US grants over 300 million dollars aid to Pakistan

DeepikaGlobal ^ | Wednesday, October 1, 2003 | DPA

[gdani]

Like I said though, if you have a better idea...

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.

[Prodigal Son]

Oh it probably will. But again, not doing so would bite a lot worse. You can only work with the factors that you know. It is impossible to plot all future permutations or to go and check what would've happened if we had not done this or that. What if we could go back and look and see that if we had not propped up Saddam things would've been worse? As Rummy is fond of saying- "The future is not knowable". Of course, one day we'll have the luxury of hindsight and we'll all sit around and wonder why we didn't do this or that. Unfortunately, we must make our decisions in real time with no hindsight luxury to guide us.

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.

[Cronos]

That's a silly comment -- Talibs with nukes. The Talibs were created by the Pack govt, and hte paks already have the islamic bomb.

[Cronos]

You're right, propping up tinpot dictators has really messed us up in the long term. Similarities between Mush and Saddy:
1. Both military dictators.
2. Both with WMD aims,
3. Both regimes in Islamic countries,
4. Both terroristas sponsors.

The difference is that Mush ALREADY has his Islamic bomb and chem and bio warfare (courtesy of his pals the North Koreans he's also got high end missiles (the ones test fired today are of Chinese or NK design, just renamed -- typical slamic 'innovativenes') for which he gave the NKoreans nukes). Also, this regime rules a rabidly slamofascist country which provides a training ground to slamic terrorists that have threatened the US.

[Prodigal Son]

Why is it silly? The thing with the Taliban, they feel betrayed by Musharraf. I think Mushy was happy with them as long as they were in Afghanistan and they were happy with him because he supported that state of affairs. But all that's changed. Musharraf now supports the Great Satan. The fundies in Pakistan are extremely unhappy with this and the Taliban/al Qaeda have found a fertile soil in Pakistan in which to grow. They've tried to kill the man three times now.

At any rate, why is it silly?

[Cronos]

It's silly because, we're propping up a dictator and antagonizing the people. Put in a democratic govt like we're doing in Irq and confiscate their nukes. Yes, I realise that that means war, but what's the other option? We can't prop him up forever, he'll get hit by the fundies and the fundies will over rule the moderates, as happened in Persia/Iran after the overthrowing of the Shah-- who was propped up by us. And when he does get overthrown and the fundies take power, the pakislamic regime will be way worse than the Irani was, AND they'll have nukes.

[Prodigal Son]

Put in a democratic govt like we're doing in Irq and confiscate their nukes. Yes, I realise that that means war, but what's the other option?

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.