Loud Thinking

Archive for the ‘My Views’ Category

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

~Lao Tzu

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”

~Winston Churchill

“If life is no fun, it is because you are no fun. Your life is always a reflection of who you are… Try this: Stop taking things, including yourself, so seriously. Life is not as complicated as you have made it out to be.”

— Larry Winget

Dear Mr. Imran Khan….wishing you on behalf of the millions and millions of your fans in Pakistan and abroad, a very happy and joyous birthday and many happy returns of the day.

May you live for a thousand years of which every year be of a fifty thousand days.

A humble birthday gift from me to the legendary Mr. Imran Khan..!

Imran khan in the eyes of famous cricketer Sir Vivian Richards..!
Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

GIVEN below are some excerpts relating to Mr. Imran Khan, from the book titled “Sir Vivian”, an autobiography of famous West Indian cricketer, Mr. Vivian Richards. Co-authored by Bob Harris.
1. “He (Imran Khan) was one of the fiercest competitors and, no matter how well you were batting, he would always have a delivery which could come and destroy you. I respect him and his cricketing views; and if the Pakistani side had a leader they looked up to and respected like they did him, they would be a much better and more consistent team than they are now. He (Imran Khan) and Miandad are two of the most patriotic individuals I have met, and I can identify with that. I am quite certain you wouldn’t be hearing stories about match-fixing and other bad things if they were at the helm. Both would die for their country.
This is how the best players feel. It is so often the passion involved in playing for your country that leads to the raw aggression which can sometimes surprise spectators.” (Page 174).
2. “This wasn’t always the case around the world. Australia was notorious for ‘home’ decisions, and there were problems in Pakistan, in India and even at home in Caribbean. This is what brought about the change to neutral umpires. Imran Khan was maybe the first to demand neutral umpires, and when we toured Pakistan we had two Indian umpires.” (Page 207).
3. “They talk of reverse swing as something new, but when I first toured Pakistan in 1975 we saw Imran Khan and Sarfraz Nawaz do it on a regular basis with the old ball.” (Page 213).
4. “I could never imagine a player like Imran Khan being involved in anything like that, because he loves his country, the way I love the West Indies and Ian Botham loves England. Imran’s pride wouldn’t allow him to, any more than ours would me or Ian.
The problem needs to be taken more seriously and be throughly investigated. Anyone caught and proved beyond doubt to be involved in match-fixing should be given the maximum punishment, both within the game and under the laws of the country in which it happens. In my view, its a kind of treason, selling your country out. At one time that would have meant being put in front of a firing squad! How can anyone sell out his or her country for a few bucks? It is beyond my comprehension” (Page 29).

My letter titled “No change really at the PCB” published today by the daily the “Express Tribune”.

The statement of Shehryar Khan on the first day of his taking over as the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), saying that Misbahul Haq will be retained as captain till the World Cup, removed any semblance of doubts about the fact that the new PCB chief will blindly continue the polices of his predecessor.

The manner in which the national team surrendered in the recent Test and One-Day International series against Sri Lanka was shocking.

Even more pathetic was the inertia of the top management of the PCB, which failed to perform any accountability of the tour management.

The board also looked the other way when the time came to fix the person(s) responsible for not taking preemptive measures that would have saved Saeed Ajmal from the ban imposed by the International Cricket Council.

This is a very serious matter since several commentators and experts had been speaking about the possibility of this happening for several months.

Furthermore, the recent case of Younus Khan has been mishandled.

A player with his stellar qualities should not have to fight to be selected, but that is what seems to be happening.

The question that comes to mind is that if a world class cricketer like him can be sacked on the basis of poor performance in a single match, why can’t the team manager and chief selector be given the same treatment?

The new PCB chief needs to take his own independent decisions. He can seek help and advice of former players in this regard.

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5th, 2014.
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A script for the economic destruction of the poor nations..! http://t.co/F5hdEHAwll

Just read the following excerpts and see how Pakistan was and is being looted and plundered by the World Bank, IMF and other lending agencies of the West through the stooges, Mir Jaffers and Mir Sadiq’s of Pakistan…!

EYE OPENING extracts from the book titled “Confessions of an economic hit man” by John Perkins.

The SPECIAL point to be noted is that there is a special mention of the word “Rigged Elections”, which seen in its true prospective, fully applies to Pakistan in every respect.

Economic hit men {EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM.”

Claudine pulled no punches when describing what I would be called upon to do. My job, she said, was “to encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes U.S. commercial in- terests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire — to satisfy our
political, economic, or military needs. In turn, they bolster their political positions by bringing industrial parks, power plants, and airports to their people. The owners of U.S. engineer- ing/construction companies become fabulously wealthy.”

That is what we EHMs do best: we build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations sub- servient to the corporatocracy running our biggest corporations, our government, and our banks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, EHMs provide favors. These take the form of loans to develop in- frastructure — electric generating plants, highways, ports, airports, or industrial parks. A condition of such loans is that engineering and construction companies from our own country must build all these projects. In essence, most of the money never leaves the United States; it is simply transferred from banking offices in Washington to engineering offices in New York, Houston, or San Francisco.
Despite the fact that the money is returned almost immediately to corporations that are members of the corporatocracy (the creditor), the recipient country is required to pay it all back, principal plus interest. If an EHM is completely successful, the loans are so large that the debtor is forced to default on its payments after a few years. When this happens, then like the Mafia we demand our pound of flesh. This often includes one or more of the following: control over United Nations votes, the installation of military bases, or access to precious resources such as oil or the Panama Canal. Of course, the debtor still owes us the money —and another country is added to our global empire.

Outside the window of my Outback, great clouds of mist rolled in from the forests and up the Pastaza’s canyons. Sweat soaked my shirt, and my stomach began to churn, but not just from the intense tropical heat and the serpentine twists in the road. Knowing the part I had played in destroying this beautiful country was once again taking its toll. Because of my fellow EHMs and me, Ecuador is in far worse shape today than she was before we introduced her to the miracles of modern economics, banking, and engineering. Since 1970, during this period known euphemistically as the Oil Boom, the official poverty level grew from 50 to 70 percent, under- or unemployment increased from 15 to 70 percent, and public debt increased from $240 million to $16 billion. Meanwhile, the share of national resources allocated to the poorest segments of the population declined from 20 to 6 percent.5

Unfortunately, Ecuador is not the exception. Nearly every country we EHMs have brought under the global empire’s umbrella has suf- fered a similar fate.6 Third world debt has grown to more than S2.5 trillion, and the cost of servicing it — over $375 billion per year as of 2004 — is more than all third world spending on health and educa- tion, and twenty times what developing countries receive annually in foreign aid. Over half the people in the world survive on less than two dollars per day, which is roughly the same amount they received in the early 1970s. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent of third world households accounts for 70 to 90 percent of all private financial wealth and real estate ownership in their country; the actual per- centage depends on the specific country.7

That hideous, incongruous wall is a dam that blocks the rushing Pastaza River, diverts its waters through huge tunnels bored into the mountain, and converts the energy to electricity. This is the 156- megawatt Agoyan hydroelectric project. It fuels the industries that make a handful of Ecuadorian families wealthy, and it has been the source of untold suffering for the farmers and indigenous people who live along the river. This hydroelectric plant is just one of many projects developed through my efforts and those of other EHMs. Such projects are the reason Ecuador is now a member of the global empire, and the reason why the Shuars and Kichwas and their neighbors threaten war against our oil companies.
Because of EHM projects, Ecuador is awash in foreign debt and must devote an inordinate share of its national budget to paying this off, instead of using its capital to help the millions of its citizens officially classified as dangerously impoverished. The only way Ecua- dor can buy down its foreign obligations is by selling its rain forests to the oil companies. Indeed, one of the reasons the EHMs set their sights on Ecuador in the first place was because the sea of oil beneath its Amazon region is believed to rival the oil fields of the Middle East.8 The global empire demands its pound of flesh in the form of oil concessions.

These demands became especially urgent after September 11, 2001, when Washington feared that Middle Eastern supplies might cease. On top of that, Venezuela, our third-largest oil supplier, had recently elected a populist president, Hugo Chavez, who took a strong stand against what he referred to as U.S. imperialism; he threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States. The EHMs had failed in Iraq and Venezuela, but we had succeeded in Ecuador; now we would milk it for all it is worth.

Ecuador is typical of countries around the world that EHMs have brought into the economic-political fold. For every $100 of crude taken out of the Ecuadorian rain forests, the oil companies receive $75. Of the remaining S25, three-quarters must go to paying off the foreign debt. Most of the remainder covers military and other gov- ernment expenses — which leaves about $2.50 for health, education, and programs aimed at helping the poor.9 Thus, out of every $100 worth of oil torn from the Amazon, less than $3 goes to the people who need the money most, those whose lives have been so adversely impacted by the dams, the drilling, and the pipelines, and who are dying from lack of edible food and potable water.
All of those people — millions in Ecuador, billions around the planet —are potential terrorists. Not because they believe in com- munism or anarchism or are intrinsically evil, but simply because they are desperate. Looking at this dam, I wondered — as I have so often in so many places around the world—when these people would take action, like the Americans against England in the 1770s or Latin Americans against Spain in the early 1800s.

The subtlety of this modern empire building puts the Roman centurions, the Spanish conquistadors, and the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European colonial powers to shame. We EHMs are crafty; we learned from history. Today we do not carry swords. We do not wear armor or clothes that set us apart. In countries like Ecuador, Nigeria, and Indonesia, we dress like local schoolteachers and shop owners. In Washington and Paris, we look like government bureaucrats and bankers. We appear humble, normal. We visit project sites and stroll through impoverished villages. We profess altruism, talk with local papers about the wonderful humanitarian things we are doing. We cover the conference tables of government committees with our spreadsheets and financial projections, and we lecture at the Harvard Business School about the miracles of macroeconomics.

We are on the record, in the open. Or so we portray ourselves and so are we accepted. It is how the system works. We seldom resort to anything illegal because the system itself is built on subterfuge, and the system is by definition legitimate.
However — and this is a very large caveat — if we fail, an even more sinister breed steps in, ones we EHMs refer to as the jackals, men who trace their heritage directly to those earlier empires. The jackals are always there, lurking in the shadows. When they emerge, heads of state are overthrown or die in violent “accidents.”10 And if by chance the jackals fail, as they failed in Afghanistan and Iraq, then the old models resurface. When the jackals fail, young Americans are sent in to kill and to die.

Claudine told me that there were two primary objectives of my work. First, I was to justify huge international loans that would funnel money back to MAIN and other U.S. companies (such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Stone & Webster, and Brown & Root) through massive engineering and construction projects. Second, I would work to bankrupt the countries that received those loans (after they had paid MAIN and the other U.S. contractors, of course) so that they would be forever beholden to their creditors, and so they would present easy targets when we needed favors, including military bases, UN votes, or access to oil and other natural resources.
My job, she said, was to forecast the effects of investing billions of dollars in a country. Specifically, I would produce studies that pro- jected economic growth twenty to twenty-five years into the future and that evaluated the impacts of a variety of projects. For example, if a decision was made to lend a country $1 billion to persuade its leaders not to align with the Soviet Union, I would compare the ben- efits of investing that money in power plants with the benefits of in- vesting in a new national railroad network or a telecommunications system. Or I might be told that the country was being offered the op- portunity to receive a modern electric utility system, and it would be up to me to demonstrate that such a system would result in sufficient economic growth to justify the loan. The critical factor, in every case, was gross national product. The project that resulted in the highest average annual growth of GNP won. If only one project was under consideration, I would need to demonstrate that developing it would bring superior benefits to the GNP.
The unspoken aspect of every one of these projects was that they were intended to create large profits for the contractors, and to make a handful of wealthy and influential families in the receiving coun- tries very happy, while assuring the long-term financial dependence and therefore the political loyalty of governments around the world. The larger the loan, the better. The fact that the debt burden placed on a country would deprive its poorest citizens of health, education, and other social services for decades to come was not taken into consideration.
Claudine and I openly discussed the deceptive nature of GNP. For instance, the growth of GNP may result even when it profits only one person, such as an individual who owns a utility company, and even if the majority of the population is burdened with debt. The rich get richer and the poor grow poorer. Yet, from a statistical standpoint, this is recorded as economic progress.
Like U.S. citizens in general, most MAIN employees believed we were doing countries favors when we built power plants, highways, and ports. Our schools and our press have taught us to perceive all of our actions as altruistic. Over the years, I’ve repeatedly heard com- ments like, “If they’re going to burn the U.S. flag and demonstrate against our embassy, why don’t we just get out of their damn country and let them wallow in their own poverty?”
People who say such things often hold diplomas certifying that they are well educated. However, these people have no clue that the main reason we establish embassies around the world is to serve our own interests, which during the last half of the twentieth century meant turning the American republic into a global empire. Despite credentials, such people are as uneducated as those eighteenth- century colonists who believed that the Indians fighting to defend their lands were servants of the devil.
Within several months, I would leave for the island of Java in the country of Indonesia, described at that time as the most heavily pop- ulated piece of real estate on the planet. Indonesia also happened to be an oil-rich Muslim nation and a hotbed of communist activity.
“It’s the next domino after Vietnam,” is the way Claudine put it. “We must win the Indonesians over. If they join the Communist bloc, well…” She drew a finger across her throat and then smiled sweetly. “Let’s just say you need to come up with a very optimistic forecast of the economy, how it will mushroom after all the new power plants and distribution lines are built. That will allow USAID and the international banks to justify the loans. You’ll be well rewarded,

“We’re paid — well paid — to cheat countries around the globe out of billions of dollars. A large part of your job is to encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes U.S. commercial interests. In the end, those leaders be- come ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire — to satisfy our political, economic, or military needs. In turn, these leaders bolster their political posi- tions by bringing industrial parks, power plants, and airports to their people. Meanwhile, the owners of U.S. engineering and construction companies become very wealthy.”

relaxing in the window while snow swirled around outside, I learned the history of the profession I was about to enter. Claudine described how throughout most of history, empires were built largely through military force or the threat of it. But with the end of World War II, the emergence of the Soviet Union, and the specter of nuclear holo- caust, the military solution became just too risky.
The decisive moment occurred in 1951, when Iran rebelled against a British oil company that was exploiting Iranian natural resources and its people. The company was the forerunner of British Petroleum, today’s BP. In response, the highly popular, democratically elected Iranian prime minister (and TIME magazine’s Man of the Year in 1951), Mohammad Mossadegh, nationalized all Iranian petroleum assets. An outraged England sought the help of her World War II ally, the United States. However, both countries feared that military retaliation would provoke the Soviet Union into taking action on behalf of Iran.
Instead of sending in the Marines, therefore, Washington dis- patched CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt (Theodore’s grandson). He per- formed brilliantly, winning people over through payoffs and threats. He then enlisted them to organize a series of street riots and violent demonstrations, which created the impression that Mossadegh was both unpopular and inept. In the end, Mossadegh went down, and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The pro-American Mohammad Reza Shah became the unchallenged dictator. Kermit Roosevelt had set the stage for a new profession, the one whose ranks I was joining.1
Roosevelt’s gambit reshaped Middle Eastern history even as it rendered obsolete all the old strategies for empire building. It also coincided with the beginning of experiments in “limited nonnuclear military actions,” which ultimately resulted in US. humiliations in Korea and Vietnam. By 1968, the year I interviewed with the NSA, it had become clear that if the United States wanted to realize its dream of global empire (as envisioned by men like presidents Johnson and Nixon), it would have to employ strategies modeled on Roosevelt’s Iranian example. This was the only way to beat the Soviets without the threat of nuclear war.
There was one problem, however. Kermit Roosevelt was a CIA employee. Had he been caught, the consequences would have been dire. He had orchestrated the first U.S. operation to overthrow a foreign government, and it was likely that many more would follow, but it was important to find an approach that would not directly im- plicate Washington.
Fortunately for the strategists, the 1960s also witnessed another type of revolution: the empowerment of international corporations and of multinational organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF. The latter were financed primarily by the United States and our sister empire builders in Europe. A symbiotic relationship developed between governments, corporations, and multinational organizations.
By the time I enrolled in BU’s business school, a solution to the Roosevelt-as-CIA-agent problem had already been worked out. U.S. intelligence agencies — including the NSA — would identify prospective EHMs, who could then be hired by international corporations. These EHMs would never be paid by the government; instead, they would draw their salaries from the private sector. As a result, their dirty work, if exposed, would be chalked up to corporate greed rather than to government policy. In addition, the corporations that hired them, although paid by government agencies and their multinational banking counterparts (with taxpayer money), would be insulated from congressional oversight and public scrutiny, shielded by a growing body of legal initiatives, including trademark, interna- tional trade, and Freedom of Information laws.2

Is anyone in the U.S. innocent? Although those at the very pinnacle of the economic pyramid gain the most, millions of us depend — either directly or indirectly — on the exploitation of the LDCs for our livelihoods. The resources and cheap labor that feed nearly all our businesses come from places like Indonesia, and very little ever makes its way back. The loans of foreign aid ensure that today’s children and their grandchildren will be held hostage. They will have to allow our corporations to ravage their natural resources and will have to forego education, health, and other social services merely to pay us back. The fact that our own companies already received most of this money to build the power plants, airports, and industrial parks does not factor into this formula. Does the excuse that most Americans are unaware of this constitute innocence? Uninformed and intentionally misinformed, yes — but innocent?

Note:-The above excerpts are from P1-P96. Rest shall follow…!

An EYE OPENING excerpt from the book titled “Confessions of an economic hit man” by John Perkins.

The SPECIAL point to be noted is that there is a special mention of the word “Rigged Elections”, which seen in its true prospect, fully applies to Pakistan.

Quote. “Economic hit men {EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM.” Unquote.

‘Go Nawaz Go’ rocks Raiwind

October 04, 2014 FAROOQ HAMEED KHAN 4

Daily “The Nation”.

The Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) completed a hat trick with a mammoth public meeting at the historic Minar-e-Pakistan on September 28th. If the PTI emerged as a major political force after its debut at this venue on October 30, 2011, its performance on September 28th put the seal firmly on a changed Pakistan.
The September 28th rally not only represented rich educated liberals but a vast majority included people belonging to middle and low income classes. It goes to Imran Khan’s credit for mobilizing Pakistani women at a scale that is unprecedented in the country’s political history.
They not only endorsed Imran Khan’s ‘Go Nawaz Go’ movement in the traditional powerbase of the Sharifs, but also came out in full support of PTI’s struggle for a meaningful and result oriented investigation by a potent Supreme Court Commission into the May 2013 election rigging charges.
But a few words of caution for PTI’s leadership; granted that the Minar-e-Pakistan rally was held at a few days notice, security arrangements were not up to the required standard as was evident from the fiasco witnessed on arrival of Imran Khan. Given the threats to the PTI leader’s life, the party’s security planners need to wake up and do more in this respect. Moreover, PTI needs to train its volunteers to respect media personnel, particularly lady reporters/ anchors.
Raiwind seems to have been rocked by the intensity of the ongoing, ‘Go Nawaz Go’ movement. The campaign seems to have surpassed those the nation witnessed previously against former Presidents Ghulam Ishaq Khan, General Pervez Musharraf and Asif Ali Zardari.
The PTI must thank the media for transforming ‘Go Nawaz Go’ into a national slogan that became an instant hit not only in Pakistan, but one whose sounds also reverberated opposite Nawaz Sharif’s residence in London, outside the UN headquarters in New York, and even during Pakistan’s hockey team match in the Asian games in South Korea.
While only Nawaz Sharif can know his true feelings, it was certainly distressing for the nation to see their Prime Minister being welcomed by almost 5,000 plus charged Pakistani protestors holding ‘Go Nawaz Go’ and ‘No Nawaz No’ placards during his speech in the UN General Assembly. Media footage shows students chanting ‘Go Nawaz Go’ during the visit of a PML-N minister to a school in Lahore and by protestors at official functions. When government functionaries cannot perform their official duties and are followed by this slogan everywhere they go, it is time for both the Prime Minister and the PML-N leadership to do some serious soul searching.
Should the PML-N leadership not blame themselves for prolonging the crisis? Are they not paying a heavy price (three murder/ terrorism FIRs) and two unending Inqilabi and Azadi movements for not facilitating Imran Khan’s simple demand of investigation against election rigging in four constituencies? Or Dr. Tahir ul Qadri’s plea to register the Model Town FIR?
Those who cannot see the writing on the wall of a changed Pakistan may still be living in fool’s paradise. The fallout of Islamabad’s dharnas has seen Pakistanis rising against a well entrenched and deep rooted status quo mindset that protects the interests of the privileged class, exploits the poor, promotes VIP culture, nepotism and dynastic politics, and obstructs accountability of the powerful and corrupt.
In a changed Pakistan, the role of family members in governance matters is unacceptable and this malpractice must now end. Where is the wisdom in the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint his own inexperienced and unqualified daughter as head of the prestigious 100 billion rupee Youth Loan Program, when there is no dearth of suitable financial management experts in the country.
Again, the people ask if it is appropriate for the Prime Minister to appoint his close relatives or those related to his ministers/ party leaders on sensitive government posts when competent experts for the same are available in the public/ private sector.
In the deafening ‘Go Nawaz Go’ slogans, we hear the cries of the families of the Model Town victims still awaiting justice. Why is the Model Town Judicial Commission report not being made public by the Punjab government? Should the Lahore High Court not intervene to get this public document released to meet the ends of justice? Why has the Joint Investigation team (JIT) still not been constituted to begin long delayed investigations in this tragedy?
With the PTI out of the parliament, our supreme law making body seems dysfunctional without a genuine opposition. The PPP’s role as a genuine and friendly opposition was reconfirmed in the recent ‘fixed’ debates by PPP leaders in the joint session. While they condemned the May 2013 election rigging as well as PML-N’s governance, they came to the Prime Minister’s rescue, duly exposing the hypocrisy of our democracy.
With the domestic crisis deepening due to the prevailing impasse between the government and the dharnas’ leadership, the country’s economy is affected by rising political uncertainty and declining foreign investment.
Never before in the country’s history have four foreign heads of state called off their official visits to Pakistan, the latest reportedly being the Amir of Qatar. Pakistanis view the current deadlock with great concern, as it reflects a lack of political will and vision of the PML-N leadership.
The present situation in the country simply cannot go on indefinitely. If the Prime Minister cannot rise to the occasion, then the Supreme Court must play its constitutional role to help steer the country out of the crisis.

The writer is a retired brigadier and a political/defence analyst and columnist.

“Either do it or don’t do it. No more wishy-washy, half-hearted attempts. Either say ‘no’ to achievement or dig in and get to the bottom of the persistent incongruence between what you say and what you do.”

— Dan Kennedy