Independent political and defense analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi explains that despite similar promises to root our terrorism in the past, why it is a different playing field this time around, in the wake of the sickening #PeshawarAttack Has Pakistan charted a new and comprehensive course of action for countering extremism and terrorism? The answer is a big ‘yes’ if we go by the speeches and statements of the political leaders, including the prime minister, in the two meetings held on December 17 and 24. The fury of the statements cannot guarantee the elimination of extremism and terrorism in Pakistan. Such statements were made in the past. However, there are two major differences this time. First, the army top brass is in the lead in persuading the civilian government to adopt a definite and comprehensive policy to control terrorism. The military, as a whole, and the army in particular have overcome the traditional ambiguity about the good and bad Taliban and their military action in North Waziristan demonstrated a non-discriminatory policy towards all kinds of Taliban and others groups based in the tribal areas. However, the civilian leadership, including the ruling PML-N, continued to be divided on how to deal with militancy. Now, after the Peshawar massacre, the army top command has built pressure on the civilian leadership to adopt a unified and tough policy for countering terrorism. Second, the Peshawar school incident has created a major public upsurge for dealing with the Taliban and other militant groups with firmness. The public reaction has also led political leaders to come out openly against the Taliban. Leaders like Imran Khan and others, who were opposed to military action, and repeatedly expressed sympathy for the Taliban, could not carry on with their old policy. Nobody would disagree with the 20-point plan of action announced by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif but the real issue is the capacity of the present civilian government to implement these agenda...

Columnist and lawyer Babar Sattar argues against the ad hoc nature of our national response to terrorism in the wake of the heinous Peshawar Army Public School attacks “WE cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them,” Einstein had argued. The latest multi-party conference that came up with the 20-point action plan against terror affirmed that the foremost problem afflicting Pakis­tan’s leadership is not its lack of will or courage, but its lack of capacity. We saw once again a flock of pygmies, devoid of an original thought, willing to be herded in whichever direction the army chief pointed his stick. Asmatullah Muawiya threatened Nawaz Sharif with attacks on his family if the GHQ attackers were executed. And our mighty leader extended the moratorium on the death penalty on the false basis that the EU would get mad if we didn’t. The new mantra of our khaki leadership (that has had exclusive control over our national security policy since Pakistan’s inception) is that terrorism is proliferating because our courts are soft on terror or because we aren’t hanging convicts. Fact: Pakistan has the world’s highest number of death row inmates ie 8,000. Fact: thousands are serving life sentences for heinous crimes. Fact: civilian and not military courts passed these sentences. Fact: these sentences weren’t enough to deter terror in Pakistan. Fact: terrorism didn’t emerge in Pakistan after September 2008 when the PPP first imposed a moratorium on executions. Fact: the link between death sentences and reduction of crime is heavily contested. Our proclivity for deluding ourselves and relying on ad hocism seems to be gathering strength. What is the latest magic solution to curbing terror? Military courts! Will punishments for suspects dry up the supply chain of terror? No one knows. But the popularity of the idea is proof of how militarised our thinking as a society has become. The bottom line is that we are angry and to soothe our hysteria we...

By Any Measure, Illicit Financial Flows Pose a Devastating Challenge to Developing Countries and Human Lives Thomas Pogge—Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, Director of the Global Justice Program, President of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP), and member of the Board of Directors of Global Financial Integrity (GFI)—has estimated that 18 million people die each year of economic deprivation and causes stemming therefrom. His calculation is based in good part upon estimating the number of people dying from preventable diseases. GFI estimates that US$1 trillion a year of illicit financial flows drains from developing countries into western accounts. Our estimate is based on balance of payments and balance of trade data filed by governments with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the same data that is used by millions of people every day in making decisions about investments, loans, interest rates, exchange rates, and more. We believe that our data is very conservative because it does not include major components of illicit outflows, which do not show up in official statistics. 18 million people dying a year is around 50,000 people a day. US$1 trillion a year is roughly US$3 billion a day. On this day, how many of the 50,000 people will live, if the US$3 billion stays home? This is the most fundamental way of thinking about the human and economic relationships with which we are dealing. And note—this is the key point—that the importance of dealing with this relationship does not change if: the number of people dying is halved and the money escaping is halved (25,000 deaths per day with a daily illicit outflow of US$1.5 billion); or in each case the figures are doubled (100,000 deaths per day with a daily illicit outflow of US$6 billion); or one is halved and the other is doubled (the numbers are still huge). What is important here is the order of magnitude. Any way you cut it, we are dealing with an enormous drainage of...

The closer you want to get to eradicating the menace of terrorism, the bigger this menace seems to get. For the past week, following the attack in Peshawar, our leaders, both in Khaki and Mufti, have deliberated and deliberated. But this piece is not about them and the solutions they might come up with. It is about the sociology of the mindset that either justifies or rationalises terrorism, or impedes tangible action against it. It is about the failure of the state and the society to come up with a narrative that can defeat the terrorists. Terrorists of all hues — Al Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and its countless affiliates, Afghan Taliban and its affiliates like the Haqqani network, India-focused terror groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and sectarian terror groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi — use two weapons: incredible hatred towards their victims and a narrative to convince and recruit new supporters to the cause. This narrative of victimhood, denial and conspiracy theories can easily be deconstructed and dismantled. But what with the rising anger in the country, fracturing of the society and the general iffiness of the times we live in, no one has done anything substantial about the issue despite harping on about it at great length. After 9/11, the United States knew whom to blame and the nation’s anger was projected outwards. After 7/7, the United Kingdom knew whom to blame, and the country was able to vent its anger. After Mumbai attack, India too, vented its anger on Pakistan and somehow managed to cool off. In Pakistan, though, where the state had pandered to extremist inclinations for long, at the time of 9/11 there was a dictator in place, whose rise to fame and then power owed a lot to the Kargil debacle. When General Musharraf decided to take a U-turn in his Afghan/Taliban policy, he gave his people the wrong reasons for doing so. Instead of telling them that extremism of all kinds is bad for the country; that it can easily turn against the country's own...