If You Don't Know History...

Sunday, September 26, 1999

Sharif-Musharraf continue talks to beat coup rumours
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

Islamabad, Sept 25: The crises-ridden Nawaz Sharif government is holding hectic back-door consultations with Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf amid reports of persistent differences between the government and military over the commitments Sharif administration made to US.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif along with a senior cabinet minister was closeted with the army chief for about 45 minutes on Friday during which matters relating to former Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik's controversial comments and US warning of a possible coup in Pakistan were discussed, English daily Pakistan Observer reported today quoting sources.

The News also confirmed the meeting and claimed that the trio may have met twice on Friday mainly on the issue of what assurance Shahbaz gave to the US officials during his recent trip to Washington as premier's special envoy.

The consultations, second in the last three days, assume importance in the light of the raging controversy over an imminent showdown between the governmentand the military, the newspapers claimed. Soon after their meeting with Musharraf, Shahbaz accompanied by Petroleum Minister Nisar Ali Khan met the prime minister and briefed him about their deliberations.

Shahbaz later met president Mohammed Rafiq Tarar and reportedly told him of his meetings with the US officials in Washington last week. The News also quoted a government source as saying that the ``real'' worry for Shahbaz is that he ``had given some assurance to the US on the question of CTBT and he has been explaining it to the army chief for the last three days.

``The real problem is how the people of Pakistan will take the government signing the CTBT, as there is nothing like conditional signing of the treaty,'' the source added.

Earlier, Pakistani media reports from Washington had claimed that during Shahbaz-US officials meetings, Pakistan was asked to sign the CTBT with the condition that if New Delhi carries out nuclear tests in future, Islamabad will have the option to do so the same.

Apart from the differences over the CTBT, the observer claimed that the US had also expressed concern about Pakistan's ``misadventure'' in Kargil and asked Islamabad to fix responsibility for the same and resume the Lahore peace process with India.

The US, according to the daily, also wants Pakistan to create a "buffer zone" in Kargil by moving back its army from the current positions. This suggestion, however, has been outrightly rejected by the Pakistan Army which has been engaged in hectic parleys within its own ranks over the last few days. The joint chiefs of staff committee met twice as did the corps commanders under the chairmanship of General Musharraf.

Oppn activists held

KARACHI: Police today rounded up around 1,000 opposition activists ahead of a planned anti-government rally here. Police launched their crackdown against leaders of the newly-formed Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) after outlawing rallies and protests for two months in the country's commercial capital. Opposition sources said senator Nasreen Jalil of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was detained at her home.

Police also confirmed the mass arrests during the crackdown which started overnight but gave no figures. Police and paramilitary rangers have been deployed at the location of the rally in the city's exclusive Clifton Area. Raids were conducted at the MQM and the main opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) headquarters. The opposition parties have launched a campaign to force Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif out of office.

In a nutshell:

"In early May 1999, the Pakistani army, at the instigation of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, seizes a strategic height called Kargil in the Indian province of Kashmir. This creates a grave crisis between Pakistan in India. By early July, the CIA picks up intelligence that Pakistan is preparing to launch nuclear missiles against India if necessary.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif comes to the US on July 4 to meet with President Clinton about this. Clinton is livid and yells at Sharif for breaking promises, not only about Kashmir but also about failing to help with bin Laden. According to notes taken at the meeting, Clinton says he had “asked repeatedly for Pakistani help to bring Osama bin Laden to justice." Sharif promised often to do so but had done nothing.

Instead, the ISI worked with bin Laden and the Taliban to foment terrorists.” Clinton threatens to release a statement calling worldwide attention to Pakistan’s support for terrorists. He adds, “You’ve put me in the middle today, set the US up to fail, and I won’t let it happen. Pakistan is messing with nuclear war.” Sharif backs down and immediately withdraws his troops from Kargil, ending the crisis.

But as a result, Sharif becomes deeply unpopular in Pakistan. A few months later he will be ousted in a coup by Musharraf (see October 12, 1999), the general who started the crisis in the first place."

See here, here, here and here.

The United States has done a pretty fine job since the coup of impressing on Musharraf how vital it is to keep us pacified. Not happy, but pacified. Yes it's cost us, and for now we've avoided war.

For how long?

...the man who murdered Osama Bin Laden

Death Wish?

Benazir Bhutto complained about security, or the lack thereof. Her welcome home gathering ended in an assassination attempt. She knew her life was in danger and even sent out an email a couple of months before her death with instructions to send it to CNN were she killed.

Bhutto knew her actions were risky. Until the investigation is done it's wise to put the blame where it belongs: on the person who shot her and then blew himself up.

A Security Nightmare

Women and Children Hardest Hit

You just know this is Bush's fault:

Call centers and other outsourced businesses such as software writing, medical transcription and back-office work employ more than 1.6 million young men and women in India, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who make much more than their contemporaries in most other professions.

They are, however, facing sleep disorders, heart disease, depression and family discord, according to doctors and several industry surveys.

Experts warn the brewing crisis could undermine the success of India's hugely profitable outsourcing industry that earns billions in dollars annually and has shaped much of the country's transformation into an emerging economic power.

Heart disease, strokes and diabetes cost India an estimated $9 billion in lost productivity in 2005. But the losses could grow to a staggering $200 billion over the next 10 years if corrective action is not taken quickly, said a study by New Delhi-based Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.

The outsourcing industry would be hardest hit, it warned.

Reliable estimates on the number of people affected are hard to come by, but government officials and experts agree that it is a growing problem. Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss wants to enforce a special health policy for employees in the information technology industry.

"After working, they party for the rest of the time ... (They) have bad diet, excessive smoking and drinking," he said at a public meeting last month. "We don't want these young people to burn out."

The minister's comments have since infuriated the technology sector, which says it has been unfairly singled out for problems that also exist in other professions.

The outsourcing industry has come under fire because the sedentary lifestyle of its employees combined with often stressful working conditions makes them more vulnerable to heart disease, digestive problems and weight gain than others. Some complain of psychological distress.

Most call center jobs involve responding to phone calls through the night from customers in the United States and Europe -- some of whom can be angry and rude. It is monotonous and there is little meaningful personal interaction among co-workers. That can also be true of other jobs such as software writing and back-office work.

"There are times when the stress is so overwhelming that they fail to cope with it. Then they come to us," said Archana Bisht who set up a counseling company, 1to1help.net, in Bangalore six years ago.

I don't see the problem here. India is achieving the American dream.

In Bed With Big Government

The Houston Chronicle:

Paul, the libertarian-leaning GOP lawmaker from Lake Jackson, said on NBC's Meet the Press that he has requested earmarks "because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back."

"They steal our money," said Paul, during a heated exchange with the show's host, Tim Russert, who questioned whether he was being true to his convictions.

This year Paul requested 65 earmarks, more than any other congressman in the Houston area, including money for the renovation of an old movie theater in Edna and wild shrimp marketing.

Paul's congressional district also has been among the top in Texas in receipt of federal assistance since 2000, receiving $31 billion from Washington, according to a study by the group OMB Watch. In the first nine months of the 2006 fiscal year, the district received $4 billion in federal aid.

His district, which hugs the Gulf Coast, and reaches into Brazoria County, receives a substantial amount of flood control aid.

Paul said that although he has requested earmarks, he did not vote for the final spending bills that include the special projects.

"I'm saying I represent my people. They have the request, it's like taking a tax credit," he said. "That's the system. I'm trying to change the system."

What a monumental hypocrite. It seems to me if you don't like the system, you work to change it. Dr. Paul seems to think the only way to change it is to utilize it (his district paid $31 billion since 2000? Yah, right!) and run for President.

He has as much chance of becoming president as Ralph Nader. Or Ross Perot. Or me.

Merry Christmas From Grand Rapids

Democrats, Party of the Rich

A legislative proposal that was once on the fast track is suddenly dead. The Senate will not consider a plan to extract billions in extra taxes from mega-millionaire hedge fund managers.

The decision by Senate majority leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat, surprised many Washington insiders, who saw the plan as appealing to the spirit of class warfare that infuses the Democratic party. Liberal disappointment in Mr Reid was palpable at media outlets such as USA Today, where an editorial chastised: “The Democrats, who control Congress and claim to represent the middle and lower classes, ought to be embarrassed.”

Far from embarrassing, this episode may reflect a dawning Democratic awareness of whom they really represent. For the demographic reality is that, in America, the Democratic party is the new “party of the rich”. More and more Democrats represent areas with a high concentration of wealthy households. Using Internal Revenue Service data, the Heritage Foundation identified two categories of taxpayers – single filers with incomes of more than $100,000 and married filers with incomes of more than $200,000 – and combined them to discern where the wealthiest Americans live and who represents them.

Democrats now control the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions. More than half of the wealthiest households are concentrated in the
18 states where Democrats control both Senate seats.

Very interesting.

Bring Him Home Santa

h/t: jimmy johns

Moderately Confident

Get this:

"The USSR could derive considerable military advantage from the establishment of Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba, or from the establishment of a submarine base there. . . . Either development, however, would be incompatible with Soviet practice to date and with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it."
--Special National Intelligence Estimate 85-3-62, Sept. 19, 1962

Twenty-five days after this NIE was published, a U-2 spy plane photographed a Soviet ballistic missile site in Cuba, and the Cuban Missile Crisis began. It's possible the latest NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program will not prove as misjudged or as damaging as the 1962 estimate. But don't bet on it.

The rest.

National Debt Burden

h/t: Here

Bolton: NIE a "flawed product"

Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the "intelligence community" on issues such as Iraq's weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly.

When John Bolton left his post at the UN, we lost a great advocate for America.

The rest.

Surge Achieving Results, Fund the Troops!