Shahid Burki, Recipe for Failure, A finger in every pie, Stretching Logic, So they Keep Silent,

Shahid Burki - Sound proposals were made by the commissions headed by Ishrat Husain and Moeen Afzal in this context. These need to be implemented. Along with better compensation should come accountability and that should be embedded in the legal system. No changes should be allowed once the system is in place. This can only happen if there is a broad political consensus behind its creation. Finally, while compensation for providing services should be increased so should the cost of being corrupt. Only then will the calculus change in favour of cleaner governance




Recipe for Failure - During the talks, the representatives of the US and the Karzai regime had their own preconditions, the most important being that the Taliban militia should accept Afghanistan’s new constitution and join the political mainstream under the existing system of governance. The Americans also wanted Mullah Omar to ditch Al-Qaeda and help arrest Osama bin Laden. The talks eventually failed due to the obstinacy of the Taliban representatives who first wanted the withdrawal of the US-led allied forces from Afghanistan.

When an elected head of the state, who is also the head of the largest political party of the country, the Supreme Commander of the country’s armed forces and (at least on papers) the man with his finger on the country’s nuclear button,{a finger in every pie?} cannot venture out of his bunker in the presidency, a five-star prison of sorts, and attacks a TV channel, a newspaper editor or a talk show anchor, he must be seriously in trouble or scared to death with insecurity.

And here please look at the order Shaheen Sehbai uses: [soldiers sacrificingtheir lives comes last)

Here is the strongest man in the country so rattled by a few reports and articles by me, or a few talk shows by Dr Shahid Masood, that he forgets to mention anything about the infamous NRO, the shame of the Kerry Lugar Bill, the gross charges of corruption, money laundering or misuse of power against him and his cronies. He did not mention the issues of sugar, atta, electricity and unemployment. He did not praise the soldiers and people fighting the deadly terrorists. He and his few people now sharing power were only worried about their own fate, with the loud spoken Zulfikar Mirza declaring to the world that he would use the Sindh Card, if worse comes to worst.

Stretching Logic - It might not be out of context to mention that the first prime minister of Pakistan from Sindh was assassinated in Punjab and those in the establishment involved in the cover up of his murder were blessed with huge estates. ZA Bhutto, the second prime minister from the same province, was killed due to a judicial verdict. The third and fourth prime ministers Muhammad Khan Junejo and Benazir Bhutto respectively, were unconstitutionally sacked and could not get justice from the judiciary. Once again the superior judiciary is being dragged into the power game to remove President Zardari from the office for which he has been elected with an overwhelming majority from four provincial Assemblies, the National Assembly and the Senate. The plan to extract a political decision on technical grounds to remove an elected president is not going to strengthen the institution of the judiciary or democracy.

So they Keep Silent- The key, therefore, is to have the silent majority to speak out, and to think with more nuance. And one can find one of those voices in the NYT report itself, when part of the Noori duo, Ali Hamza says (of the reason for not speaking out), "it's very easy for them to get rid of us." That speaks of the truth, one that we wish wasn't so.