flow into Pakistan from the US.
It is one thing to receive equipment and resources considered necessary by the Pakistani state for its military; it is quite another to be paid for military operations that are vital to our own survival.
In other countries, where trade-offs also have to be made, the rise of the militant threat would have not left operations starved of funds.
Instead, hard decisions would have been made domestically to free up the necessary funds. The military would be required to forego non-essential expenditure, long-term spending and acquisition plans would be tweaked and the state would work hard to either free up more budgetary resources for the operations or find equitable ways to increase revenue to pay for them. In Pakistan, it seems turning to good old Uncle Sam is enough.
Intractable problem
IN Pakistan, heads are shaken often over the ills, such as poverty and illiteracy that beset much of the population, dimming the prospects of the country’s future being more productive. But there’s one debilitating problem that is so ugly in its contours that society in general and policymakers in particular tend to simply shy away from addressing it: that of drug abusers and addicts. The problem is huge, though. According to a report released on Thursday on Drug Use in Pakistan 2013, launched by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime and supported by the federal ministry of interior and narcotics control, more than a million Pakistanis are regular heroin or opium users. Some 430,000 people are estimated to be injecting drug users, of which 73pc reported that they shared syringes. This figure illustrates how fast the drug addiction issue can lead to other, deeply problematic health consequences. UNODC representative Cesar Guedes, who presented the findings, said that some 42pc of injecting drug users in Karachi alone, for example, had contracted HIV, and countless others faced the risk of being infected by this and other blood-communicable viruses such as Hepatitis C.
And let it not be forgotten that once contracted, blood-borne illnesses can be communicated to spouses and children, to make them victims too of a spiral of often fatal sickness.
There have been several pushes over the years to counter the spread and use of drugs in society. While success has been achieved here and there, overall the problem has not been eradicated, and the matter has especially in terms of interventions and medical care for drug addicts been left largely to the non-governmental sector to address. What is required is a concerted push, perhaps led by the centre and in conjunction with the provincial governments, to form a holistic, multi-pronged strategy at several levels. For example, potential drug abusers often tend to be from among the poorest sections of society; children who grow up on the streets, labourers, etc, are of ten far more vulnerable. They need to be made aware of the danger and helped in improving life conditions. Meanwhile, the constitution of drugs in the country, smuggling and sale needs to be brought to a halt we need much more seriousness on this count.
But drug abuse won’t end until the demand is brought down; that can only happen when the state decides to invest in its citizenry.
A war based on falsehood
THE accusation comes from a politician who has been referred to as the `senator’s senator`. Retiring after six terms as a member of America’s upper house, Senator Carl Levin on Thursday said the Bush administration misled the nation to justify the 2003 attack on Iraq. The basis of his criticism of the Republican administration was a declassified CIA letter which said the agency’s field agents had serious doubts about reports that Mohammad Ata, the man behind 9/11, had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague one of the pretexts used by the Bush administration to make a case for attacking Iraq because it claimed Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The truth is that Ba`athist Iraq had been defanged after the Iraqi strongman’s Kuwait misadventure in 1990. A US-led coalition, crafted by then president George Bush Sr., had annihilated Saddam Hussein’s war machine, banned the flying of Iraqi planes within parts of Iraq and imposed crippling sanctions.
Such was the comprehensive nature of the sanctions that Iraq was denied the import of certain categories of pharmaceuticals and was unable to filter water that contributed to the death of half a million civilians, something which secretary of state Madeline Albright later justified.
The truth was that the very basis of war fizzled out when the Iraqi dictator agreed to let the UN’s inspection and verification teams, led by Hans Blix, operate without hindrance. Mr Blix later told the Security Council he had found no `smoking gun`. That Mr Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair still chose to attack the oil power was one of the 21st century’s great tragedies. The results of the Anglo-American invasion are before us. Iraq has almost ceased to exist as a state and the so-called Islamic State has created anarchy that has the entire Levant in its grip. While millions have been killed, maimed and displaced, America, too, suffered over 50,000 casualties. Perhaps future US governments will not commit, as hoped by Carl Levin, America’s “sons and daughters to battle on the basis of false statements”.