Fight to the finish
Monday, June 1, 2009
By Moazzam Husain
Monday, 01 Jun, 2009
A SKILLED female worker in a garment factory in Bangladesh or Sri Lanka generates $2 in value added per hour. In terms of the $2-per-day poverty line this pulls a family of six out of poverty. A call centre attendant in Mumbai or Bangalore generates $5 per hour and a computer programmer could do upwards of $20 per hour or $40,000 GDP per capita.
If finance adviser Shaukat Tarin were to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, he may find, arguably, that each gun-toting militant in Pakistan perhaps destroys economic value equivalent to 25 times this — to the tune of $1m. This is the cost each militant imposes on the economy each year. We will turn to the numbers in a moment.
According to early reports on the electronic media, the cost of Operation Rah-i-Raast in the first few days had blown a hole in excess of Rs50bn in the exchequer. By the time the operation is over, the cost could well have touched $1.5bn. Every dollar here will be incremental to the defence budget.
Add to that, the cost of relief efforts for the IDPs which adviser Tarin himself estimates at $800m and the forgone earnings of the three million people of Swat from agriculture, tourism, mining, trade and transport. That will be another $750m taken at Pakistan’s per capita average of $1,000 for three months’ losses. You see where we are getting at? Yes we’re getting to $3bn and we’re also getting to next week’s budget speech. Sitting deep in an impregnable base in the Hindu Kush mountains, Al Qaeda will be listening to this speech with a lot of interest.
In addition to tough fiscal measures, expect to see government borrowing rise and inflation and interest rates creep up again. With little fiscal room, the government will resort to borrowing and printing money to finance Rah-i-Raast. Time is on the opposite side here and Al Qaeda’s planned strategy would quite predictably be to switch to a low-intensity war of attrition mode, keep the army in Swat, keep the IDPs out and bleed the exchequer till the State Bank says “ouch”. To frustrate this strategy, it is important to deny Al Qaeda any operational sanctuaries in Swat. The hand of effective governance must also move into Swat as IDPs return.
Back to the numbers: $3bn to rid Swat of 3,000 hard-core militants. At the rate of $1m each, every long-haired, bearded gun-toting militant has negated one year of work of 25 software programmers or of a small software house or of a 100-seat call centre. Alternately each Taliban has destroyed the economic value created by 250 garment workers, a rather not-so-small garment factory, in addition to driving away business for many others. And that is counting tangible losses only. We have not factored in the image loss to Pakistan that my friends in advertising refer to as “negative brand equity”.
We have not counted the sufferings of the genuine visa-seekers, and the distress caused to the overseas diaspora of patriotic Pakistanis, the cost of export orders lost and better prices our products could have commanded in international trade and the loss of investment that Pakistan had to suffer.
Add to this the cost of scaring away potentially lucrative business joint venture relationships, the cost of scaring away airlines, tourism, cricket teams. The loss of not seeing the delightful sight of thousands of foreigners coming to Pakistan each year on exchange visits, as students, volunteer workers in NGOs and charities, on internships and for adventure tourism. The loss of similar opportunities that would have been accorded to the youth of Pakistan to go on reciprocal exchange visits. The numbing
down of the feeling that Pakistan is part of a bigger world and that Pakistanis are global citizens.
I had ended my article last Sunday on the note that “the post Taliban era must soon begin”. This was intended in a rhetorical sense only. We need to in fact prepare for a long war. My sense is that given a few right tools the Pakistani military may be able to get the job done faster and at a lower cost. It can get it done at fewer risks to itself and with lower collateral damage.
One of these tools is the JDAM (joint direct attack munitions). Basically this is a GPS guidance kit that can retrofit onto a 1000-2000 lb conventional bomb. Using the F-16s’ advanced avionics, continuously updated GPS data steers the bomb to target accuracy within 6-8 metres. At a cost of $14,000 it turns a dumb bomb into a ‘near smart’ munitions with target homing capability approximating a high-precision laser-guided weapon. The JDAM has been successfully battle-tested. During the peak of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, 3,000 of these were being used each month by the US air force and navy.
In my article of May 10 I had suggested the need for the information ministry to develop a counter-narrative to Al Qaeda’s ideology of global jihad to disabuse the notion that we are fighting ‘America’s war’. Three war-fighting weeks later there are no signs of effort from this white elephant ministry; so before the Pakistan Air Force begins mounting the JDAMs on the pylons of its F-16s, and as Al Qaeda prepares to listen to the budget speech, I would like to use the opportunity accorded here. Our message is this:
‘We are the children of the Indus basin, one of the world’s largest natural resource and a cradle of ancient civilisations like Moenjodaro, Harappa and Gandhara that go back thousands of years. Today we are a multiethnic society sharing a rich history. Indeed our national language Urdu is an amalgam of Persian, Turkish, Arab, Central Asian and North Indian influences.
‘Pakistan is our land, our home, rich in agriculture and mineral resources and alive with the spirit of enterprise of our hardworking people. Every inch of it is sacred and we treat it with reverence; and so we expect others who come here would behave, as one is supposed to behave when in someone else’s home. You have come in here uninvited, of your own volition and have not treated our soil with the respect it is worthy of. Do not mistake our smiling faces, our large-heartedness and our simple manners for fickle-mindedness.
‘Our God is benevolent, not angry and vindictive. Whilst proud of our homeland we are also citizens of a larger world that offers us opportunities to realise our larger aspirations. We can understand that the presence of American forces in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 may have stoked your feelings, but today, your declaring jihad against your enemies, sitting on our soil outrages us.
‘We are a nuclear-weapons state; we are proud of our military and our courageous people. We have friends around the world. We can look after our interests. We do not need you to fight for our causes. If you must fight for yours, then please go elsewhere. Take your foreign fighters and please leave. We ask you to leave and go find a home somewhere else.’
http://moazzamhusain.wordpress.com
Source
Monday, 01 Jun, 2009
A SKILLED female worker in a garment factory in Bangladesh or Sri Lanka generates $2 in value added per hour. In terms of the $2-per-day poverty line this pulls a family of six out of poverty. A call centre attendant in Mumbai or Bangalore generates $5 per hour and a computer programmer could do upwards of $20 per hour or $40,000 GDP per capita.
If finance adviser Shaukat Tarin were to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, he may find, arguably, that each gun-toting militant in Pakistan perhaps destroys economic value equivalent to 25 times this — to the tune of $1m. This is the cost each militant imposes on the economy each year. We will turn to the numbers in a moment.
According to early reports on the electronic media, the cost of Operation Rah-i-Raast in the first few days had blown a hole in excess of Rs50bn in the exchequer. By the time the operation is over, the cost could well have touched $1.5bn. Every dollar here will be incremental to the defence budget.
Add to that, the cost of relief efforts for the IDPs which adviser Tarin himself estimates at $800m and the forgone earnings of the three million people of Swat from agriculture, tourism, mining, trade and transport. That will be another $750m taken at Pakistan’s per capita average of $1,000 for three months’ losses. You see where we are getting at? Yes we’re getting to $3bn and we’re also getting to next week’s budget speech. Sitting deep in an impregnable base in the Hindu Kush mountains, Al Qaeda will be listening to this speech with a lot of interest.
In addition to tough fiscal measures, expect to see government borrowing rise and inflation and interest rates creep up again. With little fiscal room, the government will resort to borrowing and printing money to finance Rah-i-Raast. Time is on the opposite side here and Al Qaeda’s planned strategy would quite predictably be to switch to a low-intensity war of attrition mode, keep the army in Swat, keep the IDPs out and bleed the exchequer till the State Bank says “ouch”. To frustrate this strategy, it is important to deny Al Qaeda any operational sanctuaries in Swat. The hand of effective governance must also move into Swat as IDPs return.
Back to the numbers: $3bn to rid Swat of 3,000 hard-core militants. At the rate of $1m each, every long-haired, bearded gun-toting militant has negated one year of work of 25 software programmers or of a small software house or of a 100-seat call centre. Alternately each Taliban has destroyed the economic value created by 250 garment workers, a rather not-so-small garment factory, in addition to driving away business for many others. And that is counting tangible losses only. We have not factored in the image loss to Pakistan that my friends in advertising refer to as “negative brand equity”.
We have not counted the sufferings of the genuine visa-seekers, and the distress caused to the overseas diaspora of patriotic Pakistanis, the cost of export orders lost and better prices our products could have commanded in international trade and the loss of investment that Pakistan had to suffer.
Add to this the cost of scaring away potentially lucrative business joint venture relationships, the cost of scaring away airlines, tourism, cricket teams. The loss of not seeing the delightful sight of thousands of foreigners coming to Pakistan each year on exchange visits, as students, volunteer workers in NGOs and charities, on internships and for adventure tourism. The loss of similar opportunities that would have been accorded to the youth of Pakistan to go on reciprocal exchange visits. The numbing
down of the feeling that Pakistan is part of a bigger world and that Pakistanis are global citizens.
I had ended my article last Sunday on the note that “the post Taliban era must soon begin”. This was intended in a rhetorical sense only. We need to in fact prepare for a long war. My sense is that given a few right tools the Pakistani military may be able to get the job done faster and at a lower cost. It can get it done at fewer risks to itself and with lower collateral damage.
One of these tools is the JDAM (joint direct attack munitions). Basically this is a GPS guidance kit that can retrofit onto a 1000-2000 lb conventional bomb. Using the F-16s’ advanced avionics, continuously updated GPS data steers the bomb to target accuracy within 6-8 metres. At a cost of $14,000 it turns a dumb bomb into a ‘near smart’ munitions with target homing capability approximating a high-precision laser-guided weapon. The JDAM has been successfully battle-tested. During the peak of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, 3,000 of these were being used each month by the US air force and navy.
In my article of May 10 I had suggested the need for the information ministry to develop a counter-narrative to Al Qaeda’s ideology of global jihad to disabuse the notion that we are fighting ‘America’s war’. Three war-fighting weeks later there are no signs of effort from this white elephant ministry; so before the Pakistan Air Force begins mounting the JDAMs on the pylons of its F-16s, and as Al Qaeda prepares to listen to the budget speech, I would like to use the opportunity accorded here. Our message is this:
‘We are the children of the Indus basin, one of the world’s largest natural resource and a cradle of ancient civilisations like Moenjodaro, Harappa and Gandhara that go back thousands of years. Today we are a multiethnic society sharing a rich history. Indeed our national language Urdu is an amalgam of Persian, Turkish, Arab, Central Asian and North Indian influences.
‘Pakistan is our land, our home, rich in agriculture and mineral resources and alive with the spirit of enterprise of our hardworking people. Every inch of it is sacred and we treat it with reverence; and so we expect others who come here would behave, as one is supposed to behave when in someone else’s home. You have come in here uninvited, of your own volition and have not treated our soil with the respect it is worthy of. Do not mistake our smiling faces, our large-heartedness and our simple manners for fickle-mindedness.
‘Our God is benevolent, not angry and vindictive. Whilst proud of our homeland we are also citizens of a larger world that offers us opportunities to realise our larger aspirations. We can understand that the presence of American forces in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 may have stoked your feelings, but today, your declaring jihad against your enemies, sitting on our soil outrages us.
‘We are a nuclear-weapons state; we are proud of our military and our courageous people. We have friends around the world. We can look after our interests. We do not need you to fight for our causes. If you must fight for yours, then please go elsewhere. Take your foreign fighters and please leave. We ask you to leave and go find a home somewhere else.’
http://moazzamhusain.wordpress.com
Source
Labels: Economy, Extremism, Midterm Elections, Militancy, Swat Operation, Taliban
posted @ 2:01 PM,
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