Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Allah ka lakh lakh shukar hay yah kissi aur party kay rahnuma nay naheen kah dia warnah :2guns:

anyway i like this statement :hbk:

Islamabad: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman Imran Khan has opposed cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget saying the country is in a vulnerable state and is fighting on both its borders.
“If at this stage we cut the defence budget‚ we would leave the country in more vulnerable condition as we are fighting on our two borders, the war on terror and conflicts with India,” the cricketer-turned-politician told Radio Pakistan in an interview.
http://www.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/ImranKhan_AFP.jpgImran Khan. AFP

“If we succeed in resolving the conflicts through dialogue‚ then we will be able to cut our defence budget,” Khan said.
“We also want to change relations with India so that militancy and militarism are abolished and we will resolve issues through negotiations. We will keep the Kashmir issue as our priority but we will‚ at the same time‚ decide that it will be resolved through dialogue. We want to end tensions and come close so as to benefit from trade,” Khan said.
When asked about impression that he is a supporter of the Taliban, Khan said he has never supported the Taliban.
“I was opposing war on terror. I was opposing Pakistan’s participation in American war on terror,” he said.
He said when he insisted that there is no military solution to the conflict in the tribal regions‚ he was branded pro-Taliban.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

It is a logical statement. Over the years, we have been made to believe by our incompetent political parties that our defence budget is huge, and is eating into other important stuff like education etc. Fact is, Pakistan loses billions in the form of money that is bled out courtesy corruption. InshaAllah, once that bleeding is taken care of, there will be enough funds in the GDP to increase the education budget handsomely, and allocate additional funds to other projects as well.
Additionally, the target is to bring more people into the tax net....and even if the number of taxpayers is doubled from its current sub 1%, it will increase Pakistan's GDP by a fair amount, and noone will need to question things like the defence budget.

I hope that BISP is done away with, and the overcrowding in organizations like PIA and railways is reduced. These are difficult decisions, but need to be made in the larger interest of the country.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

Pakistan biggest threat is internal not external. Indians do not want to invade Pakistan…they have enough problems of their own. And Pakistan biggest threat is its inability to provide, feed and educate its youths.

Pakistan’s young voters view democracy with despair, finds survey | World news | guardian.co.uk

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

Good, but lets suppose if IK says he is in favor of of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget ! Then what ll you say ? Will you oppose him ? No never …
Anyway I like his and your statement :k:

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

Yes, because why spend money on feeding hungry kids. Its better spent on oversize military and generals playing golfs who have never won a war in nation's history (unless you count overthrowing elected governments).

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

Govt should be promoting industry build up, which would in turn create jobs for all these poor people. Instead, the govt is taking out loans to give handouts. Billions of rupees have been doled out, most of which has been with the intent of buying people's loyalties. BISP was a flawed program in my mind. Such programs suit countries that have healthy economies, not one like Pakistan, where the govt needs an IMF bailout every 6 months.

Remember the saying, catch a man a fish, feed him for day...teach a man to fish, feed him for life. PPP is not interested in long term betterment of people, i-e, their education, employment, ownership etc.

Pakistan's Defence budget was almost Rs 550 billion last year. That is for almost 750,000 active service military personnel, and about 200,000 non-active. Add an unknown number of retirees and pensioners, and you have well over 1 million people.
The defence budget pays salaries and benefits of all pension eligible ex servicemen who have 13+ years of service under their belt.
The defence budget pays for equipment, maintenance and upgrades.
Last, but not the least, the defence personnel remain on call 24/7.

Compare this to our recently retired MNAs, who awarded themselves a retirement package of 2.5 billion a year for 372 MNAs who attented the assembly for an average of 5 hours a week for the past 5 years. Thats more than 67 lacs per MNA per year, which includes their lifetime pension, perks and amenities.

Do the math before blaming the military forces.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

Agreed, but India is a hostile neighbor, and maintaining a deterrent is vital. For that matter, all european countries live in harmony, and have no threats from their neighbors, yet all of them maintain healthy armed forces, and upgrade them on a routine basis.

On the contrary there are a lot of things I disagree with IK on. If IK had favored cuts, I would disagree if it was a cut in the amount. If it is a cut in percentage, so long as the amount is the same(that is in case the GDP goes up), then that would be fair...but decreasing the budgeted amount is not a wise move.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

^ Dole is not good for any economy. For example Australians provide dole to their aboriginal population, hence they do nothing and the policy has not improved their life style in any way. Creating jobs is the only way to go ahead.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

You are right. I was however referring to unemployment benefits that are handed out by most western countries.....and such benefits are handed out only to those who have lost their jobs because of layoffs or firings....and are done for a limited period..not indefinitely. In Pakistan, it doesnt make sense from any angle.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

He's playing it safe now, and thats a good thing I reckon. He's not strong enough to lock horns with the army nor the time is right. Otherwise over the years, he'd very much been the main critic of army's huge defense budget in comparison to how much was being spent on the education, health and other social developments.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

I have done the math, and if you take off your nationalist blinders you would see the math, too. Pakistan needs to shift from security state and invest in its people. The armies/tanks/guns and nukes cannot protect nations when they crumble from internal problems like Pakistan is. BISP is one such example. In other words, feed and educate your kids or they will become Taliban suicide bombers. How hard is this simple concept for people to understand? And why we do need to support such a huge army when majority of threats facing the nation are internal? Btw, most of jihadis that army is fighting were once supported and funded by the military itself.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

Feed your kids by taking billions in loans? How long can a nation sustain such a lifestyle? Zardari is not paying for this out of his own pocket. Its coming out of Pakistan's coffers...a country with a budget deficit that is 5% of its GDP.
PPPs idea of creating jobs has been to stuff joyalas into national organizations like PIA, Railways, State life etc, essentially bankrupting them.

The jihadis were funded and supported by the military. True. And so long as we are going back in time, it was ZAB the great who started this jihadi training program in return for some dollars from CIA back in 1974. So either we stick to the present, or go back to the root cause.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

Call me cold hearted bas tard, but I'd rather feed hungry kids than support lavish lifestyles of overfed generals. Btw, PPP govt is gone. There are caretakers in place & they should be free to fire anyone at this time. In any case, my point is that we should be building the nation, and not the army.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

I would agree with you if the source of funds for BISP was from cuts in military spending. Taking out loans to dole out money is STUPID.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

The problem about military spending is twofold. One we spend much more than we should, and two the things that money is spent on is non-productive. It makes some sense if that money was spent on defense research and development instead of creating leisure clubs for the military elite.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

It is not funded by borrowed money. We already had discussion on topic while back. The program is funded through foreign aid.

http://www.paklinks.com/gs/pakistan-affairs/552866-in-pakistan-welfare-scheme-shows-signs-of-success.html

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

I cannot disagree with that statement, but that is not even relevant here....unless you are implying that the defence budget is meant to fund the lavish lifestyles of 8 or 10 generals in the army. The armed forces(army, navy and airforce) are a pack of more than 1 million personnel. A few generals are corrupt but that means there should be better accountability, not a reduction in the budget.

[quote]
In any case, my point is that we should be building the nation, and not the army.
[/QUOTE]

Agreed....and that can be done without impacting the defence budget

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

IK is bent on his back to army get their blessings. In other words this hypocrite is also bending his back to uncle Sam after all that hulla gulla against Uncle Sam on drone attacks.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

Right now, cutting defence budgets would be unrealistic until and unless we have sorted our borders (specially with Afghanistan one). We are made to spend huge amounts on maintaining this war on terror. Until then, we cannot foresee. In this interview that as soon as we have neutralized at least one threat, we will start the cuts gradually.

Kind of makes sense because our army is over stretched in tribal areas and afghanistan. We need an exit strategy for them and we need it fast.

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Re: Imran Khan not in favour of cuts in Pakistan’s defence budget

Don't mind