War Against Terrorism

Terrorism is beyond reason. While terror can have no reasoned justification, evil always seeks to be plausible. It seeks to clothe itself in the mantle of righteous indignation and presents itself as an evil parody of an apocalyptic 'divine' vengeance. It purports to act on behalf of some oppressed group, to seek redress for some injustice. It appropriates the language for heaven for the works of hell.

If history is a precursor to the future, we will suffer more terrorist attacks in the months and years ahead. The apparent goal of the terrorists is to achieve larger effect in the future. The terrorist target: unwarned, unprotected persons and facilities. When the fanatic sees himself as an actor in a staged performance, death becomes an act of make believe and a theatrical gesture.

9/11 appears to be a major turning point into the future—the end of the brief post-Cold War era, and the beginning of a new Age of Terrorism, perhaps a World War III, albeit a different kind of war than that which we have known. The horrible attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and whatever follows as a result, will change many lives, many organizations, many industries, and many nations. It has changed everything, for everyone.

There are three goals to terrorism. Goal one: to demonstrate that government cannot protect you. Put differently, it is to make people fearful, if not most fearful, of those things which they found in the past to be both safe and ordinary: going to work, going out for recreation, shopping. Goal two: to take terrorist actions, which evoke an extreme response, and the more extreme of that response, the better. Goal three: to use the extreme response as a mechanism for recruitment.

There must be a target, ideally one with tremendous symbolic significance to underscore goal one above. In the case of international terrorism, something highly symbolic like the Twin Towers is important because it will be a national symbol and it will be well understood globally. A small action in an isolated community or in a community that does not receive national press and has no eye-catching appeal to an international audience has little attraction for terrorists. An urban, rather than rural, setting for the terrorist act is likely to be more attractive in meeting the goal.

Because of progress in materials engineering and miniaturization of electronics, explosives and the like, weapons are becoming cheaper, lighter, more rugged, more accurate, easier to use, and more powerful. Meanwhile new communication technologies — from satellite phones to the Internet — allow terrorists and criminal syndicates to marshal their resources and coordinate their actions around the planet. As these trends continue, it's easier for smaller and smaller numbers of people to hurt larger and larger numbers. Despite all the utopian hype, the new gadgets entering our lives are distinctly double-edged swords: We've unleashed technological forces that we don't remotely understand and almost certainly can't control.

Terrorism is unconventional warfare. There are no fronts, no armies, and no battlefields. The solutions therefore should not come from militaries, which are largely designed for fighting other armed forces. The solutions should come from new approaches that address the whole person, not just the political and economic components. This is about individual people, their values and aspirations – and cultures, some of which have not changed much over centuries. Different people and groups require different approaches – one size will not fit all. The new solutions seem complex, sophisticated and necessarily not look like the past. But if we are going to safely make it through this extraordinary, historical transition, we must not do the old things – we must invent new ones.

Why can’t we learn from South Africa, which invoked their truth and reconciliation project so the previously warring factions could get on with living together in harmony through forgiveness and honoring their shared humanity?

The war against terrorism can only be truly won when we also declare war on the roots, which cause such acts of barbarity: injustice, freedom, and discrimination. Terrorism does not arise in a vacuum but has it roots in historical, political, social and cultural dysfunctions so deep, so cruel, so systemic that they create and sustain discontent until it spills over into a desperation that sees no recourse other than wanton destruction against those perceived as responsible for the plight of the terrorists. Unless there is an equally dedicated attack on the causes of terrorism, there will never be victory in the war against terrorism.

Addressing the causes of terrorism is the most difficult issue. At one end it starts with the need for us to be confident in our definition of terrorism — one persons terrorist is another person's freedom fighter; at the other end, it needs to attempt to address all the injustices that exist around the world that lead people to undertake hateful and destructive acts and this includes the even more problematic need to address perceptions of these injustices as well. The atrocities being committed on Kashmiris or Palistinians are causing suicidal bombings. The perpetrators are heroes for their nation but terrorists to the oppressors. At its core the atrocities are proliferating terrorism.

We are faced with dilemmas that, together, form a distinct and clear danger to individual liberty and to most systems of government. This alone should be motivation enough to act to stop terrorists in their tracks whenever and wherever we can. We must somehow focus on and achieve an acceptable system of protection, prevention, preclusion and reaction to the scourge of terrorism…without losing the ideals and precepts by which we navigate the difficult pathway into our future. This cannot be done by committee or by independent activity by many agencies and organizations acting parochially. Instead, some form of centralized and evenly applied approach must be devised and undertaken by appropriate leaders. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

Making a Dead Set at Corruption

Corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on society. It undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes quality of life, and allows organized crime, terrorism and other threats to human society to flourish. As defined by Transparency International: “Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” According to Kofi Annan, “Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately—by diverting funds intended for development, undermining a government’s ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice, and discouraging foreign investment and aid.”

The good news is that future of corruption is not so bright it will not entirely finish though.

No country is entirely free of corruption. Efforts to fight corruption encourage transparency and accountability, thanks to an increased understanding of corruption's social and economic costs. There is the need for expanding the econometric framework, as well as to more general future research directions and policy implications in the field of governance.

Corruption is principally a governance issue, a failure of institutions and a lack of capacity to manage society by means of a framework of social, judicial, political and economic checks and balances. Good governance and globalization (at both the country as well as at the city level) do matter for performance in terms of access and quality of delivery of infrastructure services.

Corruption is deeply embedded in the political culture and poverty of Pakistan. Regulatory bodies are particularly vulnerable to corruption as they have the power to make key decisions on profit-making activities. Corrupt regulatory bodies can thus dangerously impede economic development.

Discretion creates more opportunities for corruption than where regulatory requirements are laid out through clear, precise and formal rules. Debate about corruption tends to focus almost exclusively on the receivers of corruption, rather than the purveyors. Corruption is alive and well and living in myriads of places. Bribery is simply the way business is done in Pakistan.

Within Pakistan's political dynamics, corruption figures as a very critical element. Prevalence of corruption in various political regimes has been the main cause of their downfall. The incumbents have placed accountability and the anti-corruption drive very high on its agenda in form of NAB its operational approach is rather controversial.

Corruption increases the number of capital projects undertaken and tends to enlarge their size and complexity. The result is that, paradoxically, some public investment can end up reducing a country’s growth because, even though the share of public investment in gross domestic product (the total of all goods and services produced in a country in a given year) may have risen, the average productivity of that investment is dropped.

For a private enterprise, getting a contract to execute a project, especially a large one, can be very profitable. Therefore, managers of these enterprises may be willing to offer commission to politicians who help them win the contract. Conversely, in many cases the act of bribery may not start with the enterprise but with the officials who control the decisions. It is apparently impossible to win a government contract in Pakistan without first paying a bribe. Interestingly, the laws of certain major industrial countries regard commissions paid by domestic enterprises to foreign politicians as not only legal but also tax deductible.

In some of these phases, a strategically placed high-level official or elected leader can manipulate the process to select a particular project. He can also tailor the specifications of the design to favor a given enterprise by, for example, providing inside information to that enterprise at the time of issuance of tender.

The enterprise that pays the commission rarely suffers from the payment of the bribe, since it is fairly simple to recover that cost. First, if corrupt officials of winning the bidding competition assure it, the enterprise can include the cost of the commission in its bid. Second, it can reach an understanding with the influential official that the initial low bid can be adjusted upward along the way, presumably to reflect modifications to the basic design. Third, it can reduce its spending on the project by the amount of the bribe by skimping on the quality of the work performed and the materials used. Fourth, if the contract is stipulated in a cost-plus fashion, the enterprise can recover the cost of the commission by overpricing.

The first step towards tackling corruption is preventing it. In attempting to prevent the laundering of proceeds of corruption mechanisms need to set up to review suspicious transactions, and analyze financial information.

Transparency and accountability in matters of public finance must also be promoted, and specific requirements established for the prevention of corruption, in particularly critical areas of the public sector, such as public procurement.

Citizens have the right to expect a high standard of conduct from their public servants. They also have to participate in preventing public corruption. For these reasons there is a need to actively encourage and promote the involvement of non-governmental and community based organizations, as well as, other elements of civil society, and to raise public awareness of corruption and what can be done about it.

There is a requirement for the prevention of corruption in the judiciary. Decision-making should be entrusted to committees rather than individuals. Although this adds to the cost of regulation, it may eventually save money by facilitating mutual monitoring and accountability.

New attitudes, better financial systems, prosecution of the guilty, better management of diamonds and real accountability to the people … this is the agenda for change. In taking it forward, the leading role must obviously be taken by the people and Government. But tackling corruption effectively requires a real focus, coordinated action and shared responsibility. Everyone’s energies must be thrown behind this anti-corruption strategy. It is the key to a better future for the people of Pakistan. (www.asifjmir.com)