Doubt & Beyond

1 in a 1000

2011-05-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

29:2 Do men think that they will be left alone on saying: "We believe", and not be tried?

‎2:155,156 And We will most certainly try you with somewhat of fear and hunger and loss of property and lives and fruits; and give good news to the patient. Who, when a misfortune befalls them, say: Surely, we are Allah's and to Him we shall surely return

Afflictions

increase when mentioned, reduce with silence,
are eliminated by patience
and turned into happiness through thankfulness to Allah – Hazrat Ali (AS)

Back to blogging

2011-05-23T00:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged regularly for more than a year now, and many interesting things have happened personally, professionally and beyond in the interim. I have missed writing more and in a more considered fashion than the snippets I've posted as notes or comment updates on Facebook, and I never really got on well with Twitter, so here I am, back to blogging.

Let's get started.

Brian's No Baggage Challenge

2010-12-29T23:34:00.000-08:00

Firing up the old blog just to spread the word about my friend Brian's excellent initiative for Give Children The World, a charity he has volunteered with regularly in the past.

I'll let him explain:

I plan to travel for 2 weeks luggage-free through FL, TX, & NY from Dec. 30 to Jan 13 to raise money for Give Kids the World, a charity for terminally-ill kids I volunteered with for 7+ years. I've asked friends and family to sponsor me for $1/day that I travel with no bags (15 days total). So far, people have pledged $415 in donations. I'm hoping to raise at least $500. If you're interested in joining in, let me know and I'll add your contributions to the total. Simply donate your pledge online directly to GKTW once my trip is over.

You can read the details here or here, or watch the introductory video he's made on YouTube.

Please do support his efforts if you can!

The HMGB1RD has flown away

2010-02-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

=(

Lesson learned: there is a threshold above which you should not perform preventive maintenance. The expected benefit of smooth running in the future cannot be recovered at the time of sale in the form of a higher price.

Anyway, great car. Great to drive, and great to look at. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

My only regret is that I didn't learn much by driving it, since I already had much experience driving another Civic. If I were to do it all over again, I'd be tempted by a Jetta or a Miata, but I'm not sure either of those choices would have been as reliable or as versatile as my Civic.

I wonder what I'll buy next?

Done

2010-01-19T08:07:00.000-08:00

It has been more than a month since I posted anything, in large part because of what I was trying to accomplish. This time yesterday I was in the middle of defending my PhD dissertation. I was given 20 minutes to speak (and did so very badly - should have slept the night before), and then there was a question & answer session (which went well). At the end of it, I was told to leave the room, and my fate was decided. I was then called back and welcomed into the community of scholarship.

I can't begin to explain all the emotions I've felt over the last 24 hours, and many of those emotions are simply too personal to blog. You'd imagine it would be pure elation, but it's not. I concluded yesterday that there is too much misplaced hype about getting the degree. It has some limited meaning, as a marker of your ability to finish, and the job market/signaling value it brings. Far more important however, and what we really should be intently focused on, is the question of how much we learned, and how much we published. On both of those counts, I have unfinished business.

I was strangely detached from much of grad school: under-confident; distracted from subjects that truly fascinate me. The beauty of getting done is that it frees me up to work on whatever I want.

Let's see what the future brings. Thank you all for your support/wishes/duas.

Objects in mirror...

2009-12-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer/Warning: Racing is crazy fun on the track, and mighty stupid on public roads. Be sensible.

Attacks in Pakistan since 9/11

2009-12-08T04:32:00.000-08:00

More attacks since yesterday:
11 killed in Peshawar, at least 45 in two attacks in Lahore, 12 killed in Multan

There is a partial list of attacks on Pakistan since 9/11 here. It makes for grim reading. Since it is an incomplete list, it isn't accurate, but it does give a sense of the deterioration.

Pakistanis killed in terrorist attacks since 9/11 (reported in a partial list in Wikipedia, as of 12/8/9)

2001: 17

2002: 71

2003: 87

2004: 201

2005: 131

2006: 338

2007: 1067

2008: 1529

2009: 1334*

* (as of Dec 8th)

This does not, for the most part, include Army operation losses, or the Lal Masjid events. It does include some riots. Particular groups, like Shias, ANP personnel, Christians and foreigners (among others) have been targeted more often.

It might be the case that Wikipedia is used far more nowadays than in 2001, and that as attacks have risen, so too have efforts to compile data on them. So there may be some compilation bias here. However, looking at other sources not only confirms the general trends, but claim far higher casualties.

For example, the Indian think-tank Institute for Conflict Management (whose facts and figures, but not qualitative analysis I usually trust), lists the following table (HT: Tariq):

Fatalities in Terrorist Violence in Pakistan

	Civilians	Security Forces	Terrorists	Total
2003	140	24	25	189
2004	435	184	244	863
2005	430	81	137	648
2006	608	325	538	1471
2007	1523	597	1479	3599
2008	2155	654	3906	6715
Total	5291	1865	6329	13485

Moreover, given the fear and insecurity these attacks cause, they have a disproportionate effect on the economy. The NWFP alone cites Rs. 305 Billion in losses to infrastructure and economy.

It is poor reflection on the state that we haven't been able to check these attacks. The mismanagement and corrosion of our governance systems has not been checked by the gravity of the situation. It is poorer reflection on us as a civil society that we haven't been able to organize a competent political organization in response. For the most part, we simply stagger from one attack to the next in dazed confusion.

Meanwhile, reports of unchecked proliferation of so-called madressahs continue...

Clarkson at his best!

2009-12-07T13:13:00.000-08:00

If this doesn't make you understand the marvel that is Top Gear, check your pulse:

Swiss Tyrrany

2009-11-30T21:36:00.000-08:00

The Swiss have voted in a referendum to ban the construction of minarets in mosques. What an utterly vile decision by a country that upholds itself as a beacon of neutrality and tolerance in Europe. Try explaining why minarets are banned but spires aren't. And if the referendum itself wasn't vile enough, the posters used were widely interpreted as associating Swiss Muslims with terrorism. There's previous evidence of emerging racism there too.

A big talking point is that the Turkish Prime Minister once (before taking office) labeled minarets 'our bayonets'. Really? An indiscreet, inaccurate, and unrepresentative statement by one foreign official defeats the mainstream Muslim view of a minaret (that it is a historical artifact meant to facilitate the call for prayer and long superseded in its function by the loudspeaker, but that remains an identifier of a mosque)?

How is the design of a mosque anyone else's business? This is wrong on just so many levels. It's a classic case of the tyranny of the majority.

Repulsive.

Addendum: A Swiss Muslim tries sifting through the mess.

Control yourself

2009-11-29T05:07:00.000-08:00

Here's a very interesting (older) New Yorker piece on the study of self-control in children, and the implications controlling our impulses has on success in school, and life.

There are lots of interesting themes herein:

the question of whether personality traits can be separated from our social context;
the interesting tidbit that children start exhibiting differences in patience at as early as 19 months;
but that impatient people can improve from their low childhood self-control to become patient adults;
that intelligence is not as important as self-control for teenagers learning math
and that mental tricks can teach us to become patient

It's worth a read.

One critical point is that self-control isn't simply being patient in the face of temptation, but either removing the stimulus physically, or blocking the thought of it out mentally. The former reminds me of the story of Ulysses and the Sirens (this beautiful depiction is by J.W. Waterhouse):

Less poetically, I've used both methods of self-control on occasion to promote my personal fitness:

I try to remove the stimulus of fatty foods simply by not buying them at the grocery store every week. I tell my roommates that it's better to control ourselves in the one hour a week we spend buying food, then to have chocolates etc in the fridge and try to resist them all week. Not gonna happen. I'm growing fat simply since they don't agree with my logic ;)

The other way of self-control is painting a certain mental picture. When I run, I often imagine myself participating in a marathon, tailing a competitor. Imagining a rival sprinting ahead, and trying to beat him is both motivating, and takes the mind off the burning in my legs or lungs. Of course, I win almost every time. The other thing I do is that when I'm just ready to give up, I start counting up very slowly, and give myself attainable targets to count up to. Again, this takes the mind off the immediate pain. This method (and many others like it) is apparently used by top athletes too. Perhaps this is also why setting goals is so important to motivation. Unfortunately, I haven't yet come up with an analogue to motivate myself to write and rewrite journal papers.

Anyway, enjoy the article.

Cutting Edge Advertising

2009-11-24T02:01:00.000-08:00

This video is about using eyeball-tracking technology (developed for fighter pilots, and also being applied to monitor car drivers' alertness levels) to investigate how people look at objects while walking down a street, or in a grocery store aisle.

It is fascinating, and thought-provoking, that the design of packaging, and where a good is placed relative to the average shopper's sightline has a significant effect on consumption decisions. The role of advertising in society is controversial, and this controversy has been reflected in its economic analysis.

While the Economics of Information has moved along from when Stigler said it resided in "a slum dwelling in the town of economics", it still remains in my estimation to be fully integrated into our mainstream models. Some seek a rewriting of our tools to accommodate the increased importance of search and other properties of an economic good, while others work in inter-disciplinary tracks to get at the same questions. Regardless, it is all but certain that the analysis of advertising (especially of the online variety) and search (also, and perhaps almost entirely online) will win many future Nobel prizes.

But for now, I wanna watch that cool video again...

Protecting Media Freedom

2009-11-23T14:49:00.000-08:00

The News (which owns Geo and is therefore a party to this conflict) reports that a program on Geo TV has been banned by the Dubai government. Geo is based out of Dubai, but transmits primarily to the Pakistani market. It had been targeted previously by the Musharraf regime.

I have strong disagreements with the anchor, Dr. Shahid Masood and his analysis. I don't follow his programs on a daily basis, but what I have seen has seemed awfully like yellow journalism. The point however, is that bans on individual programs and persons is unacceptable and incompatible with a democracy's progress.

We need a mix of laws (defamation etc) and a censorship code (restricting the depiction of unislamic practices like dancing, at least to late night programming). It cannot be the case that Mr. Zardari or his cronies, or the Army get up one day and decide they don't like Shahid Masood's voice, so they're going to ban him.

Excerpt of the day

2009-11-23T14:31:00.000-08:00

Roedad Khan (HT: Kara):

There is something pitiable about a people that constantly bemoans its leaders. If they have let us down, it is only because we have allowed them to. With the mess we are in, we look everywhere but within.

Khan goes on to comment that people must take to the streets to wrest the change Pakistan needs from the current system. Elsewhere he also bemoans our lack of bravery: "Few Pakistanis seem ready to die for anything anymore." Outside of the kids brain-washed by the Taliban, and of the soldiers on the front-lines fighting the terrorists, this is rather true. The Pakistani elite is either too comfortable in the status quo, too busy moving abroad, or too bereft of a political vision to mobilize and fix our problems.

Bring Younis Khan back!

2009-11-23T14:11:00.000-08:00

Kamran Abbasi is right on the money:

Worryingly, Ijaz Butt and the PCB failed to stub out the dissent in the team. They failed in their governance role. Once Younis was awarded the captaincy, any player unwilling to play under him should have been dropped however big his ego or reputation. The PCB must accept responsibility for not managing this crisis properly. The whole future of Pakistan cricket is plunged back into jeopardy.

The New Zealand tour may already be a lost cause -- just look at the batsmen in the squad -- but by the time Pakistan arrive in Australia the captaincy issue must be settled. And that means Younis in charge with a team made up of players willing to play under him, at least in Test cricket. At a push, Shahid Afridi could manage both one-day formats. But Test cricket, the blue ribbon event, requires Younis. He should be urged to build for Pakistan's future and given the right backing by his cricket board.

Pakistani cricket is a microcosm of the Pakistani condition. You can learn a lot about our country simply by following our favorite sport. The fact that we cannot manage elections and a governance structure for something as simple as this bodes ill for our ability to fix our larger issues (although to be fair, cricket is a hugely lucrative business, and manipulating it serves the purposes of a rule who has to hand out political favors).

Anyway, it's rather simple: establish elections in the various cricket boards and organizations in the country, pick a competent coach and captain (which was the case till the last series), and then back them to the hilt.

Oh, and if the rumors about Shoaib Malik are true, drop him permanently.

Lawlessness and the fundamental decline of Pakistan

2009-11-23T01:41:00.000-08:00

The Taliban takeover of Swat last year was explained by many commentators as a result of state failure in the provision of justice. Indeed, the agreement reached between the militants and the government was called the Nizam-e-Adl (System of Justice) Regulation.

The unfortunate fact is, however, that the same vacuum of justice exists in every corner of Pakistan today. This is not to imply that state authority and control can be challenged everywhere: the Pakistani government is large and powerful. However, its reach is limited in rural areas, and its importance subservient to individual power relations. Everywhere from the streets of the capital city, to the most remote village in Balochistan, legal rules mean far less than a call to a powerful police officer, politician, or, trumping it all, the regional Army Corp Commander, and has been so throughout my lifetime. In the ultimate irony then, lawlessness and the state coexist across Pakistan.

This cedes moral and political ground to local thugs who reshape themselves as guardians of peoples' rights and values. In Balochistan, Bramdagh Bugti openly encourages terrorism including targeted killings of Punjabis, on the grounds that the Baloch have long been treated unfairly. The Baloch uprising, gestated by a kleptomaniacal central government system and a history of taking from the poor and giving to the rich, is fast being adopted by the mainstream Baloch due to the lack of efforts by the center to develop our poorest province. Our historical failure to provide justice to these areas is evident from the labels given to the reconciliation packages adopted. Swat had its Nizam-e-Adl. Balochistan is being offered an Aghaz-e-Huqooq-i-Balochistan (literally, the Genesis of Rights of Balochistan).

These regional packages are merely plugging holes in a sieve. Phone-snatchings and robberies in major cities isn't news anymore, but is in fact expected. Even murdering an individual who does not enjoy connections with the powerful is trivial, and has been so for some time. Individual organizations, often connected to some militant interpretation of Islam, dictate terms to the government in Karachi, or openly challenge the government's writ in Islamabad.

The infuriating thing is, politicians, the army high command, and self-proclaimed 'defense analysts' alike remain transfixed by foreign explanations. In the case of politicians and bureaucrats, this can be understood as an attempt to shift attention away from their own past failures. What puzzles me to no end is why the public buys into this charade of an explanation while ignoring the evidence of state failure and corruption that we are slapped with in our daily lives. How hard is it to connect the dots?

Countries have rivalries and hostilities, and it may well be (in fact, it is in my estimation likely) that others are contributing to our problems. However, their importance cannot be overestimated. Pakistan's future will be determined by the Pakistani public, and the Pakistani state. We cannot let our perceptual gestalt, our overarching explanation, be allotting blame to others.

To my mind, there are a handful of necessary preconditions to halting our slide. They may be fantastic and impractical, but without addressing them, we cannot hope to recover:

Reconstituting the provinces, and delineating their rights with respect to the center: our provinces as they exist today are ridiculously large by international standards, and divided along ethnic lines. Dividing them into, say, 12-15 provinces would help us parse our problems and focus on them better. It might also reduce provincial tensions bolstered by ethnic differences. A limited federation would organize and fund activities that represent or serve all provinces, like international affairs, the army, and the maintenance of a fund to fund pro-poor activities in economically backward regions.
The provision of justice, past, present and future: This is so simple to write in an essay, and so challenging in reality, but it must be done. Peace follows justice. The failure to resolve decades-old cases does not remove the damage they do to the fabric of society, and as best as possible, they must be addressed, perhaps by setting up special courts to clear the backlog. The whole judicial system, in fact, would need redress.
Land reforms: Too few people own too much land in Pakistan. There is nothing wrong with wealth itself, but an agency that investigates large land holdings for legal propriety, and the privatization of excessive public land holding, not by sale to the highest bidder, but to the most needy, is needed to have hope for future stability. Moreover, the state cannot relinquish its theoretical monopoly of violence to the local landlord.
Peace with India: With an army less than a sixth of our alleged 'rival's', and an overextended economy, we simply cannot afford aggression towards India. Maintaining a viable defense force, and strictly a defensive force is the only way forward. We should be hoping to compete, not in how many guns we can point at them, but how educated and well-fed our people are compared to our neighbors.
Politician Accountability: This means following up on the work NAB started early during the Musharraf era (which he claimed in his book was too politically difficult for him to continue), punishing those found guilty etc. It is also unacceptable for politicians to keep their wealth, residences, and children abroad. If our leaders don't signal confidence in Pakistan, and if they have a comfortable exit option, how can we expect them to be fully committed to the country?

This is surely a tiny fraction of what needs to happen. Feel free to add to the list in the comments section below.

Can you reboot your life?

2009-11-22T22:58:00.000-08:00

With the progress of technology, it has become increasingly difficult to retain our privacy. The question then is, is it possible for a person to disappear from public records and start a new life with a new identity?

Wired's Evan Ratliff tries reinventing himself without falling off the grid for a month, and makes it to the twentieth day. He was tracked by civilians, apparently using legal methods only.

If he had wanted to disappear properly, he'd probably have had to move to a remote village in an underdeveloped country, and then keep moving around. Credit cards, cell phones and the internet (especially with the advent of social media like Facebook, Twitter and blogs) are rather easy to trace.

Sounds a bit like Enemy of the State, The Jackal, or The Saint, all rolled into one. Not something I'd like to experience.

Interesting article, take a look.

Dissertation Delay?

2009-11-18T15:27:00.000-08:00

Things are not looking good for a December defense. I might have to push it back to January, which would have mean I probably can't start working in the Spring semester =(

I'm trying desperately to finish at the end of Fall, but the wind in my sails arrived a month or two later than needed. Well, we'll see...

The one good politician in Pakistan

2009-11-16T02:56:00.000-08:00

I don't agree with a lot of Imran Khan's opinions, but I don't think anyone doubt's his commitment and drive for Pakistan. A former parliamentarian from Mianwali (which is on the border of the Punjabi plains and Waziristan), Imran's been busy over the last few years constructing a community college scale institution there called Namal. Given the backwardness of the region, and Pakistan's poverty of education, this is a big step. Hope he is successful.

Here's the video:

The Kelo story continues

2009-11-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

Pfizer is moving out of New London. (Hattip: AT @MR)

Kelo v. City of New London was (arguably) one of the most controversial cases in US Supreme Court history. It involved the government of a city forcibly taking (with compensation) a resident's house to make way for a new private complex for Pfizer, the drug company.

A taking is justified on the grounds that, if the resident isn't forced to move, she can essentially hold up, or hijack, progress on a large project requiring the developer to own many parcels of land before constructing. However, takings are usually used only for public projects, like when the government is building an airport, or constructing water projects and dams etc.

However, while the economic argument for takings does make some sense, the tradeoff is that it rolls back the extent of property rights. As a general rule, we'd like governments to limit takings and adhere to strict (and narrow) legal codes in determining when a taking is allowed.

What was particularly concerning about Kelo was that it seemed to be a step towards more arbitrary takings for private gain, which may allow the law to be abused in the future to, well, simply steal under a veneer of legality.

Moreover, and perhaps relevantly for the current case, it allows the private party asking for the taking to undervalue the land it wishes to build on. When it must pay private individuals, a company is only likely to buy a plot of land if it thinks it will get more use out of it than the individual. When the government values the land instead, it may be less likely to value the land highly enough in its existing use.

Libertarians will probably read this development thus:

Kelo, the lady, almost certainly valued her land higher than Pfizer did.
If Pfizer had only been allowed to buy her land, any exchange would have been voluntary, and so Kelo would have been made better off by any sale.
Pfizer would only have bought the land if it expected strongly enough to use it long enough.
Kelo, the case, allowed Pfizer to undervalue the land and buy it despite a weak expectation of using it. It's decision not to use the land is consistent with this story.
Conclusion: This is evidence that the undermining of private property leads to the misallocation of resources.

Interventionists would probably counter thus:

Kelo, the case, removed the possibility of hold-up of a big project by individuals.
Pfizer's original decision to invest in New London was made possible by the removal of this hold-up. This was expected to help the local economy by increasing jobs and the demand for services etc.
The state of the world changed dramatically. Lots of companies on private property also closed offices in the recent past. Pfizer's decision not to stay in New London is the result of these factors, and isn't evidence against the US Supreme Court decision.

And so, as is usual in Economics, the debate over these tradeoffs continues...

Flight 188

2009-11-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

Last month, a Northwestern Airlines flight overshot its destination by 150 miles because the pilots were distracted, apparently by a laptop. While there was evidently neglect on the pilots' part, and their licenses were duly revoked, the incident itself was arguably not their fault alone. Airline pilots are often flying consecutive flights with little or no rest, and can get fatigued. Some major international airlines actually allow pilots to take naps during the flight, and they often bring puzzles and even DVD players to the cockpit, to keep from getting bored for the hours at a time that the autopilot is engaged and they're essentially just sitting there, monitoring the dials.

Regardless, it was a serious incident and the response has been one of shock and ridicule. Here's a great comic video:

Democracy in Pakistan

2009-11-13T02:07:00.000-08:00

We've just had the Gilgit-Baltistan elections in Pakistan, a good summary on which is provided here (and the articles linked to are good too), which gives that region an elected legislative body for the first time. Many analysts are cautiously optimistic that this move will be a step in the right direction in the empowerment of Pakistan's people. It certainly has been contested strongly by both major political parties, and has the potential, if its promise is fulfilled, of reducing the space available to the Taliban.

However, as every Pakistani knows, it is wrong to equate elections and democracy without an independent judiciary, law enforcement system, and election commission.

Today's Dawn carries stories carrying serious allegations against both the current president and against the main opposition leader. There's nothing surprising here: every Pakistani in my generation has grown up hearing allegations of mind-boggling corruption on every level of the state, starting from the top. Both are thought to have become billionaires, without mentioning the mismanagement that passed as governance under their watch.

As far as legal action is concerned, this is a question of collecting evidence and bringing it before a court of justice. Now it is one thing to excuse their prosecution on the lack of evidence that would stand in a court of law. Perhaps it really is that easy to siphon off billions without anyone noticing.

The deeper, uglier question is: how can people with such bad reputations win so many votes? An election should be influenced not just by proven facts, but also by rumors and hearsay. The rumors and hearsay about the corruption of the political parties is rather strong. So why are these people, tried and tested (both major political families have held office twice before the current round) still able to worm their way into Islamabad? Are we still just a feudal society? Is it because of the lack of education.

I don't know, but it is deeply frustrating that a decade of misrule and corruption has been forgotten so quickly in Pakistan. One can only dream what could have been if it hadn't.

US moves against Shia organization

2009-11-13T00:02:00.000-08:00

The US today moved to seize mosques and a skyscraper owned by the Alavi Foundation, a Shia Muslim organization it alleges is a front for the Iranian government.

I've prayed and studied regularly at the Islamic Education Center in Maryland, which is one of the mosques listed for seizure, and I've always enjoyed the progressive mindset of the people there. I've only ever seen a focus on studying and worshipping, and never heard or seen anything I've felt was out of place.

I've also prayed, albeit only once, at the Imam Ali Center in New York, and that too simply seemed like a mosque and nothing more.

The seizure, of the IEC in Maryland personally and all the centers generally is going to be devastating for the Shia Muslim community in America. The Alavi Foundation publishes excellent books, organizes wonderful seminars, and is generally a wonderful collective in general. These centers are amongst the most prominent Shia houses of worship in the country.

This is a new story, and without further details, it is hard to say much else. However, there's huge potential to alienate the Shia community in the US and set back the peace process between the American and Iranian governments. I can only hope they handle this with kid gloves.

Major Langlands' School

2009-11-12T02:32:00.000-08:00

In 2000 (might have been 1998, I forget) I was on a trek of the Pakistani north with Aitchison College (for my non-Pakistani friends, Aitchison is a K-12 institution that has been called a college since it was founded in 1886). Our trek took us through Chitral, where we had to camp for a night. We did so at Major Langlands' school. This article is mostly about the man, but the school was awesome also. Imagine driving a 4X4 through the dusty, remote mountains of Pakistan to a famous, but fairly little town. Rugged. Craggy.

And then in the middle, you find the most British of Britishers, having set up and running a great little school for the poor of the region. Quite a story. Here.

The sad part is, nothing in Pakistan, not even the British, seem to be able to work systematically.

The mixed-messages of Pakistani pop singers

2009-11-12T01:07:00.000-08:00

Here. Worth everyone's time to get a sense of how educated Pakistanis view the world.

Ali Azmat is a joke. He's spent too much time with the jingoist-clothed-as-analyst Zaid Hamid. Shehzad Roy is much better, and strikes the balance that is closest to my own views.

Ultimately though, this is all merely commentary. It might change opinions in the monied classes in the cities, but the ideological battle is in the urban middle-to-poor classes, and the physical battle is in providing justice in the hinterland.

For that to happen, we'd need to focus on accountability, and we'd need a strong political party with a) a base amongst the middle classes and b) a firm commitment to justice, and c) an untarnished reputation

Sadly, I think such a party could survive if it existed, but that its birth is blocked by the usual problems of collective action: everyone wants someone else to put in the effort.

The best sentence Prof. Cowen blogged yesterday...

2009-11-12T00:44:00.000-08:00

From Ben Casnocha (the original link wasn't working for me, but the MR post is here and so is the related Slate article):

Someone once told me that there is nowhere we are more honest than the search box.

That sounds exactly right to me. It also tallies with one of my favorite quotes:

There is no better measure of a person than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose. - Wilma Askinas

James builds a bridge

2009-11-12T00:14:00.000-08:00

I'm blogging about each episode of James May's Toy Stories, but it combines one of my favorite presenters with the toys of my childhood. What's not to like?

This week, James & his friends build a working Mecanno-based bridge. It's a thing of beauty, and takes me back to my own childhood too! Here's a (currently working) link to part 1.

It has to be said, James is absolutely right that Meccano has lost its way with the current designs, but they had a good discussion about why that is, and it seems fair enough.

Enjoy!

Regression?

2009-11-11T01:04:00.000-08:00

Pro-poor Tech

2009-11-10T18:23:00.000-08:00

One of my cousins gave me a certificate for Kiva.org as a gift today. I'm doubly glad she did, because it introduces me to a really great organization.

Kiva is an online one-stop way to lend money to poor people around the world, following the micro-finance model.

You put money in your account...
... and browse through profiles of potential borrowers and select ones you want to contribute to.
Kiva sends the money off to its partner in whatever country you've selected.
The local partners do the actual work of finding borrowers, distributing the microcredit, and collecting payments.
If the loan is successfully paid back, the money returns to your account, ready to be re-lent, or to be withdrawn through Paypal.

Here's a rather longish video explaining the Kiva process:

A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.

I'm doubly happy they're using the micro-finance model instead of direct charity, because my perception is that this imposes fiscal responsibility on both borrowers and MFIs. Moreover, there's a Pakistani organization called Asasah that has apparently worked well with Kiva. They seem to have run into some problems remitting the money due to certain complications recently, but they're rated a full five stars in terms of risk (i.e. they're low risk), and have worked well with Kiva in the past. I'm hoping to contribute to them soon.

Lastly, I love the idea of giving charity in someone's name as a gift. Let's face it: most of us don't need a new tie or wallet or sweater. We're perfectly well provided for. With a few exceptions (renting me a fully-insured Ferrari, or sending me to car racing school for a weekend), you really can't give me a gift that's going to improve my quality of life, other than the warm fuzzy feeling of being given a gift by someone you love (or like, or at least by someone who's rich =P). Much better to give money in the name of the well-provided-for person in your life. Wonderful!

Update: there are a few wrinkles to the story: the individuals shown aren't lent the money directly. There's an explanation here, about this NYT article on the matter. Not as satisfactory, but oh well...

Celebrating Pakistan's unsung heroes.

2009-11-07T00:27:00.000-08:00

This is a CNN story about Pakistan's police officers, focusing on a cop who returned to duty after being seriously injured in a suicide-bomb attack.

It's great to see such spirit in our servicemen. We need police reforms badly, and we need to have a system of taking care of their families when they are disabled or killed in action, so they remain committed to this sacred task.

Fact of the Day - Here's something to think about for Pakistanis

2009-11-07T00:20:00.000-08:00

Harvard University's operating budget is almost as large as that of the Pakistan Army.

Arundhati Roy on Al-Jazeera

2009-11-07T00:17:00.000-08:00

Speaking about the Maoists and Kashmir:

Evolution in Muslim Countries

2009-11-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

Brian links to this NYT article on Muslims' ideas about Evolution.

Certainly a topic I find very interesting.

James May's Plasticine Garden

2009-11-04T06:46:00.000-08:00

I blogged about James May's new series last week. The second episode, which aired last night, was about James and co. making a garden using Plasticine (which is the original, and in many ways superior, version of Play-Doh-like playing material).

Their work was exquisite, and the attention to detail delightful:

The little girl is real! So are the fish in the pond, but the waterlilies are Plasticine! So's the garland hanging on the door.

James got Plasticine sushi and cakes made to, for the picnic scene. The Royal Horticultural Society show where he entered his garden didn't award him a real medal, but they were kind enough to commission a Plasticine one for him!

You can read more about it here. Instructions for making playing dough at home here (not sure you can make Plasticine at home)

Looking forward to next week's episode!

Question mark on Tablighi Jamat

2009-11-03T01:19:00.000-08:00

Hassan Abbas reproduces an article wondering about the future political moves of the Tablighi Jamaat, the deeply popular, and so-far pacific Deobandi proselytizing body.

TJ is a very powerful organization in Pakistan. It has been largely silent on the war against the Taliban, which is unsatisfactory in itself. However, if it does assert solidarity with the Taliban, or even proposes peace agreements, it would tear at the (already torn) fabric of our society, and send us into another round of massive violence. Think Lal Masjid in every city and town of the country.

Nawaz Sharif's closeness to this body, and his questionable commtiment to the War against the TTP, are the biggest reasons why he isn't the fix to the problem that is Zardari.

Worse, it fills me with dread that the organization has the allegiances of such senior retired Army personnel.

Conversely, if the TJ was to renounce the Taliban, it could really blow the wind into the sails of the counter-insurgency. Questions should be asked of it more aggressively for this very reason.

WATANDOST: A Blog About Pakistan and its Neighborhood: Tablighi Jamaat and Retired Armed forces Officials

The best article I've read this week

2009-11-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

I've linked to this below, but it's worth highlighting on it's own:

To understand Pakistan, 1947 is the wrong lens

This should be required reading for Indians and Pakistanis alike.

Debating India's role

2009-11-02T20:42:00.000-08:00

I was debating naysayers about Indian involvement in the Pakistani insurgency (who rightly tell us to focus on fixing our problems, and wrongly sweep the problem of India under the rug, in my opinion), and listed my case. I've made it on my old blog before, but there were added sources, and I thought it was worth repeating for the record here.

(Note: my position on the matter is that both India and Pakistan have given each other a thousand cuts already. India's role is under-represented and disputed, while Pakistan's is accepted internationally. However, while I am a hawk internally (go after the militants with full force, and maintain credible defense against India), I'm a dove when it comes to our relations with India (I've met tons of Indians who genuinely wish well for Pakistan, and I share their hope for a peaceful, cooperative, successful South Asia. I think Pakistan needs to stop blaming India every time a car's tire bursts. I also think we need to apologize for Kargil and deceiving them in the Lahore Declaration, and aggressively pursue the Mumbai terrorists. They in turn can do the same for 1971, and come clean on Balochistan)

Anyway, on to the evidence:

There's a significant amount of testimony outside Pakistan backing the claim about Indian involvement.

Arun Shourie, the Indian parlimentarian, had this to say in his speech to the Lok Sabha after 26/11:

"Eleven, the time when large armies could be sent across the borders -- [it is said a lot that we should attack Pakistan]-- that time has gone. The time when large bodies of armies could be sent across the borders has gone. There are no training camps to bomb. But Pakistan gives us the clue what we should be doing to make them register a cause, that is, look at the violence in Kashmir in the last year-and-a-half that has gone down because Pakistan has been preoccupied in its own problems. So, keep it preoccupied in its own problems in Baluchistan, in Gilgit Baltistan, in PoK."

Vikram Sood, the former R&AW chief, had much the same to say.

As did B Raman: "A divided Pakistan, a bleeding Pakistan, a Pakistan ever on the verge of collapse without actually collapsing--that should be our objective till it stops using terrorism against India."

The opinion expressed by these Indians is basically that the conventional projection of force is denied by Pakistan's nukes, so unconventional force should be used. There's a great article here explaining why Pakistan is so paranoid about India. In two words: Bangladesh, 1971

The evidence I've given you so far is sabre-rattling by mainstream Indian politicians and officials. There are also statements by Americans.

There's a heatedly disputed article in Foreign Policy:

While the U.S. media has frequently reported on Pakistani ties to jihadi elements launching attacks in Afghanistan, it has less often mentioned that India supports insurgent forces attacking Pakistan, the former intelligence official said. "The Indians are up to their necks in supporting the Taliban against the Pakistani government in Afghanistan and Pakistan," the former intelligence official who served in both countries said. "The same anti-Pakistani forces in Afghanistan also shooting at American soldiers are getting support from India. India should close its diplomatic establishments in Afghanistan and get the Christ out of there.

The problem with this claim is that it, and its rebuttals, were both by anonymous sources. Not so Christina Fair of RAND:

I think it would be a mistake to completely disregard Pakistan's regional perceptions due to doubts about Indian competence in executing covert operations. That misses the point entirely. And I think it is unfair to dismiss the notion that Pakistan's apprehensions about Afghanistan stem in part from its security competition with India. Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity! Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Baluchistan.

Ultimately, Pakistan has enough problems to fix of its own, and it is always going to come out with a black eye if it takes India on given the size discrepancy. It needs to aggressively pursue the Mumbai terrorists and pursue peace. However, India's stated intent and actions cannot be swept under the rug. We BOTH have to come clean if we want peace in the region.

Blast in Pindi, Progress in Waziristan and Indian Ammo

2009-11-02T19:09:00.000-08:00

There was a blast yesterday at a string of shops about three minutes walk from my grandma's house in Rawalpindi. This is an area in the heart of the military complex, with the Army headquarters, various units, guesthouses and offices nearby. The city's most famous hotel is literally a stone's throw away. Many years ago, I spent a few hours in the early morning standing at the very epicenter of the blast (near where the policeman in the center is standing), waiting for a bus that was supposed to take us to Gilgit, in the North. Never in a thousand years would I have imagined this. It's unreal how close this war has come to home.

35 killed, 65 injured. The dead were mostly pensioners visiting the government-owned bank in the shopping complex. My heart weeps for all of them, and their families. It's strange how there's an acceptance of such strikes now, and such news no longer surprises me, but it still brings me grief and anger with every innocent victim it claims.

Sentiments are very different in Pakistan. Everyone seems to have a sense of despondency there, and I wonder how my own thinking will change when I return soon InshAllah. Consider this excerpt from a Dawn story:

‘Every morning as we leave our houses we pray, and we ask our family members to pray that we get back safe and sound,’ said Mohammad Rahim, who runs an electronics business in the city centre. ‘That is what every Pakistani does.’

With many people choosing to stay at home, owners of restaurants and shops popular with foreigners and wealthy Pakistanis say their earnings have dropped by 50 per cent in the two weeks since the start of the latest government offensive.

Many schools remain closed following the university attack, while principals try to secure them against possible future attacks. Workers are busy building thick concrete barriers to stop suicide car bombers.

Many parents have chosen to keep children at home even when their schools reopened.

‘As soon as there is an explosion, things come to a standstill for a day or two, but life must go on,’ said Najmi Rizvi, the head of a preschool where attendance was down 50 per cent. ‘We have to live in this situation,’ she said, as toddlers in Halloween costumes ran around the yard.

Sitting out here in D.C., I think we need to rigorously reject such intimidation by these terrorists. What could they possibly be trying to achieve by killing 35 retired people, but the terrorization of the rest? They need to be forcefully and completely rejected. However, I appreciate that the reaction on the ground in Pakistan may be sharply different, and I will form a more definitive opinion once I'm back home.

In other news, the Pakistan offensive in Waziristan seems to be progressing well. The state press organization has released pictures that show an astonishing amount of captured weaponry, which suggests that we're really striking at the heart of the Pakistani Taliban.

I hope they've broken the back of the insurgents there, because the key metric of success of the current operations is number of dead terrorists, especially the leadership. If they've slipped away to Nuristan in Afghanistan, the way they did during the Swat offensive, then we're simply playing whack-a-mole, and can only expect the suicide bombings and suicidal military-style attacks to continue.

The Army's press wing, the ISPR has also pointed to substantial Indian literature and equipment captured in these operations, and it'll be interesting to see both how forcefully Pakistan presents whatever evidence it musters, and to whom, and also how India responds. Sadly, I think our failure to aggressively pursue the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks is going to hurt us here. However, if tangible evidence is gathered, it can pressurize India into rolling back its anti-Pakistan activities in Afghanistan and Balochistan. Given that their diplomatic muscle is significantly greater, Pakistan will have to be very careful in how we play our cards on this, to force a rollback of possible Indian support of the insurgents.

None of this precludes our need to make peace with India, a topic I've discussed in detail recently. Neither they, nor we are completely clean, but we have to find a way to live side-by-side. The future of both countries depends on it.

Progress in the Waziristan Battle

2009-10-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

The Pakistani Army isn't doing badly so far, by all accounts:

The real question though, is whether they can inflict significant casualties. Estimates of Taliban strength prior to the war were in the region of 10,000, and there's no evidence of that scale in the battles so far. The Waziristan offensive was anticipated at least as far back as the Swat offensive in May, and it's been a region of much fighting previously. I just don't believe the Taliban would give up so much space so quickly with so few casualties in a straight fight. I'm very fearful of them having melted away for now, only to reappear when the Army tries to hold this ground in winter and its supply lines and ability to reinforce sectors under pressure is diminished. I've been deeply agitated since the multiple attacks in Lahore and on the GHQ that those attacks were meant precisely to force the Army to react by entering Waziristan in Autumn, so it gets bogged down in the Winter.

I pray and hope I'm badly wrong.

The fear that keeps me up at night is that

Near-future advances in Car Technology

2009-10-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

I was just talking to a few friends about the future of GPS technology. It's pretty mature as it is, but the consumer experience is set to change with Google's new GPS app, which has cut $1.2 Billion (yeah, you read that right) from Garmin's market capitalization. TomTom has taken a similar hit. The reasons are a) that Google is offering this for free (currently as an Android app), and that b) they're leveraging Google's voice search and map offerings for this, to improve the experience a bit.

However, this doesn't really change the game on the interface front.

On my recent trip to Chicago, I tried using Google Maps on my iPhone as a backup to my Mio GPS device, and I was left with the impression that the stand-alone GPS isn't going anywhere. You have to have the phone plugged in for any significant journey, the screen isn't big enough, it interrupts anything you're listening to on the iPhone, it gets interrupted if a call comes in, and your phone is getting baked, sitting in the sun on your dashboard. (Although, my friend Moe points out that not being able to multi-task is more an iPhone limitation than a phone limitation)

Some newer cars these days come with a dashboard that is basically a big screen. The dials etc aren't 'real', but simulated using graphics. The new Jaguar XJ will have this, and the current Range Rover already does. The best implementation of this at the moment though, is in the lowly Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan Hybrids:

To the best of my knowledge, this doesn't include GPS yet, but that's a trivial step once you have this interface.

Further out though, I expect car makers to push beyond even the simple task of glancing down at your instrument panel. I expect car makers to integrate Head-Up Display (HUD) technology into the entire windscreen, and simulate arrows on the road to indicate where you should go next. That'd remove the distraction element (almost) completely!

In fact, BMW already does have a very limited HUD system that shows GPS information, as an option on some of its cars. This is probably the best implementation yet, but it's exciting thinking what the future could hold:

Is Higher Education in Pakistan Improving?

2009-10-30T04:59:00.000-07:00

I've stumbled, from this blog, onto a great little site called STEP: Science and Technology in Pakistan.

There's a vibrant debate going on there about a complimentary article (subscription required for access, unfortunately) that ran in Nature last month, accompanied by an editorial, about the Musharraf government's higher education reforms. This was followed by a letter by Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy, the well-known Pakistani scientist and critic, to Nature criticizing the article.

Dr. Ata-ur-Rehman, the architect of those reforms, responded, and thus began a debate you can access here.

Ultimately, this is a debate about whether a window of opportunity was missed or not. The Musharraf government emphasized education significantly more than before, and had the ability to do so because it was showered with money by international organizations and governments intent at both stabilizing and winning over Pakistan.

I don't know much beyond my personal experience on this, so I won't editorialize on it. Just head over and start reading!

Edmunds.com: Cash for Clunkers was Stupid

2009-10-30T03:43:00.000-07:00

Leave aside calculations of:
a) the negative effect on workplace incentives (i.e. companies can start getting into a comfort zone thinking the government will bail them out in recessions, and so won't take the correct amount of risk into account in making their decisions),
b) deadweight losses (the costs of moving away from an efficient market solution),
c) rent-seeking (among other things, the frictional/bureaucratic losses from routing money through government and the resultant jostling for the bureaucrat's favor),
d) of the destruction of existing capital (Cash-for-Clunkers required engines of cars in working condition to be physically destructed),
Edmunds.com has calculated that cars bought under the US Cash-for-Clunkers program cost...roughly as much as a new car.

The White House, of course, isn't happy.

I would have said: 'Only in America would they think it's a good idea for the economy to destroy functioning cars and buy new ones.' But America is in good company on this.

I wonder if any serious economist has ever supported a scrappage program.

Car Magazine asks why governments aren't allowing car companies to fail, and fears it'll come back to haunt them.

Nukes = Baloch separatism and Militancy?

2009-10-30T02:12:00.000-07:00

After the Mumbai attacks last year, I blogged (on Nothing Adds Up) about Arun Shourie's address to the Lok Sabha where he basically said that the 'Cold Start' option of attacking Pakistan for 'revenge' (i.e. pandering to a public seeing red and reflexively hoisting the blame on Pakistan) was infeasible given our nukes, and so India should indulge in covert options against us. I also cited American think-tank round-tables where the India-Pakistan proxy war in Afghanistan was widely acknowledged.

I am convinced, as I wrote below, that Pakistan needs to solve its problems with India. I am also convinced that we find ourselves in trouble today due to our own poor (or absent) governance in the past. However, this doesn't mean that we should be prejudicial in denying anti-Pakistan actions by India as conspiracy theories.

The best way to consider the question is to look at what Indian government officials and intellectuals have to say. Here is Vikram Sood, former secretary of RAW, the Indian spy agency (emphases and italicized comments in brackets are mine):

Pakistan has been fighting a proxy war especially after 1971 at places and times of its choosing. It is a total war against India and we must treat it so. Other than adopting defensive postures, we have done precious little to teach the perpetrator a lesson. (I think he's talking about Kashmir. I'm deeply opposed to Pakistan's historical tactics there, but that's a conflict in a disputed territory, not 'total war against India'. The prescription should be solving Kashmir, not escalating.)

Getting ready for Pakistan and its terrorists extends beyond modernising the armed forces with the latest aircraft, tanks or submarines. It means above all ensuring a highly professional and sharp intelligence capability. It means equipping our specialised forces with the most lethal and suitable equipment, and keeping them agile, trained and mobile for all times. It means empowering the local state units adequately in every sense of the word to be the first respondents in a crisis. It means developing a covert option.

This probably sounds sinister, but a country’s national interests are protected by hard-nosed realism and not by soft options. A State is respected by others only if it is able to protect its interests and project its power. If India is seen to be soft and weak by our neighbours, we will lose respect even here. (This whole thesis is incorrect. I've personally seen the power of the 'soft option' when I visited India for a conference in 2004, and made friends I still have today. It allowed me to hope, for the first time in my life, for peace between our two countries. Moreover, I'm not sure what he means by respect when he talks in reference to a state. Do states have respect, or is their respect a reflection of respect for their people? India's students and scientists have brought it far more respect than any amount of Tanks and Strike Fighters or Nukes ever could.) The covert option is something many States have and they use it, too. The Americans are quite free and easy in announcing that they have set aside funds to destabilise an unfriendly regime. The same rules do not apply to us but the principles of trade craft are usable.

Covert action can be of various kinds. One is the paramilitary option, which is what the Pakistanis have been using against us. It is meant to hurt, destabilise or retaliate. The second is the psychological war option, which is a very potent and unseen force. It is an all weather option and constitutes essentially changing perceptions of friends and foes alike. The media is a favourite instrument, provided it is not left to the bureaucrats because then we will end up with some clumsy and implausible propaganda effort. More than the electronic and print media, it is now the internet and YouTube that can be the next-generation weapons of psychological war. Terrorists use these liberally and so should those required to counter terrorism. (I'm sorry, but these sort of covert ops sound more like terrorism than counter-terrorism.)

The third weapon in the covert option is the use of cyber techniques. This is an ability to intercept cyber networks and communications, cripple systems and carry out counter attacks on the enemy’s systems. In a country that boasts its brain power, it should not be difficult to find such expertise.

There are Hawks and Doves throughout India and Pakistan alike. We need to take steps to meet the Doves more than half way, because as I said below, that's the only way to peace and prosperity. However, we have to be robust in our defense within our borders, and if we find evidence of covert operations in the guise of 'counter-terrorism', we need to take robust actions against them too.

I don't blame the Indians for starting to think like this. They're frustrated by the fact that their vastly superior conventional forces are strategically frustrated by our nukes. However, rerouting the conflict through unconventional means cannot be tolerated. This whole argument of covert ops in Pakistan proper as payback for our support of Kashmiri fighters within Kashmir needs to be aggressively countered.

To sum up my views, Pakistan needs to be a Dove outside its borders, and a Hawk within. Unfortunately, it sometimes feels like its the other way around!

Addendum: For a listing of major sources on India's covert involvement in Pakistan, read the articles linked to here. It is wrong to blame India every time a bullet is fired in Pakistan, and I'm strongly in favor of being more self-critical in this whole situation, but please don't dismiss it as a conspiracy theory without considering the sources either.

Strategic shifts and the pressing need for peace with India

2009-10-30T00:49:00.000-07:00

I just came across this account by Chuck Yeager, the retired US General who was the first person to break the sound barrier, helping Pakistan in the 1971 war with India:

Excerpts from Yeager, the Autobiography of General (Retd.) Chuck E. Yeager (USAF)

My job was military advisor to the Pakistani airforce...

They were really good, aggressive dogfighters and proficient in gunnery and air combat tactics. I was damned impressed. Those guys just lived and breathed flying. One of my first jobs there was to help them put U.S. Sidewinders on their Chinese MiGs, which were 1.6 Mach twin-engine airplanes that carried three thirty-millimeter canons. Our government furnished them with the rails for Sidewinders... I worked with their squadrons and helped them develop combat tactics.

War broke out only a couple of months after we had arrived, in late November 1971, when India attacked East Pakistan. The battle lasted only three days before East Pakistan fell.

At that point, Indira Gandhi began moving her forces toward West Pakistan. China moved in a lot of equipment, while Russia backed the Indians all the way. So, it really became a kind of surrogate war - the Pakistanis, with U.S. training and equipment, versus the Indians, mostly Russian-trained, flying Soviet airplanes.

The Pakistanis whipped their [Indians'] asses in the sky. The air war lasted two weeks and the Pakistanis scored a three-to-one kill ratio, knocking out 102 Russian-made
Indian jets and losing thirty-four airplanes of their own.

I'm certain about the figures because I went out several times a day in a chopper and counted the wrecks below. I counted wrecks on Pakistani soil, documented them by serial number, identified the components such as engines, rocketpods, and new equipment on newer planes like the Soviet SU-7 fighter-bomber and the MiG-21 J, their latest supersonic fighter.

The Pakistani army would cart off these items for me, and when the war ended, it took two big American Air Force cargo lifters to carry all those parts back to the States for analysis by our intelligence division.

I didn't get involved in the actual combat because that would've been too touchy, but I did fly around and pick up shot-down Indian pilots and take them back to prisoner-of-war camps for questioning. I interviewed them about the equipment they had been flying and the tactics their Soviet advisers taught them to use. I wore a uniform or flying suit all the time, and it was amusing when those Indians saw my name tag and asked, "Are you the Yeager who broke the sound barrier?" They couldn't believe I was in Pakistan or understand what I was doing there. I told them, "I'm the American Defense Rep here. That's what I'm doing."

I stayed on in Pakistan for almost a year after the war ended, and it was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. From 1972 until we came home in March 1973, I spent most of my time flying in an F-86 Sabre with the Pakistani fighter outfits. I dearly loved the Sabre, almost as much as I enjoyed the P-51 Mustang from World War II days. It was a terrific airplane to fly and I took one to see K-2, the great mountain of Pakistan and the second highest mountain in the world, about an hour's flight away [from Islamabad] at over 28,000 feet. It's a fabulous peak, as awesome and beautiful as any on earth, located in the middle of a high range that runs the length of the Chinese-Pakistani border. We actually crossed over into China to get there, and I've got some pictures of me in my cockpit right smack up against the summit. I made two or three trips up to K-2 - real highlights. I also did some bighorn sheep hunting in the Himalayan foothills. Susie owned a little Arabian mare. She took her horse when I went hunting and actually learned some of the Urdu language of the mountain people.

Copyright © 1985 by Yeager Inc

The critical thing is to note how closely the Americans supported us in 1965 and 1971. True, Pakistani generals still talk about how more support was promised than provided, but the point is, our ability to fight a country 6-8 times larger to a standstill depended crucially on being propped up by the Americans and Chinese. And this is at a time when the Indian economy was being horrifically mismanaged and performing well below it's potential (which was even pejoratively termed 'the Hindu growth rate').

Never mind South Korea (although that's another story about how a once-comparable country outperformed Pakistan), look at the figures for India and Pakistan.

Since independence, till India took off in the 90s, Pakistan consistently outperformed it in the headline growth rate figures. Never mind that these figures don't capture the stunting of our polity and the corruption and fissures in our society, they served to give us national overconfidence compared to India.

The scale of the Indian transformation still hasn't been accepted by Pakistani society, much less the Army and Politicians. As a smaller country, the best we could expect in a conflict used to be some semblance of equality based on superior economic performance, and a favorable geostrategic equation.

We still haven't grasped the effect of a galloping Indian economy and the realignment since the end of the Cold War. Our generals seem to think that we can stem the Indian tide by grovelling to the Chinese, but while that may well be the correct tactical move in the short-run, it's an attempt to plug a sieve.

Given India's size, it always made sense to resolve Kashmir. It is just such a senseless fight: slowing India down and bringing us to a full stop. Given India's economic surge, it became doubly important. Given the end of the Cold War and India's alliance with the US, solving our differences has become imperative, a precondition to our success as a stable country.

Current Casualties and the Struggle Ahead

2009-10-29T03:28:00.000-07:00

There isn't much to say about the horrific attack on Peshawar yesterday. 104 dead at last count, 150 injured. Since this was a famous shopping center, the casualties were mainly women and children.

Deeply tragic, and my heart bleeds as must the hearts of all Pakistanis and people everywhere. However, I think the best way to honor the departed is to focus instead on the course of the conflict, and think about what we can do in the future.

There has been an average of one major attack every 48 hours in Pakistan this month, with more than 20 casualties per attack. The bombing yesterday makes up one-third of the total for the month. In March, The News calculated at the time, that there had been at least 150 suicide attacks in Pakistan since 9/11, claiming at least 5000 citizens, including senior generals and a former prime minister. That figure must since have shot through the roof.

There are competing explanations for those figures. The optimistic view is that the Taliban are under pressure due to the Second Battle of Swat and the ongoing Battle of Waziristan, and they are frantically trying to reduce that pressure. It also holds that the attrition of suicide attackers in these attacks will be hard to replenish, and so what we're seeing is the peak of these attacks.

The pessimistic view is that the Taliban have no shortage of suicide bombers, and are easily able to reach their targets. Not only will these attacks continue, the Taliban are also likely to make gains on both sides of the border, helped in part by the recent withdrawal of US forces from Nuristan province, a militant stronghold (and incidentally the seat of a briefly-lived Afghan government backed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan back in the day - more evidence that this whole mess is blowback from the Russian-Afghan war, and Pakistan's flirtations with Wahabi militants).

Saleem Shehzad in The Asia Times (emphasis mine):

The Taliban's control of Nuristan coincides with the big Pakistani military operation in the South Waziristan tribal area against the al-Qaeda-backed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has been underway for the past two weeks. As the militant who spoke to Asia Times Online said, there is now the opportunity to open a new front, with Rahman's forces on the Afghan side and those of Moulvi Faqir Mohammad on the Bajaur and Mohmand side.

This region is also home to displaced militants from Pakistan's Swat Valley, who withdrew earlier this year after a military offensive in that area. They are believed to have regrouped and are preparing for new action in Swat once the winter snows block passes, making it difficult for the army's supply lines.

The latest developments in Nuristan mark a dramatic about-turn. In late 2008, coalition forces, along with the Pakistani military, launched Operation Lion Heart. The idea was that militants would be squeezed between coalition forces in Kunar and Nuristan on the one side, and Pakistani troops in Mohmand and Bajaur on the other. Several months later, both armies announced - clearly prematurely - that they had succeeded in flushing out the insurgent sanctuaries in the region.

If this report is true, the Waziristan war, which by some accounts has been progressing reasonably well could get a whole lot uglier. There were less casualties in Swat (and no ranking officials caught) than expected. If they had just retreated to Nuristan, we could be in for another battle there.

There are two key take-home messages in this:

First, the US cannot be relied to stay in Afghanistan, despite Hilary Clinton's proclamations. They have recently been talking about Counter-Terrorism over Counter-Insurgency (as if they can do the former without the latter), their objectives are markedly different (denying Al-Qaeda & Co the ability to strike America again), and even when their objectives do align somewhat with ours, their tactics can be relied upon to damage our own efforts at times (such as their launching drone attacks on North Waziristan during the operations in South Waziristan). Reducing suicide attacks in Pakistani cities, for example, will matter to them only in terms of the political implications.

Even if they do stay, they've hardly been effective. A secret Afghan/UN map from April shows half the country in the Taliban's influence. They talk about the frustration of being restricted to operating on the Afghan side of the border, but things are hardly going well there.

Bottom line: Pakistan has to fight this war for itself, and to fulfill its own objectives, not for the US. That's our only realistic shot at winning this thing, and that it is probably the best-case scenario for the US also needs only be incidental.

Second, counter-insurgency cannot be won by military means alone. Those are needed. We need to go after training camps and suicide-bomber trainers. However, the enemy cannot be defeated without showing the population their ideological inferiority and the implications of quiet acquiescence. Exhibit A should be their vile behavior in the few weeks they controlled Swat. Exhibit B should be the suicide attack victims and their families. Pressurize the so-called Islamic so-called leaders to speak forcefully and unequivocally against terrorism. We also need to find a way to solve our problems with India.

Even if we have unprecedented success in Waziristan, it's only a piece of the puzzle. We're in this for the long haul, and need to plan accordingly.

James May takes us back in time

2009-10-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

The ever-watchable Mr. May has come out with a new series on BBC 2 called James May's Toy Stories. The idea is for James to tear modern schoolchildren away from their iPods and Xboxs, and introduce them to the toys of his era.

In the series, which started yesterday, James is going to build life-sized versions of models we used to build at home.

I'm surprised my childhood toys were closer to Mr. May's, then to today's kids'. Look at the list he's going to be playing with in the series:

Finally, I don't have a link to the actual program (should be up on YouTube soon enough), but here's the trailer. Nice little break from the horrible current affairs and the dissertation:

Harmony

2009-10-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

My first post is too momentous for me to do justice to, so I'll hand it over to the beauty of nature. This is taken from the National Geographic International Photo Contest 2009, and I love it for the beauty of coexistence it signifies:

This is an Anole Lizard, captured on film in Florida by Andrey Antov.

The Beginning

2009-10-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

(I seek refuge in Allah from the outcast Satan.)

(In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful)