There you go again sloganeering, but not logical answers to my questions.
Another Imran hypocrisy that Dr Shahid Masood was poining out on Geo the other day was his foreign policy stance.
Imran was perfectly ok with Musharraf's post 9/11 policy in October 2001 when Afghanistan was attacked by the US. In fact Imran met Musharraf along with other political leaders at that time, and defended that policy for the best part of the next year. Now he is more anti-American than our mullahs.
Not to forget the same Imran Khan also went to the US State Department after 9/11 in this regard as well.
I will say this again, Imran is a wonderful human being, hes my childhood hero and will always be (im proud to be one of his tigers who worked raise money back in my school days), but hes a lousy politician. The first thing he needs to do, if he has any hopes to be a decent politician is to distance himself from Maulana Halwa Diesel Fazul-ur-Rahman, and Qazi Talk Alot Ahmed.
Imran doesn’t like Maulana Diesel either, but as for Qazi Hussen Ahmed - he is considered more trustworthy, i.e. he does what he promises Khan. We don’t have any complexes about dealing with ppl with beards. We oppose them when they are wrong (e.g. Hasba and Hudood) but we stand with them when they are right, e.g. throwing Musharraf out.
Its not about beards, its more to do with their kartoots. Just because they are in the opposition does not mean one should join them. People like Imran should have higher standards than holding hands with Maulana Diesel and doing narey baazi against the Government. Hes an Oxford graduate for crying out loud, hes better than that, he needs to set better standards.
Imran’s opinion is that as long as his vision is not compromised, he doesn’t care. I don’t think you will find one issue relating to these religious leaders, where Imran has adopted an unjust stance. Naarey baazi sey yaar kya hota hai. Imran considers Musharraf’s staying as more dangerous than these mullahs can ever be. There is no functioning institution in the country, a man with 500,000 guns is above the law and tearing apart the country. If genuine democracy and freedom is restored, then fanaticism will itself die down. Musharraf, through his high-handed approach in North, has become a greater ally of fanaticism than Imran could ever be.
We have to start looking at the big picture, and its not getting any prettier. Concerning ourselves with individuals when the whole system is suspended is hallucination.
I also think Imran needs to rethink alot of his stances, especially about the war against terror etc. I mean lets say he actually wins the elections... I can assure you he cant just say 'get lost' to our supposed ally, or otherwise his days are numbered, so what I make out of it is simple, Imran knows hes not going to win anytime soon, so might as well use this angle to carry out the most damage he can.
By making deals with looters and pluderers who destroyed every institution in the country like Nawaz Sharif (so much so that Imran supported a military coup to overthrow him), and lunatics like Qazi, Imran's vision does not amount to much more than a hate Musharraf agenda. You also have failed in this entire thread to explain what exactly that vision is.
The vision is to bring independent institutions to the country (Judiciary, Parliament, Executive). I think I have mentioned this in every reply in this thread but you consider persons (BB, Nawaz, Qazi) as greater danger to the country than the absence of any rule of law and institutions upholding it. You forget that these people are not aliens, but born and mostly bread in Pakistan. Fixing the system is the solution and primary concern over any individuals. If anybody helps us fix the system, why wouldn’t we ally with them? It will solve the whole problem of corruption.
You are entitled to your opinion about Imran. As for my opinion, he is a man of deepest vision and foresight. Its just that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is considered a fool.
Here are some of the kind of specific policies you seek to know about:
Q: Your election manifesto makes many promises but from where will you get the additional resources to implement all you have vowed to undertake, except by levying more taxes?
Imran Khan: First and foremost, the responsibility of a PTI government would be to build trust between the people and the government. If the people were convinced that the government of the day was sincerely working to protect and promote their interests, they would be more than willing to pay their fair share in taxes.
With nearly 70 per cent of the total annual revenue eaten up in the form of debt servicing, it leaves precious little for investment in human development.
The PTI has prepared a strategy to deal with the debt-servicing burden. We believe that it is wrong to burden ordinary citizens by increasing regressive indirect taxation in the form of higher utility rates (electricity, gas, and fuel) and use it as a tool to generate additional revenues for debt servicing. The PTI would negotiate a long-term debt management strategy with the IMF. When in power, we would conduct an international audit of all loans and demand international arbitration for the settlement of bad loans siphoned off by corrupt leadership of the past.
We are confident that remittances by overseas Pakistanis can increase manifold. Our target is to increase remittances by 3.7 million overseas Pakistani workers from 1.0 billion USD to around 7.0 billion USD annually in five years by offering incentives and encouraging non-resident Pakistanis to send money in the range of 50 to 175 US dollars per month through normal banking channels.
The savings from debt servicing would be invested on human development to jump-start the economy by initiating labour intensive projects, which generate employment and increase production.
Thanks for sharing, This is good, still very high level though. policies are def a step in the right direction. Next come plans, including likelihood of something happening or not, kind of like a monte carlo simulation of all these factors and their net impact. Time horizon is important of course.
As far as the taxation goes, I think a carrot and stick approach is needed. Imran has not addressed the shortfall in taxation collection and what he would do in terms of better processes to collect taxes.
The sentiment that if people trust the govt, they will start paying taxes is a flawed one. People will avoid paying taxes as much as possible, and that is why enforcement, audit and penalties must be addressed.
As far as the debt arbitration for previous loans, is there a precedence for this? Meaning would major development banks be open to this idea or not?
for labour intensive projects, are there projects that PTI has in mind? hopefully these are labour intensive projects which have a high ROI, and are well thought out, these could be infrastructure type projetcs, better mass transit system, schools, hospitals, vocational training facilities etc.
we dont have many politicians who has greater self integerity.
regardless of parties,
I respect the following though
Mahmood Achakzai
Imran Khan
one cant have mass social change without integrity. Both of above persons does have that quality. Mahmood Achakzai though very vocal on right stances failed to mobilize national appeal, Imran does have potential to create leadership for the country. but before that he has to get rid of floaters around him and stand out from the crowd. everyone knows what are the problems of Pakistan, be it justice, education or health, feudalism.
He should now act to work towards people contact more and more. to break the net of feudalism, establishment, army are the tasks he has to do fight with and win. there is only way to do this to have support of masses of Pakistan. feudals, elite, army and establishment will never give him free run.
If he is able to that, he can implement anything in Pakistan.
As our Information Secretaries get more internet savvy I will see if we can start providing more detailed plans.
But Fraudia yaar, as I mentioned earlier Pakistan has no shortage of brains to solve any problem. The problem lies in the hinderances in the way of their plans getting implemented: No regard for merit, police on payroll of the politicians, ISI controlling who gets elected etc etc. FIRST and foremost these systemic problems need to be fixed. Otherwise you can write the best plans in the world but its worthless if it cannot be implemented.
Personally, I am more concerned with the systemic blocks to our development than with minute details. Our concern right now is more with getting the right people, honest ppl elected. Abhee tu pura mafia betha hoa hai Pakistan pey.
what you indicate are problems, but they are not the sole issues. if you remove that all today things will not become all great because we do not have the vision and planning to do something. as a nation …polticians and awam are more fouced on the past than lookign forward to teh future.
To some extent such issues are present in one way shape or form in pretty much every country, whether its lobbies controlling politicians, caretls running the govts whatever, btu one thing remains..the groups actually have plans..real plans. that is the difference.
I agree that the best plans are useless if they can not be implemented, but without good plans what are you going to implement?
even on your initial goals of ‘clean up’, how are you going to do it.
how does Imran want to clean up our political scene?
is he going to ban politicians? on what basis, how will such a law be passed, thru current courts or new courts,
how will the justices br removed, on what premise, how will that process be handled?
How will he limit the role of govt and intelligence agencies? step 1, step 2, who, where, when, how, what?
what about the police depts..how will he weed it out, who will do it, what is teh criteria, how will you replace bad cops with new cops..what will the screenign be like, what type of due diligence will be in place for hiring and ongoing monitoring of cops?
Tough questions? hey..real questions. but they dont get addressed.
Thats where I say that aside from visions. slogans and ideas you need real direction, real plans.
so if we set aside isues such as education, haelth, technology, industry, defense, trade, agriculture, economy, etc on the back burner, and look at the previous paragraph with the set of questions, lets hear it. how will it be done.
Its easy to say this needs to be done, or we will do it. but its very difficult when questiosn come up of who, when, how, what, where etc.
Right now PTI says its the only party that wants to change systematic blocks etc. tomorrow lets say someone else comes up and says they want to do the same thing but want to have their own party and it is being led by someone who is respected and charismatic like Imran. Lets say edhi, anwar maqsud, Salman Ahmed.
Then what is the difference between the groups. you have to give people a vision of the future, and maybe the awam at large may not be sophisticated enough to break free from the partisan emotional voting that brought benazir in power twice, but they want to hear what you will do, and how you will do it.
I would rather have a crook in the office who has the ability to deliver results than an honest man who is incompetent and cant deliver (this is not an attack on imran or musharraf or nawaz or benazir but a general statement)
plans are important, your post about what Imran’s vision is shows that he has some inkling of what he wants to do. There has to be more due diligence by PTI on such plans. They should stand up to certain level of scrutiny.. not just as a political game, but as an indication that they are realistic and can be realized. You have to know you can implement your vision, and yo have to know how it can be done.
Thanks for taking the time out to make that post. Well I guess what it comes down to is faith. I personally have alot of faith in Khan’s ability and integrity and so am proud to help him. When he was building the hospital, all the donors could have asked hey where’s your plan, how are you going to get the technology, afford the doctors, sustain the fundraising etc. All of these would be valid questions, but inspite of them ppl donated on faith because they trusted him and Khan did them proud. Imran and the men with him are all very honest, patriotic and well-educated ppl so I trust they will be able to deliver. I anticipate it will take under 10 yrs for us to come to power, and by then inshAllah we will be a far better organized machine.
I hope u recognize that this is ot criticism for the sake of criticism and just negativity and posturing. I have already made my views about Imran clear. If I were to join and support a political party, this would be it. Everything I am saying I would say then also.
PS: hospital and a country are massively diff in scale. btw