The imperative for peace: By Khalid Aziz

Khalid Aziz writes about the role of Pakistan in terrorism and questioning the basic premises of participation in the war and to what length, and discusses many important associated issues. 

POOR nations that fight long wars quickly become insolvent. Pakistan is on the verge. In his haste to obtain international support for his unconstitutional rule, Gen Musharraf pawned away Pakistan’s future for mere dimes.

After 10 years of fighting, Pakistan’s ability to finance its ways and means has evaporated. As the war continues, more money is needed but is not available.

Now is the time to change the paradigm and save ourselves from insolvency. Pakistan cannot afford to fight a war, which is a frightfully expensive and aimless exercise. Yet to end the war, other means based on peace-building have to be adopted.

The good news is that such a formula already exists for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata in the form of the Post-Crisis Need Assessment (PCNA) that is a multi-donor funded, Pakistan-led effort driven by the administrations of the two regions. More about that in a bit; first, let us dissect the financial difficulties facing the country.

The size of our national budget for 2011-12 is Rs2,767bn. This is 14.2 per cent higher than that of the previous year. As a result of the suspension of the $11.3bn IMF bailout programme, the government will be left with less than $526m (Rs46bn) in net external financing up to June 30, 2012. Th

A Second Chance by Cyril Almeida: Very sharp and important op

A Second Chance

SOMETIMES big decisions turn on simple questions. In the aftermath of 9/11, the question was a simple one: did we get it? Did our generals get that 9/11 was an epochal, seismic shift, that the old way of doing business had to be chucked out, replaced by a new pragmatism to fit new realities?
The generals didn’t get it. They thought 9/11 was a blip, one that required temporary adjustments and deflections, for which they would be rewarded handsomely, before eventually going back to business as usual.
No thought was given to long-term changes or course corrections, which made sense for a state which rarely has anything by way of strategy, statecraft here being limited to haphazardly responding to crises.
Ten years on, Pakistan is struggling mightily with the consequences of misreading 9/11 and what it meant for this country and the security choices before it.
Which is why debating the minutiae of the present round of accusations and recriminations between Pakistan and the US matters little. Has the CIA been handed a bunch of Pakistani visas as a result of an explicit understanding that no unilateral American operations will take place on Pakistani soil or was it more of a mumbled half-promise accompanied by severe arm-twisting?
Has Ghulam Nabi Fai been outed as a warning that if Pakistan continues to hamper American efforts to get what it wants most — eliminating terrorists who may threaten the US homeland