A 64 thousand dollar question

We have fought three wars in the last ten years—at the LOC, against the TTP and on the Afghan border

Not even the most ardent supporters of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif would claim that these three were angels. The contention of their detractors that these former prime ministers were not free from serious flaws of character too would not perhaps be contested by even their staunchest supporters. And many even among their supporters would agree that at least ZAB and NS were discovered and groomed by you-know-who. And on both the occasions that BB was allowed to get elected as PM, she was clearly seen to be bending backwards trying not to ruffle the feathers of the ‘facilitators’.

That the last two former PMs had consistently failed to tackle corruption and improve governance is an undeniable fact. NS could not do it even after having had the honour of occupying the office of the leader of the house thrice. BB, on the other hand, had failed to do it even after having been allowed to reach the coveted office twice.



No doubt, of the three, the first one, ZAB, who was handed over a truncated country by General Yahya Khan in December 1971 after an ignominious defeat had called for elections on January 10, 1977 after having governed the country for full five years. Still if one were to count the term from August 1973 when the Constitution was passed, ZAB had ended his tenure one year before the completion of his full legal term.

BB’s first term ended within a year and a half and the second lasted for almost three years. Counting the two truncated terms she was short of one full term by about six months. NS, on the other hand, had two shortened terms of two and a half years which meant he completed one full term divided into two halves separated by three years of BB’s second term.

One would not like to dispute the claims of the detractors of the last two that during these two shortened terms of each spread over nearly 10 years BB and NS between them had perhaps looted the entire national treasury leaving nothing for the civil and defence budgets.

But interestingly enough during these 10 years, Pakistan — with its coffers empty because of the alleged rampant corruption indulged in by our elected governments — was involved in two 10-year long low-intensity wars: one on the side of the Kashmiri Mujahideen against India’s occupation troops in the India-held Kashmir and the other on the side of the Afghan Taliban against the Northern Alliance. Both these wars had been fought with the help of non-state proxies created, funded, trained and equipped by us. One wonders how we accomplished this miracle with an empty national kitty.

Now let us come to the last 10 years. During the outgoing decade, we had fought three wars all at the same time — one at the Line of Control (LoC), the other on the borders of Afghanistan and a third one against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.



It is during these 10 years that the elected politicians — Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz included — are said to have looted the national kitty dry once again. And again we seem to be fighting wars, as many as three this time, with the national resources syphoned off by elected governments.

As well, it is in these corruption-ridden 10 years that we had launched three military campaigns within Pakistan against terrorists — Rah-e-Rast, Zarb-e-Azb and Radd-ul-Fasaad — the last one is still continuing. And there is another kind of war that we seem to be confronted with currently. This is called the hybrid war in which the intelligence agencies of our external enemies are said to be busy trying to destroy the country from within.

But how does a poor country like Pakistan — where its elected governments do nothing but loot the national kitty and indulge in bad governance — fight costly wars of survival on its borders as well as within, with its national kitty looted dry? Could it be possible that part of the answer is concealed in the galloping import bill and rising debt burden? A sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, indeed.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 21^st, 2018.

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