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Comparing "Democracy" and "Dictatorship" Performance in Pakistan

Read Pakistan's economic history to learn that Pakistan has seen rapid economic and human development under military regimes, particularly the last one under Musharraf.

Haq's Musings: Musharraf Accelerated Financial and Human Capital Growth in Pakistan

Pak+GDP-HDI+Growth+1990-2012.jpg


It's obvious that you have no understanding of what it takes to achieve 6-7% GDP growth. It cetainly can not come from a billion dollar "chanda" because a billion dollars adds up to less than 1% of Pakistan GDP. To get 6% GDP growth, you need to investment 24% of GDP which is what happened in Musharraf years.

Read the following as a tutorial:

Haq's Musings: Declining Investment Hurting Pakistan Economic Growth[/quote]

Are you deliberately ignoring the fact that it has cost Pakistan's economy more than $100 billion in losses, thousands of deaths and destruction to Pakistani territory at the scale never seen before, all due to buzzdil and greedy Pakistani military's short sighted and stupid decisions? This is only the 1999-2007 military tyranny I am talking about here, never mind loss of Siachin Glacier and half of Pakistani nation under the treacherous dictators before this period.
 
It's obvious that you have no understanding of what it takes to achieve 6-7% GDP growth. It cetainly can not come from a billion dollar "chanda" because a billion dollars adds up to less than 1% of Pakistan GDP. To get 6% GDP growth, you need to investment 24% of GDP which is what happened in Musharraf years.

Read the following as a tutorial:

Haq's Musings: Declining Investment Hurting Pakistan Economic Growth

Are you deliberately ignoring the fact that it has cost Pakistan's economy more than $100 billion in losses, thousands of deaths and destruction to Pakistani territory at the scale never seen before, all due to buzzdil and greedy Pakistani military's short sighted and stupid decisions? This is only the 1999-2007 military tyranny I am talking about here, never mind loss of Siachin Glacier and half of Pakistani nation under the treacherous dictators before this period.[/quote]

You are totally misguided if you think Pakistan could defy take on the United States, the world's only superpower, and get away with it after 911.

Would Pakistanis have been better off if President Musharraf had kept his country neutral after President George W. Bush delivered the following ultimatum to the entire world: "You are either with us, or against us?" Before answering this key question, let us examine the heavy toll the "war on terror" has taken on Pakistan:

1. Before 9/11, Pakistan had suffered just one suicide bombing — a 1995 attack on the Egyptian Embassy in the capital, Islamabad, that killed 15 people. In the last decade, suicide bombers have struck Pakistani targets more than 290 times, killing at least 4,600 people and injuring 10,000, according to data reported by the Los Angeles Times.



2. Pakistan averaged nearly six terrorist attacks of various kinds each day in 2010, according to a report by the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies.

3. As of April 25, 2011, the Pakistani military has confirmed that since 2004, 2,795 of its soldiers have been killed in the war and another 8,671 have been wounded. There have also been 21,672 civilian casualties (at least 7,598 of these were killed) since September 11, 2001, up to February 18, 2010, according to the military.

4. Pakistan's current leadership says that the alliance with the U.S. against Islamic militants has destroyed the country's investment climate, caused widespread unemployment and ravaged productivity. The government estimates the alliance has cost it $67 billion in direct losses over the last 10 years.

5. There have been incalculable indirect costs of massive war-related societal divisions and disruptions caused by acceleration of internal displacements and migration and proliferation of guns, drugs and violence in major urban centers of Pakistan since 911, the most striking being the increasingly destabilizing violence in Karachi.

Now let's turn to the "what-if" analysis of the road not taken by Pakistan after 911 and ponder the following:

1. Would Pakistanis have been better off by snubbing the world's sole superpower which Musharraf described as a "wounded bear" after 911 attacks?

2. Would Pakistan not have been isolated as a pariah state by the United States with support from the international community by slapping the most stringent international sanctions imaginable?

3. Would Pakistan not have faced the combined military might of the US and India if it had not allowed American troops on its territory to fight Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11 terror attacks?

4. Would parts of Pakistan not have been heavily bombed into "stone age" with some parts of the country occupied by US military to facilitate NATO supply lines into Afghanistan?

5. Would there not have been an even more violent insurgency against foreign occupation and more frequent suicide bombings with even more horrible consequences for the civilian population of Pakistan?

As mightily as Pakistan has suffered at the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates since 911, I do believe that Pakistanis would have been much worse off if Musharraf had not sided with the United States when asked after the worst terror attacks on US mainland.

As the only nation in the history of the world to have used nuclear weapons against civilian targets, I have to agree with Stratfor's George Friedman's characterization of America as "barbaric", particularly when it feels threatened by any external force. I believe the United States would not have hesitated one bit in using all of its political, economic and military might against nuclear-armed Pakistan had Musharraf's decision been any different.

Haq's Musings: What if Musharraf Had Said No to US After 911?

HDI indices are long term measures. The growth in those numbers during musharraf's time were a result of the period of democracy before he overthrew NS. The slump that you see in those numbers is the result of the policies of Musharraf for which there was no one to hold him accountable and were not checks and balances. Eduction rate of a country does not change in an year or so. Takes more like 5-10 years for a meaning ful impact to come in. What you do today, will show an impact 5 years down the line. Good or bad. I am sure an economist like you understands the concept of policy momentum and its impact. By same logic the slowdown during 1990-2000 was an outcome of Zia's regime where he injected hardline religious extremism in every day life of Pakistan

Nonsense!!

The HDI increase in Musharraf years was the direct result of dramatically increased spending on education and health and significant reduction in poverty in that period.

Haq's Musings: Musharraf Earned Legitimacy By Good Governance
 
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Pakistan is not ready for a democracy. People need to have a certain mentality and the ability to decide for themselves. Pakistan does not have this and therefore the wrong person is chosen to lead the country almost all the time. I do not know the solution for Pakistan yet but I do know democracy will only make sense if the majority of people in Pakistan are educated (passed grade 12).

I am shocked to see someone enjoying a Canadian (Democratic) lifestyle but suggesting that 200 million people stay under military's slavery. You don't have "the mentality" because your generals have kept the country and its population under military rule for so long that people don't understand their basic rights.
You think Canada and the US were like this centuries ago? Heck, the US had slavery till the 1950's. But a democratic system ensured that eventually the minorities and slaves would become just like everyone else. The system was developed slowly as the people and the system matured.
Let YOUR people and your country develop slowly into a moderate democratic state too. It's insane to suggest 200 million people lose their basic rights.
Also, whoever put the crap in the top post with charts and statistics......forgot one thing, the entire West and North America are democratic countries (and so is India). These are prime examples of top line economies. The Chinese became a bigger economy not due to dictator rule but due to being CHEAP and with such a massive population internally. Take a look at the Middle East, these guys have a ton of money but they aren't democratic. They have everything but based on Oil. There is not one invention or popular economic system that has come out from that area. You can live there since birth and have your ten generations born there.....but you'll still be a foreigner. Similarly, you from the outside living there can't grow crap unless you bribe a local Arab guy.
I still can't believe someone living in Canada is enjoying his lifestyle based on a democratic system but he's so ill minded that he's suggesting 200 million people become slaves so bunch of supermen in uniform can rule them.
 
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Democracy can be used for both good and bad as well. As in our case, it's generally been for the bad, which should be clearly evident given our history. You're just making poetic sentences without putting actual content into them.

The system takes time to develop if you keep on stopping the development. The bad will never get out as you cut the process of before the bad can be exposed and people realized not to vote for them again. So you fooled your population by putting in military rule and didn't let the bad people proper exposure. So you turned the bad ones victims and they turned like good ones in people's eyes. That means, people would suffer yet one or two more times (5 years each time) before the bad will finally get exposed (this is realizing the next a couple of times, the system won't be cut off like before). So who blindsided the people? didn't let the people who is bad for their vote and who is true to the country......the military!!! Let the chef cook his food and let people determine what tastes better. If the current chef isn't good, people will find out and they'll find another chef. The last thing you can do is to let the chef cook with people's money and right before people can judge if they wasted their money or if it was worth it, you threw the food out by force. Great. You wasted everyone's time, money and the food has to get cooked AGAIN for people to realize if the chef is good of bad.
 
Hogwash. You think if Musharraf spent extra focus on education in his 1st year, that would have changed the literacy rate of Pakistan that very same year ? Think about it.

It did during his 8 years. Pakistan has a growing population requiring more classrooms every year which requires money. Musharraf made that money available.

Literacy rose faster during Musharraf years than before and after him.

The biggest problem in Pakistan has been female enrollment and literacy.

Look at the slope of the curves.

Haq's Musings: History of Literacy in Pakistan 1947-2014

School+gender+gap+in+Pakistan.jpg


Literacy_Rate_Pak_1951_2009.jpg
 
Are you deliberately ignoring the fact that it has cost Pakistan's economy more than $100 billion in losses, thousands of deaths and destruction to Pakistani territory at the scale never seen before, all due to buzzdil and greedy Pakistani military's short sighted and stupid decisions? This is only the 1999-2007 military tyranny I am talking about here, never mind loss of Siachin Glacier and half of Pakistani nation under the treacherous dictators before this period.

You are totally misguided if you think Pakistan could defy take on the United States, the world's only superpower, and get away with it after 911.

Would Pakistanis have been better off if President Musharraf had kept his country neutral after President George W. Bush delivered the following ultimatum to the entire world: "You are either with us, or against us?" Before answering this key question, let us examine the heavy toll the "war on terror" has taken on Pakistan:

Dude, your fancy charts and graphs focusing on the Asian Tigers is a fool's paradise. The Asian tigers like China....became larger economies but because of the dictatorship but being cheap and having crazy amount of local people. If you have a democratic country with 200 million people as its population and another country under dictatorship with a billion people living in it, the billion people will have a bigger economy just because the amount of food, clothes, products and services needed for these people. China is that example.
Look at the Europeans, the US and now to India...these are prime examples of democratic systems developed overtime. You mentioned Human Development Index...... show me some of the most important Chinese invention in the past 70 years. Then take a look at the US, the UK, Malaysia, Turkey, etc. You'll see a CLEAR difference in people's lifestyle, freedom and creativity.

Also, no one can take on the US. That's a fact and it'll remain so for during my life at the least (Which I am assuming has like 90 years left in it). But if there was a democratic government in place, they could've secured more economic and security related interests. When a general sees its enemies, he wants to go fight. When he sees a giant force which will swallow him and his people alive, he panics and does what the giant wants him to do, without negotiations. Military men can't negotiate by design. Imagine in war scenario, Pakistani soldiers trying to "discuss" with the attacking Indian strike corps the importance of neighborhood and humanity or if they can stop charging as the other party isn't ready to fight for a week???? Soldiers brains are designed and modified to fight .........not negotiate. You have democratically elected civilian leaders for it.
I can tell by reading posts here who either comes from a military background or has family members in the Pakistani military. You'll see one minded tone and want for the military rule. You can't abuse human rights of 200 million people by taking away their democracy and basic human rights
 
I am shocked to see someone enjoying a Canadian (Democratic) lifestyle but suggesting that 200 million people stay under military's slavery. ...

First, it's no slavery to get a chance to go to school and get jobs with expanding education budgets and growing economy.

Second, if you insist on calling it slavery, it's far better than being serfs under Pakistan's feudal politicians

Haq's Musings: Feudal Power Dominates Pakistani Elections

You'll see one minded tone and want for the military rule. You can't abuse human rights of 200 million people by taking away their democracy and basic human rights

Pakistan has seen more freedom and more fundamental rights with better economy under military rulers than under corrupt, self-serving feudal elite ruling in the guise of democracy.

Musharraf did far more to enable democracy than any politician before or after him by dramatically expanding Pakistan's middle class, improving educational opportunities and deregulating mass media.

Haq's Musings: 1999-2009: Pakistan's Decade of Urban Middle Class Growth
 
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First, it's no slavery to get a chance to go to school and get jobs with expanding education budgets and growing economy.
Second, if you insist on calling it slavery, it's far better than being serfs under Pakistan's feudal politicians

So its safe when a general shows punches on the world media.....when military kidnaps people (the citizens) without due process which is their right?? its right to start a war with another country, cancel constitution, throw judges out of the courts by garbing them from the inside of courts with their hair and dragging them out on the streets? threatening to kill or make your oppositions disappear, lie to other to get funds for your people and not delivery anything to them???
Or bring in Indian actresses as "the State Guests of Pakistan" and spend millions of dollars on their security and protocols.......??? You'll have bad people in democracy too, but the PEOPLE will filter them out as that's what democracy is. But here, you are supporting generals who are there to protect the country, not run it. They are neither capable nor have the brain power to negotiate anything. One call from the US and your superman general was begging.....if this was a democratic leader, he'd still side with the US but he'd make sure he got a better deal out of it for the country. There is a reason why generals under a democracy salute the democratically elected leadership, which is elected by the people as per the constitution. I am almost positive that majority of the people here wanting military slavery, don't even know what's in your constitution. But you just want to support the military rule because your background connects you to the military. The 200 million people and their future is worth shi*t I guess

Allow me to correct this slogan for you: Haq's Fool's Paradize Musings: 1999-2009: Pakistan's Decade of Urban Middle Class Growth Due To The Availability of Funds from The US due to War on Terror. The General himself didn't do shi*t. The money flew like it did in the Russian war. The General was too busy meeting Indian Actresses as the State Guests of Pakistan when his lazy a*s should've been looking into using the American money wisely for sustainable growth. Not building farm houses when you are a mere public servant!!!
 

Please learn some basic manners.

And pardon me but it's you who's displaying total ignorance here. Aid to Pakistan during Musharraf years was about 1% of GDP, less than what it is now under Kerry-Lugar.

US+Foreign+Aid.jpg


It takes 24% of GDP investment to get 6-7% GDP growth which happened during Musharraf years. ...Musharraf economy was driven by savings and investments, not aid.

Haq's Musings: Declining Investment Hurting Pakistan Economic Growth
 
Please learn some basic manners.
And pardon me but it's you who's displaying total ignorance here. Aid to Pakistan during Musharraf years was about 1% of GDP, less than what it is now under Kerry-Lugar.
Haq's Musings: Declining Investment Hurting Pakistan Economic Growth

I do have manners. But to someone who's insulting 200 million people's basic right to freedom and democracy....my manners went to sleep as soon as I read your post that defy's common sense.
Again, you have series of pretty looking MISGUIDING charts and Misrepresentation of facts all over the place. The foreign aid is one thing, the 11 billion in coalition support and other items was a different scenario. I am referring to the 11 Billion we gave you guys to support your economy and infrastructure. The general was too busy wasting that money for his own fascination with women, drinking and buying expensive land......and the 11 billion is more than 1% of the GDP.
The GDP percentage is not the point, the point is that an alcoholic military general did so much damage to your country and wasted so much money, and you want military to take over and redo the abuse to 200 million people's rights, freedom and the ability to democratically elect a government under the Constitution......

The following is corrected for you:
Haq's Musings: Declining Investment Hurting Pakistan Economic Growth As The Ousted General Spent 11 Billion Sent by The US on Women, Alcohol and buying Assets in Pakistan and Elsewhere. He didn't care to think about 200 million people that live in Pakistan but he enjoyed his days as the president.
 
It did during his 8 years. Pakistan has a growing population requiring more classrooms every year which requires money. Musharraf made that money available.

Literacy rose faster during Musharraf years than before and after him.

The biggest problem in Pakistan has been female enrollment and literacy.

Look at the slope of the curves.

Haq's Musings: History of Literacy in Pakistan 1947-2014



Literacy_Rate_Pak_1951_2009.jpg
Actually you just proved my point. The slope of the green line is much steeper prior to 2000 than it is from 2000-2009
 
Here is a part of my post from another thread:
"Last year's Punjab's education budget was 182 billion. Budget 2013-14: Despite higher allocations, education still not a priority – The Express Tribune

This year's allocation for Education is 50% more. This is a very serious increase. Seems as though PML-N is setting its sights on 4% of GDP for education.

I can only be sure of their commitment once I see actual spending. But going merely by figures, this is serious stuff."


Dictator lovers must be a bit upset about increased revenue generation in Punjab. See, the 2014-15 budget is focused on infrastructure development and there is a sharp increase in Education spending.

What are the dictator lovers going to do when the results of this spending makes itself felt?

Dictatorship addicts should try something in the next year, otherwise they will totally loose any relevance which they manage to dig from skewed historical narratives. Once a few mega-projects come to fruition, these people will have nothing to show in comparison.
 
... Now let's turn to the "what-if" analysis of the road not taken by Pakistan after 911 and ponder the following:

1. Would Pakistanis have been better off by snubbing the world's sole superpower which Musharraf described as a "wounded bear" after 911 attacks?

2. Would Pakistan not have been isolated as a pariah state by the United States with support from the international community by slapping the most stringent international sanctions imaginable?

3. Would Pakistan not have faced the combined military might of the US and India if it had not allowed American troops on its territory to fight Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11 terror attacks?

4. Would parts of Pakistan not have been heavily bombed into "stone age" with some parts of the country occupied by US military to facilitate NATO supply lines into Afghanistan?

5. Would there not have been an even more violent insurgency against foreign occupation and more frequent suicide bombings with even more horrible consequenc1es for the civilian population of Pakistan?

As mightily as Pakistan has suffered at the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates since 911, I do believe that Pakistanis would have been much worse off if Musharraf had not sided with the United States when asked after the worst terror attacks on US mainland.

As the only nation in the history of the world to have used nuclear weapons against civilian targets, I have to agree with Stratfor's George Friedman's characterization of America as "barbaric", particularly when it feels threatened by any external force. I believe the United States would not have hesitated one bit in using all of its political, economic and military might against nuclear-armed Pakistan had Musharraf's decision been any different. ...

:o:

You are a true example of a traitor, a coward, a slave-minded Pakistani who is loyal to a subservient philosophy of Western supremacy which is so heavily promoted by the buzzdil Pakistani military during it's 3 tyrannical military rules. I am shocked and truly appalled by your munafaqat.

I leave you with a thought, that during the Korean War after World War II, the United States also wanted to nuke North Korea and China into submission but despite millions of deaths they still carried on fighting for with honour and dignity for their lands and their ideologies. This is why China is today the second largest economy on Earth and another Super Power.

Brother Riaz Haq, you make me sick. Enjoy your samosas.
 
As to Indian democracy, all it has "accomplished" in the last 30 years is that India's share of world's poor has grown from 22% in 1980 to 33% now.

This is stupidity of the highest order.

Hundreds of millions of Indians have been lifted from poverty and mass poverty in India will soon be history.

We hope the same for all poor people all over the world. We don't let any pathetic self loathing come between the empathy we feel for fellow human beings anywhere who may be living a life of deprivation because of poverty.

That is the difference between us and that is the reason your country and much of Ummah is in the state it is. More than the self blowing kind, it is these supposedly literate haters who are responsible for this state of affairs in your country.

Indian economy is already the third biggest in the world in terms of PPP from 10th when we started our economic reform. This is a stupendous achievement by any objective measure. We see the same trend by nominal GDP where we will start crossing the large 4 European economies one by one in this decade.

Though obviously people who feel threatened by Indian success are not expected to be objective. They mistakenly link their raison d'etre to hating India and Indian achievements and feel any Indian success invalidates their existence.

Nothing can be further from the truth. We don't have anything to do with you guys at all. We are in a different league, being an economy in a different order of magnitude and having the kind of scientific achievements like the Moon and Mars mission. None of this has anything to do with Pakistan, yet many of you feel it necessary to comment on the issue betraying just pettiness and frankly stupidity.

Some example of this pathetic obsession and denial.


Comparing a 60 KM range missile to MOM!


An obscure irrelevant source but yet another stupidity of an obsessed person scavenging for anything he can find to try to remain in denial. ;)

Though the same person will likely jump for joy if his own nation could accomplish even 5% of this despite all poverty. His own nation even claims to be the fort of Islam! Is that not delusion?
 
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