They just keep asking for more taxpayer handouts .... and our government keeps obliging.
This was vehemently denied by the Pakistanis much to Rumsfeld's embarrasment during his visit. I have a feeeling something is going to blow over soon!
we must continue giving them billions in money because of promises made to get them to help us win the recent war. that is true. but we should not think of them as real friends. No nation on earth has a higher percentage of their population that approves of the 911 bombers than pakistan. Their governments for years have been close to the US because they are desperately poor and need our dollars they get through IMF/WorldBank, charity, aid, etc. We've always remained close to them because their intelligence service cooperates with CIA, etc.
Regardless of our 'friendship' with pakistan, we should back India in this conflict. For thousands of years before the partition kashmir was part of india. At the time of the partition Kashmir was more than 50% hindu. While it is true that the muslim population has increased faster than the hindu, it is also true that the hindus have literally been chased out through violence. Also, a fair portion of the muslim population does not want to become a part of pakistan. The pakis have literally warred on muslim rivals that are native to kashmir. The means of this war being waged by pakistan has not been conventional. The paki army has never been able to stand up to India's army. The means by which they fight this war is to kill policemen, soldiers and civilians in surprise attacks right in kashmir. They basically assasinate the indians 1 by 1. It is a type of ethnic cleansing. A policeman or a solider is killed in his off-time right in India by some guy you just didn't know wasn't local. In 1 attack about 4 years ago they went to a wedding party, they had all the men line up and shot them all. Then they went home with their ak-47's in-hand in case the police or soldiers accosted them. Foreigners have come into kashmir with such weapons and wantonly killed hindus in this manner for 15 years now. We wouldn't tolerate what the serbs did in former yugo, we shouldn't tolerate the paki militants in kashmir.
And what is the political debate that the war is based on about exactly? I'll tell you. Pakistan says that their negotiators thought that in the agreement during the 'partition' 50 years ago that they would get kashmir. But india thought that in the same agreement they were retaining kashmir as they had prior to the partition and even for centuries before that. But pakistan accepted the partition with india in control of kashmir, the evidence is that from day 1 after the partition india controlled kashmir. Any talk of mis-understanding 50 years later is not to be accepted and certainly isn't to be decided by terrorist type violence. There were over a half million people killed in the violence leading up to the partition, don't open that fight again.
So, the US should investigate the possibility of helping India somehow. India should win this conflict and the world should know that the US took India's side.
At the same time we should try to find ways to help pakistan change out of the unfortunate politics they've fallen victim to. The ordinary citizens in pakistan are impoverished and victimized by home-grown tyrannies.
Question: Would god punish a nation that was born because its' citizens created violence of the nature they had in india in 1948?