Just the latest in a long string of articles and other public comments in this vein, the New York Times today made a front page story of Pakistan’s low tax rate, with author Sabrina Tavernise going so far as to directly blame it for the nation’s rising insurgency. Quote:
Ms. Tavernise’s claims come as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is making a high profile visit to Pakistan, and serves as a reminder that calls to dramatically raise taxes in Pakistan have been official Obama Administration policy for quite some time.
I have first-hand comments from Pakistani people who indicated that anybody whose family was once well off is either no longer so, or has left the country (and gone to Saudi Arabia, UK, East Africa,.etc). To look at just these inequality figures merely ignores the fact that the entire country is in downward spiral. There ain’t nobody with money, so where you gonna get that money?
New York Times and other such publications have unusual tendency to look at the wrong root causes. People murdering each other does not happen because they are poor. It happens because they have rotten moral character. Removing poverty somehow will not remove violence, because nobody invests in a country where there is violence. Violence precedes, not follows poverty in the poor world.
These people burnt down a fried chicken outlet when they were angry. And they love chicken. Can you imagine?
It seems the politicians in charge of Washington DC are either so monumentally stupid as to fail to understand that they are losing Pakistan, a vital ally in the area, for good or just don’t care one tiny bit.
The anti-US resentment that’s been generated in the past two decades in that country, a “precious US ally” as long as it was useful to supply the “heroic mujaheddin”, is enormous but what’s even more astounding the pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the faces by the contemptous US leadership is simply astounding. Forget Egypt: Pakistan has become the most dangerous time bomb of the Muslim world.
Pakistan has been humiliated by its “ally” at every turn. The military government, not exactly popular but undoubtely less corrupt than the revolting Bhutto gang, has been forced to wage war on neighboring Afghanistan (remember that many high ranking officers are of Pathan or Afridi extraction and have relatives and friends the other side of the border) at a gunpoint and then ordered to step down to be replaced by a man so corrupt he’s known as “Mr 20%” (he was just “Mr 10%” when his wife, the darling of the Western press, was in charge). The military, one of the finest in Asia, has been bogged down in an endless COIN campaign that’s leading nowhere and demoralizing the troops. Officers and men alike are obeying orders but are increasingly questioning the sanity of breaking decades old agreements regarding the Tribal Areas to please a country that’s tightening its relationship with India. Also the US promised that no “military units” would be fielded in Pakistan: many are questioning what’s difference if a Reaper drone bombing a village is controlled by a USAF or CIA operative. And now taxes are to be increased to fuel the social-democratic pipe dreams of a cadre of “visionaires” living thousands of miles away. Yes, people will totally understand and remember Bush, Clinton, Obama etc in their prayers.
In the meantime the Afghan resistance (let’s call it by its name since Taliban only denotes a small part) is increasingly seen with favor by members of the military, particularly the powerful ISI. These men know the area like nobody else and know the US and their allies are losing the war, fast. Better to have at least decent relationships wit the new neighbors when the time will come.
Maybe now all the tin pot dictators will start defying the US by lowering taxes? Somebody write to Kim Jong Il he can really drive the US mad by decreasing the tax rate.
I am so glad Pervez Musharaff is no longer running the country. Imagine having people who had not even been elected by you being in charge of setting your taxes. That would be terrible.
I am glad the people (like Neal Wolin and Hillary Clinton) who run Pakistan now have been elected by the Pakistani people.
The UN defines a failed state as one where the monopoly on violence has been lost.
Pakistan was classified as one a while ago.
Meaning that entire tribal chieftains and their armed followers maintain their own law-and-order in their respective regions, and any outside force from the Pakistani army or police force trying to bring those regions back into common law will be shot dead.
Common law of Pakistan now exists only in the cities and most of the villages are lost to the government. Even the education in villages is handled by local tribal groups who fund them. This is not a small deal - the children there are taught to hate Pakistan.
Naturally, that’s a lot of chaos, which tends to settle a bit when they decide to leave those places alone, but that’s always a temporary ceasefire. All that chaos is still enough to discourage investment by domestic and foreign businessmen.
Of course, since the Pakistani state will not stand to see itself crumble over its sovereign territory, it’s in the regular habit of bombarding entire villages.
The United States assists it in this endeavour, because it is told that the al-Qaeda operates among those villages, so it also bombards those places along with them, while funding Pakistan’s government enough to bombard those places more.