Oh, yea, the Taliban Underwater Legion, Lol!
Posted on 11/20/2007 10:53:16 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Pak spent bulk of US aid on arming against India
Agencies
Silicon Valley, November 21: Pakistan has used a significant portion of the US aid since September 11 attack to arm itself for a confrontation with India instead of conducting war on terrorism, according to a strategic think tank.
Most of the USD 10 billion US aid is supposed to compensate the Pakistani government for sending its 80,000 or so soldiers to the Northwest Frontier Province and providing support to the US war in Afghanistan.
However the money has been used for procuring high-tech weaponry to arm the military for its confrontation with India, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has said.
"We found that that the Pakistani military has been using that money and the majority of our direct military assistance for the purchase of high-tech weaponry such as the F-16 fighters," senior adviser in the CSIS Frederick (Rick) Barton said.
"It appears that the Pakistan military is continuing to arm more for its confrontation with India than it is for the war on terror because these weapons really don't have that much application for the kinds of low-grade persistent Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda fighters that you find in the Northwest part of Pakistan," Barton told the National Public Radio.
Urging Washington to make a more strategic use of the money it gives Pakistan, Barton said "If we had wise approach to war on terror, we would have found ways to align ourselves more with the Pakistan people. Because the only way you can deal this kind of insurgency is to have the people on your side and to not have the people harboring the insurgents."
One of the key points that the CSIS study pointed out was that the US needs to re-establish a whole new kind of relationship with Pakistan, Barton said in an interview with the public radio.
In 1990s, the US stayed away from Pakistan for 10 years, following Pakistan's nuclear weapons development.
He said Pakistan deserved a great deal of attention which the US has never done.
"We constantly flush them with money, then head for exits and none of those approaches really work."
He said only 10 per cent of the aid had gone to education and humanitarian causes and the majority of that went in response to the earthquake where tens and thousands of people were killed.
The US gave direct humanitarian assistance and military assistance and as a result the US public support in Pakistan went up from about 25 per cent to well over 50 per cent.
"None of these polls mean that much, but part of what we want to do as a country is to make it clear that we are on the side of the people, not just the powerful," said Barton.
He said America's second-largest area of humanitarian expense was in education, but there again the US is trying to do a million different things rather than focusing on particular areas where it might have higher impact.
Barton said during their work they found that what the Pakistani education system really needed was bucking up on the teacher workforce. The reason a lot of people send their
children in Pakistan to madrasas is that the local public schools don't exist or if they do, teachers don't show up because they don't get paid.
"If we can get the teacher force working in a constructive way in that country, you will probably be able to reach the 50 per cent of the population that is under 20."
Barton said that the US could not walk away from Pakistan as it had tried that before and the conditions did not get better. However, the US did need to be smarter in dealing with Pakistan.
"We should look to the provinces. There are four provinces that are not particularly happy with the central government model. We should not be working through Islamabad all the time.
"I think we can a constructive influence on this country and help them through a vital transition. If this transition does not go well, we have huge problems in the most populated part of the world and that isn't a good situation when three of the eight nuclear powers are also right there."
yitbos
“Troops” could be a misnomer. Hasn’t Pakistan fielded these “troops” along the Waziristan border, armed to the teeth with Enfield bolt-action rifles?
The same “troops” were also kidnapped by the rag-tag Taliban, a whole 300 of them, recently, IIRC.
$10B for that?
OK. Taliban originate in Pak. $10B to help Mushariff keep Jihadists from getting the PakNukes.
yitbos
And why do you think Americans care ?
Hell, even if Pak nukes India and causes a million dead people, US will still keep funding and arming their dictators.
Their interest lies in stopping India from attacking Pak that could jeopardize their search for “terrorists”. They are trying so hard to push for military parity. They will all do the same thing because they neither understand nor care about S. Asia.
On the other hand, US would definitely be angered if India sold any arms or helped out IRAN with her nuke development phase... ohh the irony !
/sarc. off
Now letting your ground boys play around with 50 year old rifles is a small price to pay to have your submarines modified with new satellite guided missiles.Even those are for fighting terror according to some folks.
Oh, yea, the Taliban Underwater Legion, Lol!
And to think that people bash the c—p out of Ron Paul for arguing against foreign aid and interventionism!
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
Are you unaware of the transit rights into Afghanistan we have with Pakistan? Do you think we should not have taken out the Al-Q sanctuaries in Afghanistan post-9/11? If not, how do you propose we could have done this, without Pakistan granting those transit rights? Do you think those rights came without a price tag?
All this is because we have not been tough with them on negotiations. We are like too eager to have an “alliance. And honestly this isnt the alliance we would want. India is/will be the country most affected by the actions of US and Pak and we have absolutely no say whatsoever. US-Pak run the show to their advantage and India’s security concerns take a back seat. We only get to take the hits.
Yet the Taliban and AQ escaped into Pakistan, and aOBL is currently there per all available intelligence. Guess we are not the only people who got transit rights.
Do you think we should not have taken out the Al-Q sanctuaries in Afghanistan post-9/11?
Weak disconnected argument. But two can play that game ....do you think we should be aiding a regime that is the number one fount for nuclear material disemination in the world, the number one source of Islamic radicalism in the world, and a state-sponsor of terrorism?
If not, how do you propose we could have done this, without Pakistan granting those transit rights?
The Pakistani way was the easiest. But it was not the only one.
Do you think those rights came without a price tag?
Well, it was quite the hefty price tag. And i mean in more ways than just money. And some day it will come back to bite us, hard. If a nuke ever goes off in the US, it will have Pakistani finger-prints over it in some way (not launched from Pakistan or anything overt like that, but will be connected to Pakistan). But hey, we got 'transit rights' to Afghanistan.
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