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Show The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Sunday August 30, 1998 Some Summit: Reckless Anti-Terrorist Clinton to Meet Wildly Erratic Yeltsin Maybe at some point downthe road, we allwill be better offif we let computers make key decisions for us. After all, those smart machinesalreadyhave beaten the humans in chess and bridge. They might commit minor bloopers sometimes (due to the errors the humans make while putting them together) but, unless they are badly broken, they simply are not capable of really stupid mistakes, and they don’t get angryor moody Until then, though, we are stuck with being in charge. Here are some recent results of that For months, if not years, the entire country has been concentrated onits freely elected leader's private affairs, which have nothing to do with the nation’s eco- nouie shape — that happens to be quite 0 Thatleader’s obvious skills, intellect and even fairly recent personal experience should havetold him thatin today’s America there is no way he could get awaywith what someof his predecessors in the White House did. Yet quite arro- gantly he refuses to see about a thousand warning signs and falls right into the pit Therealso is that matter of the special prosecutor and his $40 million. No mat- tainly went against every pos: national law RUSSIAN VIEW supporters say, it is quite likely Ken Starr is a highly qualified, hard-working lawyer and a decentperson whois doing his job the best he can. His only trouble. though, is that his job has been designed solely to find “something, anything” on the sitting president, not exactly the most popular idea among People who enjeythe best economyin y Actually, by the multibillion. dollar federal government’s standards, $40 million is not a whole lot. Incidentally poverishedconstituents the nation’s currency on a and announcing the devalua- roof, you probably would think fore throwing a stone acrossth hird on Monday t the same leader sudden govel an attempt to hit that nest Whatever we may think of Afghanistan's domesticpo ‘onary leadership to re- ation — only to Theydidn’t enjoy deadly American cruise-missile attack on alleged terrorist operations in Sudan and Afghanistan must have been higher, with a $1 million price tag on each of those Tomahawks, including the one that flewto Pakistan about the “Wag the Dog” effect — the possible connection between Clinton's domestic troubles and his declared “war on terrorism.” bymistake. Well, big news — there certainly was a connection, and Clinton's advisers must The popular argumenthere, of course, has been that the attack wasa totally justified, measured responseto the horrific. deadly U.S. embassy bombings in east have considered the upcoming military strikes before the president wentbefore the grand jury and then admitted his “inappropriate behavior” on national tele- Africa. That could be true — butis the coun- vision. But no spin doctor had to invent try prepared to face the consequences? Osamabin Laden, because he wasa real Trouble is, most people here don’t seemto realize that, with those missile strikes, the United States has found it- threat before the Monica Lewinsky vaudeville and during it, and he remains a threat now, probably even moreso af- self in an extremelyshady, lawless area. ter the recent U.S. actions — whichcer- Instead. they mostly seem concerned g leaders” ernments and embassies on Wyoming and Ma hussets avenues in Was ton, D.C. their heads a bit gan’s air strikes “stones” fly above Even President R inst Libya in 1 were not as hairy leader. Muammar Gadhafi lished adversary was an estab- Besides, the bin Ladens of the world don’t mind shady hey thrive there. America, with its age-old respect for the rule of law. do In fae mayhave cornereditself in an awkward almost impossible position. thing certain in ent in March. e loud talk of the need for new sovereign countries, with MICHAEL NAKORYAKOV the bill for a fewhours of this month’s ter what President Clinton's mostloyal y wagging his finger and e inter. If you get stung by a beethat happens to live in a nest under your ni in Howabout a leaderof a huge, nuclear- Sa} gery, when he drank more n and Clinton meet Tues- day in Moscow for a U.S.-Russian summit. that may be quit: Ona second thought. forget the puters. The still-unsolved year problem shows that we probably ca rely on them, either. How couldwe. really, if most of se electronic super- brains are goingtofail a simple task of 2000from year 1900” not, lookslike us nuns situation like this is around andthink again 2onths even things seemed better before Boris Ye The only that the timehas cometo brace ourselves for more surprises. But if you think all this looks bad, look ffive Moscow Mic The ! 1992 wryakoe is an editor s World News Desk t Vuss As Bhutto Family Goes, So Goes Pakistan — And They’re Both in Big Trouble BYGWYNNEDYER LONDON — screenplay “If you know a good writer, I'd love to meet them,” said Pakistan's former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, recently, as she pondered the swingsof fortune that haveall but destroyed the first familyof the world’s secondbiggest Muslimstate. But it’s not clear whetherthe film would be a tragedyor a farce As a young woman, Benazir saw her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, elected prime minister, and then hanged by the military regime that overthrew him. She herself has been twice elected prime minister, and twice judicially removed Both herbrothers havedied violentlyin mysterious circumstances. Now both she and her husbandface corruption charges that could put them in prison for seven years It is a sad final act for a family that once embodied popular hopes that Pakistan could change from a corrupt feudal state, where only the soldiers and the rich have a voice, into a prosperous, modern, democratic country. And as the familyfaces ruin, so too does the country itself. Bhutto is deeply unhappyabout it “In some ways we resemble the Soviet Union inits final years, where a military Although the fairy godmother has superpower, with all its airplanes and missiles and bombs, was collapsing becauseit could not sustain that empire.” she said two weeks ago. “Our economy andour social basis can no longer sustain our desire to have an ambitious agenda.” turned up repeatedly in the past — in the Butthe analogywith the Soviet Union goes furtherthanthat, for like Pakistan, it was made up of different provinces (“republics”) speaking different lan- guages. When the moneyfinally ran out, it broke up into its component parts — andin Pakistan, the moneyhas definitely runout Only three months after Pakistanrejoiced as Islamabad answered India’s Monetary Fund or injections of cash by oil-rich Gulf states — it looks like this time she isn’t coming. The steep fall in oil prices has left the Gulf with no money to spare, and the IMFis barred from handing over any ruption and financial incompetence in the past 10years. In this political atmos: more moneyto Pakistan because of the electricity US. Politics in Pakistan is chronically unstable because thepoliticians are mostly drawn from the wealthy feudal families sanctions imposed after the coun‘Indeed, it’s hardto resist the specula- tion that oneofIndia’s secret motives for conducting its nuclear tests, knowing that Pakistan’s government would face irresistible political pressure to reply in kind, was preciselyto drive Pakistan into bankruptcy. Both nations would obviously face economic sanctions afterwards, but India’s economy, richer andfar bigger, could ride them out, whereas deeply the Pakistani rupee has fallen 15 percent against the dollar. There are fears that the country will soon default on its $30 billion foreign debt: $600 million is due to be repaid in September, and Pakistan has only $500 million left in its foreign reserves. Its credit rating has been down- indebted Pakistan's could not If Pakistan's economy does crash, it will have less impact on the global economy than Indonesia’s collapse last year, for Pakistanis a far poorer country. But the political turmoil that follows may be hair-raising stuff, for this is a country with a few dozen highly vulnerable nuclear weapons — and almost daily fighting along its disputed border w ith India graded to “B3,” makingit (with Indonesia) the lowest-rated country governments have been removedfor cor try’s Maynucleartests. five nucleartests with six of their own, in the world. “The feelingis that this is a moment of silence before the execution,” said a stockbroker in Karachi, the country’s biggest city. “Unless a fairy godmother turns up, we simply do not have the moneyto pay our debts.” Even in the best oftimes Pakistan highly unstable politics: Three elected form of loans from the International in Kashmir. phere, littleattention gets paid to devel opment — so only 34 percent of Paki stan’s 140 million people can read and write, and fewer than half even have Theyhavelittle by way of political prinand programs; their main agenda is safeguarding their wealth. and even adding to it while they are in power. So polities is monumentally corrupt, and only about 1 percent of the population pays taxes. A disheartening example of this is Benazir Bhutto herself, once seen as the woman who could break that cycle. The Thereis a popular theory that therich make more honest politicians because they don't need to steal. but it rarely works in practice. because rich people have trouble grasping the concept of enough Benazir Bhutto and her husband. Asif Ali Zardari (known Mr. Ten Per t whenhe was investment minister in her government), claim all the charg of corruption against them arepolitically motivated, but the evidenceis piling up The Swiss authorities, who had al ready frozen $13.8 million in the cou: ple’s secret bank accounts there and askedPal an to bring money-launder: ing charges against Benazir's husband formally asked Islamabad to bring the samechargesagainst Benazir herself on Aug. 19. Estimates of the amount by which her wealth grew during her time in office range from $300 million to $1 Bhutto family’s feudal estates in Sindh are so large that she doesn’t even know how many peasants work on them — yet she paid only 14,000 rupees (about $350) in income tax last year. She also failed to declare any foreign assets, though it now appears that she and her husbandhave up to 36 bank ac- counts in Switzerland, Britain, France and the United States. billion For over 30 years, the fate of the Bhutto family and the Pakistani state have beenintimatelyintertwined. Now the family is going under, undoneby its own corruption — andthe state will be lucky if it does not meet the samefatefor the same reason. GwynneDyer is a London-basedinde. pendent journalist and historian cs 79 Kids’ ackage A series of communications with the customers of U S WEST Staying Connected justin time for Long for the good old days, when neighbors knew each other and went out of their BACK TO way to lend a helping hand? Every fall, kids need new shoes, We believe those days are still here. That's why we work hard at being neighbor in the communities we serve, books and pencils. And since your child's visionis so very important, send him or her back with quality eyewear, too! Our $79 Kids’ Package includes: CHOOL! a good A recent Chronicle of Philanthropy survey ranked U S WEST among the nation’s And, last year the companyincreased its gi\ leading corporate contributors. e dollars are hard at work, bui ing stronger 37.1 percent to $28.7 million. connections in communities. 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