Posted on 10/01/2003 9:07:26 AM PDT by yonif
Islamabad, Oct 1 (DPA) The United States has approved a total of 388 million dollars assistance for Pakistan in the financial year which started today, a senior USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) official announced in Islamabad.
Mark Ward, country director USAID, said around 213 million dollars would finance social sector development in the Moslem country which is helping the U.S. war on terrorism and may contribute peacekeeping troops for Iraq.
Another 75 million dollars would be in military assistance and 25 million dollars to combat narcotics. USAID sources indicated the entire aid amount would be a grant.
President George W. Bush has also promised a three billion-dollar aid package, divided equally between economic and military assistance, to the country over five years, beginning 2005.
Pakistan has requested that the economic part of the package be used to write off the nearly two billion dollar debt it owes to the U.S.
Washington made it clear that Pakistan will have to deliver on its commitments for the U.S. Congress to approve the yearly disbursement of 600 million dollars of the package.
USAID had closed its operations in Pakistan in 1995 under the sanctions imposed by the Congress to oppose the country's nuclear programme. It reopened in July 2002 after Pakistan joined the U.S. war on terrorism in Afghanistan, reversing its pro-Taliban policy.
Time will tell whether propping up yet another military dictator is a good idea.
I have a feeling it will come back to bite us just like Saddam, Bin Laden, Arafat, Iran-Contra, Noriega, what's-his-name in Haiti, etc, etc.
The known factors here are- Musharraf, who is not a raving fundamentalist is in control of most of Pakistan. He has nukes. Also in Pakistan and in an area that Musharraf does not control are the Taliban, al Qaeda (and bin Laden presumedly) and a population that is largely sympathetic to both and hostile towards Musharraf. The Taliban would like to gain power in Pakistan. Al Qaeda would like to get the nukes. Standing in their way is Musharraf.
These are the known factors. It's what we have to work with now. Maybe in 20 years it'll look different- but now it's the hand we've been dealt and that we're having to play.
At any rate, why is it silly?
I'm assuming you've read my posts to this point. I said exactly the same thing earlier. We are in total agreement here. There are three options. One is propping up the dictator (temporarily). The two other options (aside from ignoring the problem) are invading and nuking. I addressed these earlier. If we're ready to nuke 'em- hey, why not? It's just that it seems to me this comes with too many problems and I would imagine the gov't in Washington sees it the same way. This means we will have to follow the other option- invasion and restructuring. But we are not capable of this at the moment. It isn't for lack of wanting to- we just don't have the available force.
Which brings us right back to what we're doing. Until we get the force to solve the problem right- we continue supporting a status quo that we are more comfortable with.
Your post is actually making the exact same points I have made. We can't prop him up forever and I have never said I wanted to or that we would. I simply said it is buying us time until we can do what needs to be done.
Another point people seem to ignore about containing Saddam from 1991 to present is that it saved thousands and thousands of lives on our side and on theirs. In that twelve years we developed the ability to simply walk right into his country and take it from him. We did not possess that ability to the same level in 1991. It would've been a lot bloodier and a lot uglier and we would've been a lot less able to deal with the consequences.
I don't know if you've ever heard about this one but a while back some researchers addressed the problem of research projects that required large amounts of computer time- years of computer time. They came to the conclusion that- taking Moore's law into account (computer speed increasing exponentially with time)- if your project was going to take longer than say, three years, you'd be better off taking the funding grant, using a lot of the money to go on vacation for a year on the beach and then simply buy cheaper faster computers in 18 months that would accomplish the same project faster- and still make your deadlines...
One example to note as a demonstration- the Human Genome Project. They worked on decoding DNA for what- a decade? Along came Celeron and did the same work in a couple of years with faster equipment. This is a great demonstration of this phenomenom. And the interim years between Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom is another. All the pundits and analysts were basing their knowledge of the US Military on Desert Storm when we had made gigantic strides in a decade. People could not get their minds around what we did in Iraq- they still can't.
The point here? We are forced into a situation where we have to sort of prop up Musharraf because our only other realistic option at the moment is to nuke the place. While we're waiting for the equation's factors to change on our end, much will change in our ability to act. We will be even more able to deal with this problem next year than we are presently able to. If this situation goes on another five years our ability to affect the outcome in Pakistan will be increased even more so. If we can't accomplish our goal today- which we can't- there are some very real benefits to patiently biding our time.
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