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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Aug-2015
27-Aug-15 World View -- Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias

Web Log - August, 2015

27-Aug-15 World View -- Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias

Wall Street on Wednesday goes from boom to super-boom in final hour

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias
Generational history of Karachi Pakistan since World War II
Wall Street on Wednesday goes from boom to super-boom in final hour

Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias

Pakistan army soldiers

Pakistan army soldiers

Karachi, the huge port city in Pakistan's south, remains one of the most dangerous cities in the world, almost ungovernable, with an average of 2.7 murders reported per day in 2015, according to data compiled by the UK-based Institute for Conflict Management(ICM).

However, as bad as those figures are, they're a very big improvement of 2014, when there were 5.7 murders per day in the same period.

Pakistan's army is taking credit for the dramatic reduction in violent crime from the "evil nexus" between terrorism, perpetrated by Taliban-linked jihadists, and criminal mafias, represented in the major political parties, particularly the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) political party.

Pakistan's army launched the "Karachi Operation" in September 2013, at a time when the death toll from murders was mounting.

Although MQM leaders initially supported the operation, they now claim that the Pakistan Rangers have singled them out, and that 4,000 of their supporters have been arrested over the past two years, with some saying they were tortured for crimes they did not commit. However, the army points to hundreds of arrests this year alone of suspects allegedly associated with al-Qaeda, Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). The Rangers “are arresting criminals across the board,” according to retired brigadier supporting the operation.

On August 10, the Pakistan Rangers announced that the first stage of the operation has been completed, and that the second stage will begin:

"[We] are well prepared to start Stage 2 from Aug 14th 2015 till the time it is successfully completed. Stage 2 will be more severe than Stage 1 as the main task is to hunt down Land Grabbers, Target Killers, Extortionists, Kidnappers, Terrorists to Justice. Pak Rangers Sindh is committed not to spare any criminal. If you have information or if you are a victim yourself than please do not hesitate to contact Pakistan Rangers Sindh through email or telephone numbers. Do not worry even if the criminals are very powerful because Pakistan Rangers Sindh are more powerful by the will of Allah. Credentials of the complainant will be kept highly confidential."

The News (Pakistan) and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) and Washington Post (27-July)

Generational history of Karachi Pakistan since World War II

One of the worst wars of the 20th century was the bloody genocidal war between Hindus and Muslims that followed Partition, the 1947 partitioning of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan. The scale of civilian displacement from their homes was so massive that it was called by some an "exodus of biblical proportions."

The Partition war occurred when the new boundaries between India and Pakistan were put into place. The politicians, including India's Mahatma Gandhi and Pakistan's Muhammad Ali Jinnah is the founder of Pakistan, had thought that the remaining Muslims living in India and the remaining Hindus living in Pakistan could all live in peace with their neighbors. Instead, there was a forced migration of 14 million people and the killing of a million more, making it one of the largest mass migrations in history.

That war occurred mostly in along the northern border between India and Pakistan, mainly in Punjab province, with the fiercest fighting between Muslim Punjabis and Hindu Punjabis. The Kashmir and Jammu regions are still a source of continuing conflict between the two countries.

But after the Partition war, millions more Urdu-speaking Muslims living in India migrated to Pakistan, where they became known as Mohajirs ("migrants") and formed the the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM - Migrant National Movement) political party. This party changed its name to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (United National Movement) in the 1990s, but its members are still referred to as Mohajirs.

The Mohajirs settled mainly in Karachi, which became a business-oriented city, a cosmopolitan home to many ethnic groups.

The first major fault line emerged after the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Karachi became one of the biggest refugee camps for Afghans fleeing the war, mostly Pashtuns. This provided a big boost for religious organizations and in 1983 the first large-scale Shia-Sunni riots broke out. This also occurred near the end of a generational Awakening era, a typical time for this kind of riot to occur, but then to fizzle quickly.

After 9/11, a new fault line grew between the Pashtuns and Taliban-linked jihadist organizations versus the MQM and Shia groups. This resulted in increased sectarian violence throughout the 2000s decade.

Then in 2010, a major disaster happened to Pakistan and to Karachi. ( "5-Aug-10 News -- Multiple crises overwhelm Pakistan")

Almost the entire Indus River valley was flooded in 2010 (BBC)

Almost the entire Indus River valley was flooded in 2010 (BBC)

It's hard to overstate the catastrophic impact of the massive 2010 floods in Pakistan, the worst floods since 1929, since before Pakistan was even a country. The flooding wiped out hundreds of villages from the top of Pakistan to the bottom, along the Indus River. All the major roads and bridges were destroyed and so were the police stations, administration buildings, and telephone exchanges. Thousands of houses were razed to the ground by the storm and at least one million people became homeless.

This created a huge new crisis for Karachi, as massive numbers of refugees flooded into the city.

After that, the city became almost completely lawless. There were jihadist groups. There were ethnic, sectarian, and anti-state militants -- generally two young men on a motorcycle engaging in daily targeted killings of their rivals and enemies. There were extortionists, real estate mafias, terrorist networks and kidnappers. And there was violence between MQM and the city's other political parties, as they fought for governmental control.

For many residents of Karachi, the arrival of the Pakistan Rangers and the "Karachi Operation" in September 2013 has been welcome, because of the reduction in crime. But no one believes that the violence is over. Pakistan is in a generational Crisis era, meaning that fault lines are likely to be inflamed into further violence. With the Pakistan Rangers having made so many enemies, a backlash may bring back the violence worse than ever. Center for the National Interest (Washington)

Wall Street on Wednesday goes from boom to super-boom in final hour

Wednesday on Wall Street was sort of the opposite of Tuesday.

As of 3 pm on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) had had gained about 400 points. Then, as I wrote yesterday, Wall Street went from boom to bust in the final hour with a wild 600 point downward swing, resulting in a loss for the day of 205 points.

But not on Wednesday. At 3 pm, the DJIA was up about 400 points, but in the last hour of trading it started going up by a point every few seconds, ending up 620 points for the day, for a kind of "super-boom."

Wednesday was the kind of day that I was expecting and wrote about two days ago ( "25-Aug-15 World View -- What to expect after Monday's global stock selloff"). The expectation is of wild swings upward and downward, and Wednesday was a wild swing upward.

The USA Today headline reads, "Dow roars back, rallies 620 points, in sign of market stabilization." It's a sign of the foolishness of the mainstream media that these wild swings could be interpreted as "market stabilization."

There are two scenarios. One scenario is that these swings really do stabilize in the next few days and weeks, and that the DJIA goes up or down no more than 50-100 points in a single day.

The other scenario is that these wild swings increase in amplitude, triggered by events such as the continuing crash in China's stock market. In that scenario, a Wall Street panic and financial crisis is increasingly likely. As I've repeatedly pointed out, the S&P 500 Price/Earnings ratio index (stock valuation index) is over 21, far higher than the historic average of about 14. And by the Law of Mean Reversion, it will return to the 5-6 level, which it did several times in the last century. When it does, the DJIA will fall well below 3000. USA Today

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Aug-15 World View -- Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (27-Aug-2015) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Aug-2015 27-Aug-15 World View -- Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias

Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias

Generational history of Karachi Pakistan since World War II

Wall Street on Wednesday goes from boom to super-boom in final hour

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Aug-2015
27-Aug-15 World View -- Pakistan's army continues 'Karachi operation' to eliminate terrorists and criminal mafias