International conspiracies against Pakistan - an eye opener for conspiracy theorists

Capital suggestion
Conspiracies against us

Sunday, November 23, 2008
by Dr Farrukh Saleem

It's a Jewish conspiracy. Medinat Yisra'el or the State of Israel has appointed Yuli Tamir, a PhD from the Oxford University, as their minister of education. Just look at the fact: this has happened when Pakistan didn't even have a minister of education (and then the Islamic Republic appointed Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani). Consider this: Zubaida Jalal Khan, our one-time minister of education, is being investigated by a Senate committee for her role in the Rs3.6 billion Tawana Pakistan Project scam. Just look at this other fact: exactly when Zubaida Jalal was running Tawana Pakistan, Yuli Tamir was a research fellow first at Princeton and then at Harvard. How cunning indeed, the ministry of education in Israel gets to spend $1,500 every year on each Israeli citizen while the ministry of education in Pakistan has a mere $20 per year for every Pakistani man, woman and child.

Imagine; Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other country on the face of the planet -- 109 per 10,000 people. Pakistan produces one per cent of Israel's productivity. Israel spends $110 on scientific research per year per person; Pakistan spends $2.

This one must be an American conspiracy. The Yanks have somehow duped us into buying $35 billion worth of mobile phones, luxury limousines, wheat, tea, raw cotton, plastic materials, petroleum products and edible oil when the Yanks know full well that 170 million Pakistanis cannot export goods worth more than $20 billion. It has to be the Yanks causing this depletion of our hard-earned foreign exchange reserves. It has to be the Yanks forcing us to fall for the IMF bait. It has to be our bomb that they hate.

Finally, the Indian conspiracy against us. Now, even Prime Minister Singh is going to help Pakistan get into the IMF trap. Then there are a billion penny-pinchers, a mere 177 miles east of Islamabad, using Aishwarya Rai to hypnotise each and every one of our 55 federal ministers into spending a colossal Rs600 billion per year more than the entire government of Pakistan earns every year. How wicked, insidious and vicious are the Indians; opting for the moon for their own country and wanting to make an international beggar out of us.

What's wrong with Saudi Arabia? They make $700 million per day by selling oil at $70 a barrel. Do they also have a hidden agenda against us? Why can't King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, throw our way a few billions? What's wrong with China; our friendship higher than the Himalayas and deeper than the Indian Ocean? After all, Hu Jintao is sitting on $1.9 trillion dollars worth of foreign exchange reserves. Why can't he throw a few billions our way? Is China also conspiring to bring us down to our knees?

Look at Lockheed, the world's largest defence contractor, conspiring to deplete our foreign exchange reserves. The fact is that no one is buying F-16s anymore and the Forth Worth aircraft assembly plant is laying off workers. Why is Lockheed then shoving down at least 18 F-16 C/D Block 50/52, worth a colossal $1.43 billion, down our poor, hungry throats? Lockheed knows full well that three out of four Pakistanis make less than $2 a day. Raytheon, the world's largest producer of guided missiles, has now forced us to buy 500 of its advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles in return for our hard-earned $629 million.

When the whole wide world is conspiring against us the IMF must have been feeling lonely. The fact is that the IMF had been left clientless. Out of the blues, the IMF allured us into fabricating this massive balance of payment crisis so that the IMF could stroll right into Pakistan, lend us billions and in return ruin us and destroy us (if we are destroyed who would pay back the IMF its billions?). In short, our current fiscal and monetary emergency is not our own creation. Only if the three -- Israel, India and the US -- were to be swallowed up by the devil himself we could make a heaven out of the 778,720 sq km of land area we call Jamhuryat Islami Pakistan.

The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com (The News)

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Everyone at fault, except us. Why is it that everything that goes against us becomes a conspiracy?

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Pakistan Is Striving to Avoid IMF Aid as Economy Worsens

The Wall Street Journal - NOVEMBER 5, 2008

Zardari in New Bid for Saudi Help

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG and ZAHID HUSSAIN

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- In dire need of financial help to stave off an economic collapse and beat back Islamic militants, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari headed to Saudi Arabia Tuesday in his latest effort to plead for financial support from a long-time ally.

Mr. Zardari is trying hard to avoid seeking aid from the International Money Fund, which would impose tough conditions that could undermine his support among the poor. And he is looking to Riyadh, which supplies the bulk of Pakistan's oil, to defer billions of dollars in oil payments owed by Pakistan.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's top economic adviser, Shaukat Tarin, speaking from Saudi Arabia, told the Associated Press of Pakistan that "we will not require IMF support in case we succeed in getting money from Saudi Arabia."

Success is far from guaranteed, however. Mr. Zardari, widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, will have to mend some fences with the Saudis if he wants them to come to his rescue.

The Saudis are upset over Mr. Zardari's treatment of opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, who spent much of his nine-year exile in Saudi Arabia before he returned to Pakistan late last year and remains close to many in the Arab kingdom, said a former Pakistani diplomat. Mr. Sharif initially was part of a governing coalition headed by Mr. Zardari's Pakistan People's Party. But Mr. Sharif pulled his party out of the government midyear after feuding with Mr. Zardari.

The Saudis also have long seen themselves as one of Pakistan's main foreign benefactors on a par with the U.S. and China. But in September they stayed away from the first meeting of the so-called Friends of Democratic Pakistan, an alliance of Pakistan's allies, after being grouped in with other Gulf countries, said a Western diplomat whose country is part of the group.

Riyadh still hasn't said if it will attend a Friends of Democratic Pakistan summit tentatively scheduled for Nov. 17 in Abu Dhabi, though a senior Pakistani official said it could be delayed.

Mr. Zardari's tricky task on his visit to Saudi Arabia is mirrored in his efforts to garner support from other allies, including the U.S., while at the same time trying to convince a domestic audience that Pakistan can get the help it needs on its own terms.

Even the purpose of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan remains in question. Pakistan's leaders have portrayed it as a donor forum, and Planning Secretary Suhail Safdar said in an interview that the government is drawing up a list of 40 to 60 infrastructure projects for the group to help fund. The projects are the kind of public works that draw votes, everything from small dams to help poor farmers to a major highway system that would stretch from the Arabian Sea to the mountainous border with China.

But the Western diplomat said funding such projects was not the intended purpose of the group, which instead was set up to help provide expertise and advice to Pakistan. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher suggested as much in Pakistan on Monday, saying the group's "goal was not to throw money on the table."

Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Mr. Zardari, said the Friends of Democratic Pakistan are "to work out ways and means to help Pakistan overcome its problems. That does not necessarily mean giving cash. They are going to work out what they consider the best ways and means to help Pakistan." The Saudis, he added, "are one of the many Friends of Democratic Pakistan."

Mr. Boucher was in Islamabad with Gen. David Petraeus, the new chief of the U.S. Central Command. Mr. Zardari and other top officials pressed Gen. Petraeus to stop U.S. missile strikes in the rugged tribal regions that border Afghanistan and are used as a base by Taliban fighters, al Qaeda operatives and other Islamic militants. There have been at least 17 missile strikes since mid-August.

But there was little hope among Pakistani officials the Americans would heed their calls. "What can we do? We need so much help from them. We can't make them stop," said a foreign ministry official, who asked not to be identified.

Pakistan also is engaged in a delicate dance with the IMF, which Mr. Zardari has insisted is a last resort even as Pakistan bleeds hard cash. Its foreign-exchange reserves were down to $6.92 billion as of Oct. 25, with the central bank holding enough money to cover fewer than 45 days of imports.

At one point last month, the fund said that Pakistan had sought assistance, only for Pakistani officials to say the following day that they were still hoping to secure money elsewhere and hadn't formally approached the IMF over a loan.

Yet Pakistan and the IMF have continued talking, and a Pakistani official said a deal for a $9 billion loan could come as early as next week. The IMF would provide $4.5 billion immediately to keep Pakistan from defaulting on international loans, said the official.

Write to Matthew Rosenberg at matthew.rosenberg@wsj.com
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Pakistan needs financial and logistic aid to sustain the war on terror

Global crisis and war on terrorism

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Saturday that “debt-ridden banks were pushing the global financial system to the brink of meltdown” and “the rich nations had so far failed to restore confidence”. According to it, “solvency concerns about a number of the largest US-based and European financial institutions” have pushed the international financial system towards meltdown.

The reference is to the $700 billion bailout package sanctioned by the US Congress that the US thinks the world will finance by buying US treasury paper, but the world is threatened with recession as economies contract and the panic-stricken banking sector chokes off lending to businesses and households. The “credit crunch” is supposed to hit the developing states more severely. And the Group of 27, which includes India and Pakistan, says its economies could come crashing down.

In Pakistan, other crises are compounding the financial crisis. Lack of water in the dams has increased load shedding and the banks are on the brink of suffering runs as big deposits flee and salaried employees, succumbing to rumours, line up to encash cheques. The war against terrorism is on in Pakistan and the determination to fight is still not gelling sufficiently because of the noise made by the opposition in and outside the parliament after a briefing by the Army.

Under the economic crunch, Pakistan has asked its friends abroad to bail it out financially, especially to shore up its foreign exchange reserves that have shrunk dangerously lower than the value of its annual oil bill and other crucial imports.

The war against terrorism is a complex phenomenon and is linked to the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. As our Army advances in Bajaur and makes gains against the terrorists, “foreigners” come across the Durand Line from the adjoining provinces of Afghanistan to undo them. These operations are expensive and are being funded by the US as a part of the war against terrorism which Pakistan has joined in its own interest. But it can fight on only if its economy is saved from collapsing totally. The effects of the global crisis are visible, and like the rest of the world our stock market is under pressure and money is being dollarised and sent abroad by panic-stricken investors.

Above all, Pakistan needs funds to fight terrorism. And to stay alive as a state to fight this war its economy needs injections of “friendly funds” to avoid defaulting on debt repayments and on payments due on its imports. Both crises strike at the root of the existence of the state. If it tries to win reprieve from the terrorists by accepting their sharia-related demands, the system they will replace the 1973 Constitution with will mean the undoing of the state as envisaged by its founding fathers.

Therefore, not so much for the sake of the world as for its own sake, Pakistan needs to survive the current global crisis. Thankfully, too, it is not as “globalised” as some states that are under threat of meltdowns and it can weather the storm if its friends at the forthcoming Friends of Pakistan forum can finance its deficits and leave it free to fight the terrorists.

But the scene is changing every minute in the world economy. The rich states with most to lose are turning inward and appear less ready to hand out money to a friend in need. Enthusiasm for the war against terrorism is also losing some steam as nations involved in Afghanistan become distracted by stringencies at home. Military commanders are already saying the war can’t be won. Unlike Pakistan, the war for them is a distant phenomenon and can be offset by mounting less expensive measures at home. Will the friends be forthcoming?

The US is squeezed by the current crisis. Even the Iraq war was fought by it with borrowed money. As the Council on Foreign Relations report of September 2008, titled Sovereign Wealth and Sovereign Power, puts it, “China and Russia bought the debt the United States issued to finance the war in Iraq even though they voted against the United States in the UN”. Saudi Arabia, which was favourably inclined to meet our request for a “deferred payment” package, may be a little shaken by the contracting demand for oil in the world and its steeply falling price. Iran, not our normal source for oil, has still to process our request for deferment sales. Will the Friends of Pakistan forum come up with the sort of money we need to tide us over?

China will definitely be a major player behind putting together the $700 billion bailout package. Its foreign reserves, standing at around a trillion dollars today, will help it withstand the global crisis. The threat to it of the rising oil price has subsided and if it helps Pakistan ride out the current crisis the funds thus saved would suffice. But China will probably wait till the Friends of Pakistan have shown their hand. Pakistan expects its Arab friends to step up to the plate. The war against terrorism has to be fought by Pakistan for its own survival. But the world also has a serious stake in it. (Daily Times)
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Friends of Pakistan - hosted by Pakistan, UK and USA...

(Asadullah Ghalib)
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