| November 21, 2006 | Tuesday | Shawwal 28, 1427 |
Washington, London seem set to prepare for pullout from Iraq
Basic education in doldrums
If it is revealed that Pakistan hired consultants for preparing the strategy for this Test it might well turn out to be the same eggheads hired by the Pentagon for troop defense in Iraq.
A SURVEY conducted by the National Commission for Human Development reveals that 124,776 children out of 596,000 in the age-group of 05-07 years in Dera Ghazi Khan do not attend school. It is an alarming situation regarding the efforts being made by the government for the promotion of basic education.
In fact there was this soldier who asked Donald Rumsfield early into the campaign in Iraq why they had been sent into battle with thin armour for their tanks and in some cases limited fuel and ammunition. Rumsfield replied that you go to war with the resources you have.
A man like Rumsfield would still score higher in strategic planning than Bob Woolmer if the Pakistan coach were to be asked the same question at a press conference. Choosing a third all-rounder in Razzaq for the match (the other two being Shoaib Malik and Hafeez) instead of a specialist batsman or bowler on a pitch like this is for the cavemen not contemporary strategists, specially when he had Samiulah Niazi and Faisal Iqbal in the ranks.
Even if the hosts had played Faisal for Razzaq it still would have left the bowling stretched, but at least Pakistan would have scored more runs while they were batting. 86 balls for 16 were left to the Hanif Mohammads, not the modern day batsmen.
But the ridiculous go-slow by Razzaq cannot possibly be his idea. Clearly, he was told to occupy the crease by the coach or captain or both. I suppose it's not always that two heads are better than one. You bat like this when you want to play out time or are overhauling a follow on target, not when you are running out of partners and want to post a big first innings score.
It was as if Razzaq was back in Mohali. Except this time he didn't make sense. He was almost delusional. The boundary he hit was almost apologetic.
By the end of the second day Pakistan are paying for their defensive strategy in this Test. On a dumb pitch they have gone for a dumb combination of three specialist bowlers and three stand ins. Each of the last three comes into play in limited overs cricket. Here it seems they have come into play for unlimited power hermits, for that's what the team think tank seem to be.
Just a glance at previous matches on this pitch would have been enough for the uninitiated, let alone Inzamam who played here against India and England. Only last year the slow pitch was bypassed by the sheer pace of Shoaib, Sami, Shabbir, Hoggard, Harmison and Flintoff, who took 32 of the 40 wickets to fall in the Test.
Even then Pakistan went in with four specialist bowlers, three of them either very fast or fast plus the leg-spinner. This time they have gone in with three medium-pacers and the leggie. Song lyrics of rock stars make more sense.
Still, there are three days to go and Pakistan are still some 200 ahead. But they look in danger of being 150 behind come the fourth morning. They must already be spooked nevertheless by the manner in which the West Indies have generated positive Gs through Gayle and Ganga. Gayle especially needs to be admired for transforming himself by playing himself in before announcing his intentions to go back to his cavalier style and Ganga was consistent in his defense. They have already put up a record stand and I wonder when was the last time an opening stand by visiting teams has gone this far. Something for the four-eyed stats-man to think about.
For me the picture of the morning was when Taylor and Collymore were pinning down and picking on the middle and lower order. If you noticed there was none of the unabashed celebration so typical of the world dominating calypsos of the 1970s. Instead, and especially in the case of Collymore, there was an eerie sobriety after taking a wicket.
That is more chilling. These guys seemed to know what they were doing. They knew that eventually they would get their way. There was strategy, there was a plan. Everything else was simply a matter of time.
I sure hope Bob Woolmer has an exit strategy from this situation. Rumsfield didn’t.
M. Ziauddin
The goal in Iraq is not to cut and run like the US did in the Vietnam War some 30 years ago but to withdraw gradually with military control passing to the government in Baghdad in digestible doses.
The Baker Study Group (BSG) is already half way through looking at the questions concerning withdrawal. The incoming Democrats in the US Congress seem all set to do something qualitatively different in Iraq from what President Bush has so far been doing.And in what appeared to be the British government’s first steps in a rethink on the war in Iraq Chancellor Gordon Brown, the man most likely to succeed Prime Minister Tony Blair at the 10 Downing Street by next year, said in Basra last week that British troops could begin withdrawing from Iraq `within a few months'.
Blair suggested last month that British forces could be home from Iraq within the next 12 to 18 months. Early last week he had called Iraq war a disaster.
The Opposition in Britain is also shifting its stance. Until now the Conservatives have essentially supported the government's Iraq strategy but now they seem to be changing tack, directly criticising policy and demanding new tactics and a tougher line to be taken with the White House to ensure British priorities are built into America's new strategy.
And what are Britain’s priorities today? It is leading the Nato troops in the war against Taliban in Afghanistan and there is increasing threat of terror in the UK itself whose roots are being traced to Pakistan. And this brings London directly to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The borders of these two countries have become too volatile lately and the madressahs located in the region have been identified by a recent MI5 report as the hub of terror which are allegedly visited by the misled British born extremist Muslims for training purposes with the aim to unleash terror in the UK.
The importance of Pakistan in the evolving Afghan policy of Britain becomes all the more obvious when one realizes that tens of thousands of Pakistani families and clans, from Punjab and Kashmir, have relatives in London, Bradford, Birmingham, Burnley and Blackburn. What people think in Pakistan is believed here to directly affect huge numbers of British citizens and indirectly affects many more.
That is perhaps why while his would-be successor went to Iraq, the Prime Minister himself visited Pakistan where he announced doubling of British aid to almost a billion dollars over the next three years for madressah reforms which are seen in Britain and elsewhere as nurseries of extremism in Pakistan.
Also, understandably Mr. Blair further strengthened cooperation with Pakistan to fight terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal immigration and trans-national organised crime through a joint working group.
The Nato summit due in a week’s time in Riga (Latvia) is expected also to analyse what more is needed to be done to help Pakistan to help Nato troops in Afghanistan.
But then if the military focus of the big powers shifts from Iraq to Afghanistan even to a degree, Pakistan will increasingly and very closely be probed by both the international media and the concerned intelligence bodies, for its role one way or the other in the fight against Taliban.
As it is Pakistan which continues even today to be under suspicion of being involved somehow in helping the Taliban re-group and fight back. The insurgency's high level of sophistication has aroused suspicions that Pakistan has quietly reactivated its old alliance through its powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation, an American think-tank that works closely with the US military, has been quoted in media reports here as saying that US government believed the ISI was providing training, money and sensitive information to the Taliban.
The media has also quoted western diplomats in Islamabad saying that while they believed the ISI leadership supported Mr Musharraf, there was evidence of regular meetings between low and mid-level officials and the Taliban. "Whether these contacts are to stop attacks in Afghanistan or to encourage them is hard to know," they said.
Pakistani has strongly denied these allegations, dismissing them as a convenient smokescreen for the failures of Mr Karzai and his Western allies.
Yet suspicions of Pakistani support for the rebels as part of a complicated "double policy" persist -- fuelled in part by the admission by Gen Musharraf last month that some retired ISI officers who served in the 1980s might be helping the Taliban.
In September, a leaked British intelligence report had claimed that ISI, who in the 1980s had run a network of secret camps that armed and trained 95,000 Mujahideen to fight Soviet troops, was still indirectly helping the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Understandably, Pakistan's cooperation in cracking down on cross-border infiltration by Taliban militants is seen as critically important for the success of US and Nato military operations in Afghanistan.
Understandably also, these increased concerns of the US and the UK about resurgence of Taliban in Afghanistan and their need to tackle the problem with the help of Islamabad would certainly reduce by as much their concerns for democracy in Pakistan. So, one could assume with a degree of certainty that the US and the UK in their own respective national interests would perhaps be not very averse to see Gen Musharraf continue in his uniform for as long as it takes them to subdue the Taliban.
And why not? If one looked from Washington and London’s perspective at the mess that their attempts to establish democracies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon have created in those countries, they would certainly be too reluctant to upset Musharraf’s uniformed arrangement in Pakistan.
At best perhaps they would be reassured if Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party were to join up this uniformed arrangement. Both Washington and London are known to have made efforts through their diplomats in Islamabad to help Musharraf broaden the base of his support among the moderate majority of the country which the PPP is said to represent. But the choice, as of today, is that of Benazir. If she does not choose the’ right side’ at the ‘right time’ it would perhaps not matter one way or other to Musharraf’s friends in the US and UK. But then if she takes the bait then that would perhaps be the proverbial last nail in the PPP’s political coffin.
There are still certain schools in the district which are running without teachers and buildings. Neither inspection-cum-raid of military teams and efforts by NGOs nor the education sector reform programme and non-formal basic education schools could solve the problem as the target set by certain organisations and the education department could not be achieved during the last six years.
One seasoned educationist of the district on condition of anonymity condemned the strategy for the promotion of education, saying that the government does not increase the salary of teachers of all levels and is appointing teachers on contract, which means an uncertain future for them. He maintained that the government is spending more money on other institutions than on the education department and its employees for the promotion of education. There is need for a long-term education policy rather than short-term projects initiated by NGOs in collaboration with the education department. If the teacher is prosperous, which is a basic thing, and well-equipped with modern knowledge, then it can be expected that he would play a vital role in the promotion of education, he added.
The children of the tribal area of Dera Ghazi Khan tehsil are more a victim of short-term education policies. When low paid and ill-equipped teachers cannot pay attention to their duties properly in settled areas how can they perform up to the mark in the those areas where the means of communication are not available. Interference in terms of transfers and posting by influential people has also affected the performance of the education department. However, for up-to-the-mark performance, basic structural changes are needed in the education system, including review of salary scales of teachers of all levels, instead of creating or establishing more institutions other than the education department to streamline the education system.
DISTRICT development committee presided over by district coordination officer-cum-executive district officer Mrs Iram Bukhari has approved 93 development schemes worth Rs130 million for the construction of roads, provision of drinking water and electricity to rural areas.
In the meeting, EDO (F&P), Mepco deputy manager, DO (roads), DO (planning), district nazim, staff officer, district monitoring committee works & services convener and other officers participated.
Construction of 14 link roads, including jeepable tracks in the tribal area, provision of electricity to 12 villages, 24 schemes for provision of drinking water and establishment of a mechanism for sewage disposal were approved in the meeting.
DCO Mrs Iram Bukhari has stressed the need for in-time accomplishment of schemes and use of fine material in the construction work, which, she said, would bring vital changes in the socio-economic life of inhabitants of the district.