Monday, June 15, 2020
Opinion: The Court-Martial of Donald J. Trump
The intensifying rift between the military and the president demands attention.
The first time I saw President Trump referred to as “Cadet Bone Spurs” I laughed, the second time I smiled and the third time I cringed. It’s an apt slur, but it lumps him together with all the other politicians whose military huzzahs contradict their personal histories and whose insult to our men and women in uniform can be reduced to dodging the draft.
Trump’s twisted and utterly transactional relationship with America’s armed forces is a bigger insult than that. For all his lip service to military service, his actions reveal a crude take on those who perform it.
And they have led now to a remarkable and remarkably public reappraisal — even repudiation — of him by people in the armed services, their leaders and veterans.
Some are finally coming around to a clear-eyed view of a corrupt president. Others are venting a distaste for Trump that they’d previously downplayed or kept to themselves.
Even the most dutiful soldier has a breaking point, and even a culture of deference finds its moment of defiance.
Late last week Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued an extraordinary apology for his participation in that awful presidential photo op made possible by the use of tear gas against peaceful protesters. But as Helene Cooper noted in a story in The Times, that’s just one example of an intensifying friction between the president and military leaders. Many of them don’t share his opposition to renaming bases that honor Confederate officers and disagreed with his push to have armed forces quell demonstrations.
“Trump’s Actions Rattle the Military World” was the headline on a separate story in The Times by Jennifer Steinhauer. Her conversations with members of the military, their families and veterans made clear that they might not back Trump to the extent that they did in 2016.
Then there are the generals and admirals, silent by custom but silent no more. What we’ve seen and heard from them over the past two weeks is unprecedented in my adult lifetime, a jolting departure from their norm of mutely supporting a sitting president, no matter their differences with him.
Trump has been denounced by Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis and reprimanded by Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, both of whom held top jobs in his administration. “I think we need to look harder at who we elect,” Kelly said in an interview for the online platform SALT Talks.
Trump has been upbraided by Navy Adm. Mike Mullen and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, each of whom served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George W. Bush. “I’m glad I don’t have to advise this president,” Myers said in a CNN interview.
Together these admonishments amount to a metaphoric court-martial of the commander in chief.
Trump campaigned by arguing that presidents before him had abused the military by deploying troops to places — Iraq, Afghanistan — where the justification was suspect, the mission ill-fated and the end point invisible. He promised to avoid such costly entanglements while nonetheless spending more on military equipment. He wanted lots of it and he wanted it to gleam, just like his casinos. He told members of the armed forces that they’d never known a friend like him in the White House.
But what a nasty tongue and temper this friend has. At the start of his candidacy, he grossly mocked John McCain, who had been tortured for years in North Vietnam, by saying that he preferred war heroes who didn’t get captured.
He praised generals, sure, but only to assert his superiority to them. “I know more about ISIS than the generals do — believe me,” he said at one point in his candidacy, a cockamamie coda to his earlier boast that “there’s nobody bigger or better at the military than I am.”
He attacked Gold Star families, rage-tweeting against the father of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq, and the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in Niger. They had dared to criticize him, and he put his vanity over their grief.
There’s no reverence in Trump, only convenience and expedience. Nearly two years and a hell of a lot of golf passed between his inauguration and the first time he could rouse himself to visit troops in a foreign combat zone.
During an earlier trip abroad in late 2018, he abruptly canceled his participation in an event at an American cemetery and World War I memorial in France when rain meant that he’d have to drive instead of taking a quicker helicopter flight.
The following year, again in France, he used the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy as the backdrop for an interview in which he called Robert Mueller “a fool” and Nancy Pelosi “a disaster.” Everything to Trump is show business, and the graves of warriors are fitting props for a tirade on Fox News.Trump approaches and appraises the military as he does all else: What’s in it for me? He needlessly sent troops to our southern border in the fall of 2018 because it advanced a narrative, which he contrived to help the Republican Party in the midterms, that America was being threatened by an invasion of migrants.
“My military,” he has said, and it’s no slip of the tongue. He sees the military as a vessel for his own glorification, to which end he openly yearned for a military parade in Washington, a titanic tribute to all the metal and munitions under his control.
“My generals,” he has also said, referring to the bevy of them — Mattis, his first defense secretary; Kelly, his second chief of staff; Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, his first national security adviser; Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, his second — with which he stocked his administration. The phrase is the giveaway that, to him, they were trophies, their stars and medals merely ornaments on his ego.
And they were meant to defer, lest there be doubt of his own dominance. So he lied not only about firing Mattis, who in fact resigned, but also about having given him the nickname “Mad Dog.”
For Trump the military is a commercial enterprise and commodity. His complaints about N.A.T.O. boil down to balance sheets, focusing on the financial disparity between the United States’s military contribution and other countries’, as if our servicemen and servicewomen are service providers.
They rightly see themselves as more than that — and as more than the brutes of Trump’s childish imagination. Last November he cleared three members of the armed forces who had been accused or convicted of war crimes. He did so against the wishes of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, who worried about the military code of justice being undermined.
Code? Justice? Trump thinks and speaks in the language of wins, losses, brawn and bloodshed. He only pantomimes principle. His supposed reluctance to send troops into foreign lands gave way over recent weeks to his readiness to have them occupy our own land and engage in combat with their fellow Americans.
That he didn’t expect them to push back proves how little he understands them and how far short he sells them. They bring more than muscle to what they do. They bring heart, soul and intellect. Which is more than can be said for their commander in chief.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/opinion/trump-military.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Sabiha Khanum: The First Lady of Pakistani Cinema
Karan Bali
Sabiha Khanum dominated the screen in the formative years of the country’s industry in the 1950s and ‘60sSabiha Khanum, acknowledged as the ‘First Lady of Pakistani Cimena’ and arguably the greatest actress of the Pakistani screen, passed away in the US on Saturday. Her exact year of birth is not known – it is variously mentioned as 1935 or 1936.
Her performances in films like Sassi (1954), Gumnam (1954), Dulla Bhatti (1956), Waadah (1957), Devar Bhabhi (1967) and, in particular, Ek Gunah Aur Sahi (1975), are talked about in admiration by Pakistanis of an older generation even today.
Sabiha was born Mukhtar Begum in a village near Gujrat in Punjab. Her mother died when Sabiha was just six. Her father, based in Lahore, then sent her back to the village, where Sabiha was brought up by her grandparents. She learned to milk cows, get water from the well, make rotis and churn butter.
After she grew up, her father took her back to the city. A friend of his took her around to see Lahore and for the first time in her life, Sabiha watched a movie on the big screen. Soon after, Sabiha visited Radio Pakistan, where her father’s friend worked, and in the spur of the moment, she was given the chance to sing in a live programme. A few days later, she saw a play in the theatre, and found out they were auditioning. Sabiha tried for that part and got it.
A film role followed. Her first film was Beli (1950), also marking the Pakistani debut of Santosh Kumar who would go on to become Pakistani cinema’s greatest and most popular leading man. The film, with the Partition of India as backdrop, did not do well at the box office.
The same year, her next film Do Aansoo made her Sabiha a star. It was the first ever Urdu film in Pakistan to mark its silver jubilee (running in a theatre for 25 consecutive weeks). The film, directed by Anwar Kamal Pasha and co-starring Shamim, Gulshan Ara and Santosh Kumar, was based on an earlier Noor Jehan hit Bhaijan (1945) and looks at how a man inadvertently ruins the lives of his wife and daughter. In fact, such was the impact of the film that it was re-made twice subsequently in Pakistan, as Dillan Da Saude (1969) in Punjabi and Anjuman (1970) in Urdu.
Now a popular leading lady, Sabiha gained attention as an actress of merit in Sassi (1954) based on the legend of Sassi and Punnu but even more so in Gumnam (1954) where she expertly played a woman with mental disabilities. For the latter film, Sabiha devised a shrill laugh for the character, which she used to practice at home. Once, upon on hearing her rehearse, a concerned neighbour was so worried that they came over to find out if all was well with her!
With Dulla Bhatti (1956), Sabiha proved she could carry a Punjabi film with ease too. The film, co-starring Sudhir, was a huge success at the box office. That year, Sabiha delivered success after success: Hameeda, a remake of the Geeta Bali starrer Vachan (1955), Sarfarosh and Chhoti Begum all proved to be huge winners at the box office. Sabiha had become the undisputed queen of Pakistani cinema.
Waadah (1957) and Saat Laakh (1957) are regarded as milestone films in Pakistan, both co-starring Sabiha and Santosh and both super hits. Wadaah looks at a poor, simple man from the village, who loves a police officer’s daughter from the city. The film is known best for Santosh’s sensitive performance as well as the song Jab Tere Shaher Se Guzarta Hoon.
Poster for the movie Hatim Photo: Omar Ali Khan.
Saat Laakh takes off from Guru Dutt’s Mr and Mrs 55 and is about a heiress who, as per a condition in a will, has to marry in order to retain her wealth–Rs 7 lakh in cash, a bungalow worth Rs 7 lakh and other assets also worth seven lakhs. She marries a convict on the run with a plan to take him to her hill station home on a ‘honeymoon’ and then have her lawyer bring the police there a couple of days later to have the man arrested. Naturally, she falls in love with him in these two days; the police come and arrest him and he thinks she has betrayed him and his love.
Turns out he was on the run as he was wanted for murder, having ‘accidentally’ killed a man, who was trying to rape a woman (Nayyar Sultana). Expectedly, all ends well.
In 1957, the Nigar Awards, Pakistan’s version of the Filmfare Awards, were launched. Santosh won the Best Actor Award for Waadah and Sabiha was the winner for Saat Laakh. By now, the Sahiba Khanum-Santosh Kumar pair was talked of in the same manner as Raj Kapoor and Nargis in India. It was but inevitable that with the numerous films they were doing together and with the on-screen chemistry they shared, that they fell in love with each other off-screen as well. This in spite of Santosh being a married man with children. The two, after initial opposition from Sabiha’s father, got married during the making of Hasrat (1958).
In an interview given to The Saturday Post, Saibiha said:
“My father was of course completely against the marriage. He couldn’t reconcile to me becoming Santosh’s second wife, while he was still married to his first wife and also had two daughters. But I told my father that Santosh was a true gentleman and there was nobody I’d rather marry. Finally, my father relented. And I’ve never for a day regretted that decision. In fact, Santosh’s first wife and I are very good friends. She is a really nice woman. In fact, the reason that we could make it work was that we both loved Santosh very much and we got along so he would never face a conflict. It’s worked out so well that our children don’t consider each other half-brothers or half-sisters. It’s all a tightly knit family, Masha Allah!”
Sabiha proved to be a top star right through to the mid-60s, scoring heavily in films like Naaji (1959), Ayaz (1960), Shyam Dhale (1960), Mousiqar (1962), Shikwa (1963) – winning the Nigar Award for Best Actress, Kaneez (1965), Sawaal (1966) and Devar Bhabhi, yet another award-winning performance. Though by now Sabiha was getting slotted into the character artist category, she was still getting roles around which the film’s story revolved. In Ek Gunah aur Sahi, based partly on a Manto story, she was sensational as ‘Mummy’, an elderly Christian lady with a heart-of-gold. Though Rani, who played a double role as a mother and daughter, was the lead actor, it is Sabiha who keeps the viewer glued to the otherwise ridiculous goings-on on the screen. Campy, over the top and yet strong and fascinating, Sabiha effortlessly steals the film, which without her would have been simply unwatchable. She went on to win the Best Actress Award at Tashkent for her robust act as well as a special Nigar Award for her extraordinary performance.
Sabiha continued acting well into the 1980s receiving a special Nigar Award in 1981 for completing 30 years in the Pakistani film Industry. But Santosh’s death in 1982 shattered her. She reduced her workload gradually, moving away from the big screen and doing the odd television serial.
She then shifted to the US to live with her daughter and her grandchildren, where she passed away. Apart from her award in Tashkent and the various Nigar Awards she has won, she has also been honoured with the Pride of Performance Award, the highest Pakistani honour in entertainment, or the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz as it is known.
EDITORIAL: #Pakistan - Post-budget embarrassments
So the advisor to the prime minister has admitted, in no uncertain terms, that all the talk of reforming the FBR has yet to translate into any sort of meaningful action. If the provinces are not supposed to take cue from the center’s revenue projection, perhaps they should resort to groping in the dark or, just like the federal government, opt for a budget that loses all significance as soon as it is presented. While some such answers were unsatisfactory, Dr. Sheikh was also unable to answer a few rather important questions at all. For example, he didn’t have much to say about signing off on the Rs249 billion primary budget deficit target when his own ministry has projected the deficit at above Rs550 billion? Why, really, should the people see these numbers and expect that the government is acting in their best interest?
Strangely, Dr Sheikh also chose to stay mum about whether the IMF (International Monetary Fund) would now call a meeting to approve the second review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). The bailout program is suspended in light of all the stimulus packages needed because of the recent lockdown, but the government is clearly eager to get it back on track, which tells a lot about the hopeless nature of the budget. The government’s vulnerability is understandable. Without the Facility, it risks being bankrupt. But that does not mean it should throw a veil over facts and choose to keep people in the dark. Everybody understands that the present crisis is not unique to Pakistan, and growth and revenue will suffer in the immediate term. And it will be better if the government communicates all the facts to the people and earns their trust instead of taking them for a ride.
https://dailytimes.com.pk/626801/post-budget-embarrassments/
Pakistan’s Lockdown Ended a Month Ago. Now Hospital Signs Read ‘Full.’
When Pakistan’s government lifted its lockdown on May 9, it warned that the already impoverished country could no longer withstand the shutdown needed to mitigate the pandemic’s spread. But now left unshackled, the virus is meting out devastation in other ways, and panic is rising.
Before reopening, Pakistan had recorded about 25,000 infections. A month later, the country recorded an additional 100,000 cases — almost certainly an undercount — and the pandemic shows no signs of abating. At least 2,356 people have died of Covid-19, according to official figures released Thursday.
Pakistan is now reporting so many new cases that it is among the World Health Organization’s top 10 countries where the virus is on the rise. The W.H.O. wrote a letter criticizing the government’s efforts on June 7 and recommended that lockdown be reimposed, stating that Pakistan did not meet any of the criteria needed to lift it.
Medical professionals now expect the virus to peak in July or August and infect up to 900,000, adding further strain to an already shaky health care system some warn may collapse.
But government officials have ruled out the possibility of a further lockdown and dismissed the recommendations by the W.H.O.
On a recent day in the sprawling port city of Karachi, Ali Hussain and his brother shuttled between public hospitals, looking for help and receiving none. Mr. Hussain’s older brother had a severe cough and fever but had been unable to get a coronavirus test for days.
“We cannot afford the private hospitals, they are charging tens of thousands rupees,” said Mr. Hussain, who earned 20,000 rupees per month, about $121, working at a textile mill before the lockdown.
Like many others, the Hussain family is suffering not only because of the coronavirus itself but also the economic devastation the pandemic has wrought. Mr. Hussain said he and his brother could barely afford to feed themselves since they lost their jobs in March, let alone pay for private care.
“We are completely broke and we do not know what to do,” Mr. Hussain lamented.
The World Bank projects that Pakistan’s economy will contract by 0.2 percent next fiscal year. Up to 18 million of the country’s 74 million jobs could be lost, according to the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, an independent research firm set up by the government.
More immediately, Pakistan’s struggling health care sector is in deep crisis.
Only a third of Karachi’s 600 beds in intensive care wards are available to treat coronavirus patients in the city’s private and public hospitals, for a population of about 20 million, according to local health officials. According to the W.H.O., only 751 ventilators are dedicated to the pandemic in Pakistan, the world’s fifth most populous country, with some 200 million people.
Health care workers admit privately that they are referring patients like Mr. Hussain’s brother to other hospitals they know are at or over capacity because they fear being attacked by desperate families. Medical workers across Pakistan are being assaulted on a near-daily basis for not being able to admit patients or having to tell families that their loved ones had died.
“Our hospitals are completely exhausted,” said one doctor, who asked for his name to be withheld because he is a government employee.
Late last month, a family attacked the staff of one Karachi hospital with knives and iron rods after doctors declared their relative dead, rampaging through the emergency ward. On May 14, the emergency department of another major government hospital in Karachi was ransacked after health care workers refused to give over the body of their loved one, warning the family could contract the virus by handling the remains without using any precautions.
Sameer Mandhro @smendhro This is Karachi Civil Hospital. Doctors say over 70 persons attacked it's ER tonight at around 11am. Docs & staff remained unhurt. They say the attackers had iron rods, knives. "KOI CORONA NAHEN HAI. YE SAB DOCTORS KA DRAMA HAI," they shouted.
Sameer Mandhro @smendhro This is Karachi Civil Hospital. Doctors say over 70 persons attacked it's ER tonight at around 11am. Docs & staff remained unhurt. They say the attackers had iron rods, knives. "KOI CORONA NAHEN HAI. YE SAB DOCTORS KA DRAMA HAI," they shouted.
After several similar episodes, employees say that many hospitals are now handing over the bodies of coronavirus victims to their families anyway, worried more about the violent backlash than the pandemic’s spread.
The anger reflects the grief and panic that is setting in across the country, and also an erosion of trust between the state and its citizens.
Prime Minister Imran Khan and other officials have frequently dismissed the virus as a common flu, then rushed to urge people to stay home before dismissing the severity of the pandemic again. Unfounded rumors have spread on social media that the government is inflating coronavirus numbers to milk the international community for more aid money, secretly leaving patients to die of other causes.
The already low morale among health care workers has plummeted further since the lockdown was lifted. In March, doctors and nurses threatened to walk off the job and some called in sick, refusing to work if the government did not provide them with personal protective equipment. Some had to spend up to half of their salaries to buy their own masks, prices skyrocketing as panicked citizens hoarded supplies.
So far, at least 35 health care workers have died of the pandemic, the Pakistan Medical Association said in a statement Thursday. At least 3,600 health care workers are infected with the virus, according to official figures.The government “did not listen to what doctors were saying. Now the result of this negligence is obvious,” the Pakistan Medical Association said in its statement.
In Punjab, the country’s most populous province, a doctors’ association claimed earlier this month that 40 percent of the province’s medical staff had tested positive for coronavirus.
“While the pandemic stares us all in the face, the morale of health care providers has hit rock bottom,” said Dr. Salman Haseeb Chaudhry, who represents the Young Doctors Association, at a news conference this month.
At a protest among health care workers on Tuesday, Shafiq Awan, the leader of a paramedic association in Karachi, said the government was not heeding their advice.
“We need protective gear, not salutes and praises. If we start dying or are unable to work, who will treat patients?” Mr. Awan asked.
Under withering criticism, Prime Minister Khan hit back on Thursday, saying that his government had responded adequately to the pandemic.
Mr. Khan was at first reluctant to impose a lockdown, stating in early March that the country’s economy could not weather the fallout. By the end of that month, the country’s powerful military sidelined Mr. Khan to shut down the country.
Both the government and military came under immense pressure from Pakistan’s powerful Islamists to loosen the lockdown during Ramadan, the holy month of fasting that started in April and ended last month. After just a few weeks, the lockdown was lifted.
“We are a low middle-income country, with two-thirds of the population dependent on daily incomes,” Dr. Zafar Mirza, the de facto health minister, said Wednesday.
“We have to make tough policy choices to strike a balance between lives and livelihoods.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/world/asia/pakistan-coronavirus-hospitals.html
Do we need Covid lockdowns for a second wave? Pakistan may offer some lessons
By CLARA FERREIRA MARQUES
With coronavirus infections surging as economies reopen, officials will need to consider unorthodox alternatives.
Mexico, India and Pakistan are among the countries that have hit record numbers of new coronavirus cases in recent days, as drastic regulations that kept streets empty and people apart are lifted. It’s a similar story in U.S. states like Texas, Florida and California. In Beijing, a cluster of cases linked to a wholesale market has caused alarm over the weekend.
https://theprint.in/opinion/do-we-need-covid-lockdowns-for-a-second-wave-pakistan-may-offer-some-lessons/441808/
With coronavirus infections surging as economies reopen, officials will need to consider unorthodox alternatives.
Mexico, India and Pakistan are among the countries that have hit record numbers of new coronavirus cases in recent days, as drastic regulations that kept streets empty and people apart are lifted. It’s a similar story in U.S. states like Texas, Florida and California. In Beijing, a cluster of cases linked to a wholesale market has caused alarm over the weekend.
Should that mean a return to lockdowns? U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says no. Reality will be less categorical.
Take Pakistan. Official numbers have soared so dramatically that now roughly one in five of those tested are infected, a worrying indication of both spread and inadequate testing volumes. An already-fragile health system is overwhelmed and running out of beds. The country is now registering well over 6,000 new cases a day, compared with less than 1,000 before restrictions began to ease in May. It’s moving so fast, in fact, that the World Health Organization took the usual step of recommending officials reimpose shelter-in-place orders. Mindful of the financial realities of a crumbling economy, though, the global body suggests restrictions be applied two-weeks-on, two-weeks-off.
It’s an unorthodox compromise. It’s also just the sort of option many more countries will have to consider as they try to contain fresh waves of infection and keep fraying economies ticking over, with a vaccine not yet on the horizon.
A handful of European countries do appear to be returning to a semblance of normality relatively smoothly. For much of the world, though, it was never going to be a clean switch from lockdown back to pre-pandemic life. That doesn’t mean that we can dismiss offhand the option of fresh restrictions if cases surge and hospital admissions need to be kept down, no matter what Mnuchin says. Officials in the Houston area, for example, said last week they would consider reimposing stay-at-home orders to deal with a situation described as “out of hand.”
Each time they’re imposed, strict, all-out lockdowns become more difficult, especially in emerging markets already badly damaged. Capital Economics estimates that real gross domestic product in South Asia, for example, will be as much as 9% smaller by the end of 2022, compared with virus-free estimates.
But can flexible alternatives, of the sort the WHO proposes, work in practice?
Consider again Pakistan, which has yet to act on the UN body’s advice. There, the obstacles to making even a blunt on-off lockdown work are both clear and instructive — extreme versions of what other governments will need to tackle as they consider more pliable approaches second time around.
First, Islamabad has insufficient testing, detecting and contact tracing, meaning it isn’t gathering the data needed to make adequate policy choices and keep clusters under control. Just as serious is public distrust in government and official warnings, compounded by a lack of cooperation from religious authorities. As with misinformation around polio, the consequences are dire.
To get the best economic and social outcome requires trust, clarity and plentiful data. Absent these, the government’s proposed alternative to lockdown — “smart” selective tactics, shuttering hotspots — are even more unrealistic than the WHO’s proposal. And of course, neither the lack of testing nor distrust of authority are currently unique to Pakistan.
None of this means that adapted lockdowns, as the WHO describes, aren’t a credible suppression option.
Bhramar Mukherjee at the University of Michigan, who has been modeling the outbreak in India, points out that flexible, second-wave lockdowns aren’t just necessary but may be desirable, in an environment where it’s simply impossible to wait for zero cases before reopening, much less to reach Iceland’s testing levels. That’s especially true if, as with India, the initial restrictions were early and draconian.
Mukherjee, who has also worked on the dramatic state-level differences in India, suggests a potentially more workable alternative to the WHO’s cycle. She points to Punjab, a relative success story among provinces, which has imposed weekend lockdowns — easier to apply and run over a long period, and with less economic impact. Places like Mumbai, which now has more cases than Wuhan at its peak, and Delhi, where the health system is under severe pressure, may need to follow suit.
Lockdowns are no panacea, especially when governments fail to utilize the time to prepare, or return to normal too swiftly. They are also not the only way to control the virus: Simple remedies like promoting cleanliness and restricting large gatherings can help, as in Mumbai’s sprawling Dharavi slum. Lockdowns are also, in their more malleable version, one of few tools in the global kit to tackle a pandemic that may yet drag on for months.
Unfortunately, best execution requires data and trust. That means the states that need it most, like Pakistan, are those least able to deliver. –Bloomberg.
https://theprint.in/opinion/do-we-need-covid-lockdowns-for-a-second-wave-pakistan-may-offer-some-lessons/441808/