US throws good money after bad in Pakistan

From the article:

"The proposed aid package, titled US defence and security assistance to Pakistan, aims at strengthening the country’s counter-terrorism capability. Besides enhancing the army’s counter-terrorism skills, the package will also finance programmes meant for strengthening the law enforcement agencies, such as the Frontier Corps, the Frontier Constabulary and the police."

This $300 million dollar 'aid' package should be going to India, not Pakistan.

Here are two news items of interest:

ISLAMABAD: US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson said on Thursday that the US has given Pakistan $1.2 billion for the war on terror over a year – with a grant of $400 million to Pakistan continuing quarterly – and America has no intention to block the aid. Talking to a private TV channel, Patterson said it was necessary for Pakistan to rid itself of terrorism. She said the terror war did not mean that Pakistan had been declared unsafe. She said that Pak-US strategic relations were progressing in a positive direction, with the new US administration also eager to promote ties.
And there is this from the Times of India:
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is to buy an airborne warning and control system (AWACS) from China to boost its air defences, a Pakistani newspaper reported on Thursday.
The News said a $278 million agreement had been struck for Pakistan to get the Chinese system within four years, on a deferred payment basis. Pakistani defence procurement officials were not immediately available for comment.

The report comes as relations between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India have been severely strained by last month’s militant attacks in Mumbai.

Pakistan would be the first country to buy the Chinese AWACS system which China only started producing in 2004, the News said..
So you can see why it all makes perfect sense, why the Pentagon knows exactly what it is doing and not, as some would unfairly have it, flailing about because it is unable to come to terms with the mendacity of Pakistan, as of all Muslim states, and unable, further, to realize that the ideology of Islam has to be weakened, if not undone entirely, and thtat further transferrals of Western aid to Muslim states strengthen those states, and delay the day when Muslims themselves are forced to recognize that the failures of their own polities and peoples – political, economic, and social – are the result of Islam itself.

No, the Pentagon keeps whistling in the dark, and forking over gigantic sums. Since 9/11/2001, more than $30 billion in economic and military aid (the papers keep parroting the American government’s phrase about “$10 billion in military aid” which misleads, because it ignores the debt cancellation, and the other forms of economic aid that should be added to the total) has gone to mendacious Pakistan. Next to nothing has been bought for this. The Taliban is revived, thanks to aid from the I.S.I. and the sanctuaries that Pakistan provides, and the porous borders that the Pakistani government does nothing to remedy. And Al-Qaeda is safe and sound, mostly – with here and there one or two people taken out, just enough to keep the American aid flowing – in Pakistan, where many of its most devout supporters and admirers – not by the thousands but by the tens of millions – live.

And just look at what the American aid – the aid that you and I pay for, dear reader – now makes possible. Pakistan will be able to buy AWACS from China. And we all know, don’t we, how important AWACS are our “staunch ally” in the “war on terror.” Nothing like a Chinese-built AWACs system for detecting terrorists running around in Waziristan. Why begrudge plucky little Pakistan, trying so hard to do everything right – just look at how it handled the Mumbai matter – needs those AWACS, and those F-16s, and besides, didn’t American aid money pay for the Pakistani nuclear project? And aren’t Pakistan’s nuclear bombs keeping the peace in southwest Asia? And why do you worry that there might be a general or a colonel or a captain or two, in the I.S.I. or elsewhere in the Pakistani military, so fanatically Muslim that he might wish to ensure that one or two of those bombs was transferred to some group or groupuscule, intent on settling scores with the Infidels? Don’t be a worry wart. Everything will work out just fine.

And pay no attention to that well-read cynic who rhetorically asked the obvious question:

Squander, squander, squander, eh, Mr. Gates?

The US government doesn't see this as "throwing good money after bad". The mindset remains that our "allies" need our help.
The Pakistani government is seen as an ally and people in both parties in Washington are sticking to it. Nothing will change as long as our leaders insist on drawing a distinction between the government and the "lawbreakers".
Doesn't Bush want to give nukes to the UAE?
The Saudis are "our friends".
The Egyptians are "our allies".
Someone said that a big mistake was made after 9/11 when we refused help from Iran. Apparently, we should have united to eliminate al Qaeda.
Between "friendly governments" and "peaceful Muslims who need protection from terrorism", this spending will continue until the US government declares bankruptcy.

In the end it is very simple. Either by stupidity or by malice, United States of America supports jihad. We may not support it against ourselves, although considering all the idiotic things we have done since 9-11 even that is debatable, but our government don’t give a dam if a jihadist slaughters Indian Hindus, Serbian Christians or Buddhist in Thailand. Our government does not care, otherwise why keep helping Pakistan? We can complain about what the Chinese do, or Russians do, but until we clean our own house, we have nothing to be proud of.

The American government supports Jihad. We must fix ourselves first…

This is the Robert Gates Foundation for the Relief of Jihadically Challenged Muslim Regimes. These funds are meant to help strengthen the resolve of those ruling Muslims who may be tormented by conflicted feelings toward jihadists, who just can't resolve their neurotic impulses to applaud the killing of Kuffars, but fear that they too may be next. By paying them large sums of US taxpayer dollars we do two very important things: We show them that there are good Infidels out there, and, even more crucially, we allow them to call themselves our allies.
It's a variant of the "give me money or I go Communist" routine.

If they can afford to spend money on a nuke arsenal, they already have too much money.

Not one cent for such tribute.

Hugh - I'm not sure Pakistan necessarily has carte-blanche with the aid package. In many instances (not sure of Pakistan's case in particular), governments may use our aid money to pay for US contracts, with a small amount alloted to domestic contracts. Going out-of-country (other than to the US) is prohibited with these dollars.

This is a result of a flawed thought process in the west. The myths are as follows -

1. "Somehow, an Ataturk can rule Pakistan."
That is impossible. Pakistani nationalism wants to establish a caliphate with Pakistan as a center. Army is the only functioning body there and it simply believes in covert and organized jihad. The only jihadis the army fights are those that challenge its authority. It nurtures the rest of jihadis.
Musharraf was no Ataturk. He was a taqqiya trained juggler. Zardari is no Ataturk. There cannot be an Ataturk with the army being as powerful as it is and Pakistan intact. Anyone with a decent IQ should be able to see that it is impossible.

2. "If something goes wrong in Pakistan, it will be India's problem." That is true for the most part but makes assumptions. It assumes that jihad will only be directed at India and not the west.
Was Khalid Sheikh Muhammad a Pakistani? Ramzi Yousuf? More importantly, it assumes that no matter how many F-16s, missiles and money US gives to Pakistan, India will somehow prevail. What if it doesn't?

3. "Pakistan provides balance in South Asia".

What kind of balance is that? Internal politics of India, US and China are going to be enough balance. Do you need jihadis for that? What Pakistan provides in imbalance in the whole world.

4. "Pakistan is too important to let fail".
Success for Pakistani army is an Islamic caliphate with Pakistan as a center that will be established incrementally.

"I'm not sure Pakistan necessarily has carte-blanche with the aid package. In many instances (not sure of Pakistan's case in particular), governments may use our aid money to pay for US contracts, with a small amount alloted to domestic contracts. Going out-of-country (other than to the US) is prohibited with these dollars."
-- from a posting above

But my point stands. If we continue to give Pakistan billions and billions, that money will be spent on such things as A. Q. Khan's science project, and the military aid given the Taliban by the I.S.I. It hardly matters if the American money comes "with restrictions." Its merely being given frees up other Pakistani money to pay for the Chinese AWACS. I don't separate out the "American aid money" (subject to some -- though hardly enough - restrictions) and "all other moneys." The more Pakistan gets from America, the more it doesn't have to spend from whatever other amounts it possesses.

It's the same argument made, and correctly, to prosecute those who give money to Hamas for its "social services." Any such aid merely frees up other money for the (presumably) non-charitable bombs and rockets that Hamas also has to pay for.

That is why I write, and that is why I maintain, that American taxpayers are paying for those Chinese AWACS, and it is not something I care to pay for. Do you?

'That is why I write, and that is why I maintain, that American taxpayers are paying for those Chinese AWACS, and it is not something I care to pay for. Do you?'

No. Double no.

In other news, 250,000 home morgages were foreclosed last month; Congress is debating on how to stop the bleeding.

A theoretical question or two, especially in light of Hugh's many posts over the years that money extended to Muslim countries is not only wasted but is financial support which comes back to bite us in the butt many times. Imagine a world in which virtually all American largesse to every Muslim nation ceases (with, perhaps, very minor amounts of direct relief for very specific situations excepted). What then? Certainly not only one scenario can be imagined. How many then? Is it possible that, for America, things could even become worse? Is it possible that every option available to America sucks because the Islamic world is so dysfunctional? Just wondering.

Interesting article in the UK's "Spectator" mag titled "The global force behind Mumbai's agony is in our midst"...

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3061986/the-global-force-behind-mumbais-agony-is-in-our-midst.thtml

profitsbeard - your comment is spot on, as usual.

The U.S. should not be giving money away - to anyone.

The Katrina victims are still suffering. Help them first.

The Social Security fund is empty. Fund it first.

The Gold which backed the dollar is gone. Replace it so the dollar has real value.

etc.

That goes for all the other western countries that are desperately importing immigrants to try to save the finacial future, while giving away the funds of the present.

To: jewdog
By giving them large sums of U.S. taxpayers money you are only accomplishing one thing from the Muslim point of view. You are paying the jizya tax that is required from the infidels under the control of the Muslims. The U.S. government has accepted the required humiliation and paid the tax. If you want to win you must cut off all the money bleeding from the west to support the Muslim jihad. This includes ending the war which can never be won. The ships, planes, tanks and humvees all use oil based fuel. Your enemies get rich off the oil and keep on funding jihad.

To: profitsbeard
I don't have proof but I heard that Saudi Arabia paid for the Pakistani nuclear program. Maybe someone can confirm that. It was still your U.S. money stolen from the American public when gasoline went up to $4.00 per gallon.

A theoretical question or two, especially in light of Hugh's many posts over the years that money extended to Muslim countries is not only wasted but is financial support which comes back to bite us in the butt many times. Imagine a world in which virtually all American largesse to every Muslim nation ceases (with, perhaps, very minor amounts of direct relief for very specific situations excepted). What then? Certainly not only one scenario can be imagined. How many then? Is it possible that, for America, things could even become worse?"
-- from a posting above

Here's The Long Answer:

No, of course not. Add up the sums expended on the Muslims and Arabs, trying to bring them here and there a semblance of prosperity and political decency. Let's start with Iraq. So far the whole misguided venture, which attempts to undo or diminish or close up the very fissures, ethnic and sectarian, that we should do nothing to discourage but rather intelligently exploit, has cost, in past, present and fixed future costs (such as treatment of wounded veterans) about two trillion dollars. While the Americans made sure to collect money for the first Gulf War, they have done nothing to request, or to receive, any money from surrounding Arab states, even though it might be argued that Saddam Hussein had been a threat to them as well.

Add in the nearly $70 billion given to meretricious Egypt, in what started as a kind of completely unnecessary payoff to Egypt, a reward, for having graciously deigned to receive back the entire Sinai (along with its oilfields Israel had developed, and the three main airbases Israel had built, and all the other infrastructure, valued at some $16 billion in 1979 dollars). That money keeps flowing, even though Egypt has violated all of the promises it made, in the Camp David Accords, to cease hostile propaganda against Israel and to encourage, in every way, friendly relations. Nothing like that has occurred; Mubarak visited Israel only for Rabin's funeral, and has constantly rebuffed Israeli invitations; the Egyptian media has carried on an antisemitic campaign -- including a series on the government-run television, based on The Protocols. Egypt consistently runs sly interference for the mass-murderers running the government of the Sudan, and Egypt keeps playing a double game, but the Americans continue to fall for it, in the so-called "peace processing." Egypt, of course, is part of the Slow Jihad brigade. As for what happens inside Egypt, to Copts and to real (not phony) liberals, that by now should be clear even to those who are in the State Department.

Jordan remains, like Egypt, one of the countries with a population most hostile to the United States. Every survey confirms this. And Jordan has received billions in American aid and special trade treatment.

The same is true, of course, for the soi-disant "Palestinians" -- that is, the local Arabs who were renamed the "Palestinian people" (yes, and all kinds of "construction of the 'Palestinian' identity went on -- Build We Must -- after the Six-Day War. Just ask Rashid Khalidi -- it's one of his favorite topics, though he wouldn't exactly put the "construction of the 'Palestinian identity'" matter in the way I have done so.

And then there are all the moneys that go to Pakistan, permanently manipulative double-game deceitful Pakistan. Oh, I admit some generals are better than others. Musharraf wasn't as bad as Zia ul-Haq, the real Muslim fanatic, while Musharraf likes to think of himself as a kind of incipient Ataturk (his father was once stationed in Turkey), though he's very far from being so. And those anglophone zamindars, and their cossetted children, the ones who acquire the pinky-bhutto sheen at Harvard or Oxford, are only outwardly better, but what matters is that when it comes down to it, they can rant about Jihad (see Pinky Bhutto on YouTube calling for "jihad" in Kashmir, while a crowd roars its approval) as well as any mad mullah, and they are, in any case, forced to conform to what the primitive Pakistani masses want, and they don't want secularism; they want more and more Islam, and the more miserable they become because, precisely, of Islam, the more they call for more Islam. That is, they call for the disease for which they think they are requesting the cure.

How much has gone to Pakistan? About $30 billion in economic aid, cancelled debt, and military aid, since 9/11/2001. And before that, during all the years when American generals found so appealing the Pakistani generals, with those pleasing ramrod straight pukka-sahib terry-thomas moustachioed appearances, so... well, so confidence-building, just like a sociopathic ponzi schemer on Wall Street, fleecing his carefully-selected flock.

And Afghanistan, where that smooth man, with a corrupt regime (and his relatives at the top of the list), Hamid Karzai, with that flowing robe, who a few years ago managed to enchant all of us, but now we know he is part of the problem, he protects the corrupt, he denounces the NATO forces at every opportunity to win points with his people, and he is no Ataturk, not even close, and will go down, and we will be left, still shovelling the money into Afghanistan in the vain belief that something -- but what, exactly? -- can come of this expenditure, when fighting from afar, telemachy, through local warlords let loose, and hang the murderous consequences, is surely the best way to go, along with drones, intermittent bombing of any camps that are deemed a danger, and without any more talk about "failed states" or a belief that somehow Afghanistan, just because Al Qaeda is located there, is special. The people who bombed the Atocha station in Madrid, or the busses and underground in London, or murdered Theo van Gogh and, through a weak-minded Dutch pawn, Pim Fortuyn in Amsterdam, or who have plotted to bomb Paris, and a Christmas market in Strasbourg, and from the mosque in viale Jenner in Milan planned all sorts of mass poisonings -- these people haven't needed the "failed state" of Afghanistan to do what they do. Let's get off this notion that Afghanistan is a very important place to Muslim terrorists. No one place, no particular places, are necessary for Muslim terrorists to do their stuff. What they most need are other Muslims to help them out, to provide the sea in which they swim. The more Muslims in a Western country, the wider and deeper that sea.

No, the huge sums transferred by Infidel taxpayers to Muslim states and peoples in Dar al-Islam is a complete waste. We need that money, we need it to defend ourselves against the Muslim threat.

Furthermore, we see that all over Western Europe there is an additional gigantic transfer of wealth, from Infidel taxpayers, to Muslims on the dole, who have come to Europe, settled deep within, are uneducated, do not allow their women to be educated but use them to produce families of six, eight, ten, twelve children apiece (and with plural wives, a man can have quite a family by the time he's done). And every possible advantage is taken -- see the figures that these governments allow to be made public, for most of it they do not dare to reveal, for fear of what it would mean, and what the scale of the fury would be -- the free medical care, the free education, the free or heavily subsidized housing (all of it far beyond what is possible, what is even conceivable, in any of the Muslim places from which these people come). And if we add to these sums, the amounts now expended to monitor Muslim populations, to watch mosques, to pay Muslims -- are they just taking the security services for a ride? -- to report on their own communities, and anything suspicious they see, to follow, for example, the "200 known terrorist groups" now admitted to be operating in Great Britain alone, and then, furthermore, to pay for enhanced security at churches and synagoguges and Hindu temples, to pay for more security guards on planes, and at airports, and at bus and train stations, and at every major government office building, or at any site of historic or symbolic importance -- well, it does add up, surely, by now, in Western Europe, to another several hundred billion dollars a year. And this at a time of collapsing economies everywhere.

And that is not all.

The very best thing we can do is to encourage disunity within the Camp of Islam. I keep writing mostly about sectarian (Shia and Sunni) and ethnic (that is, Arab and non-Arab) fissures within the Camp of Islam. But that is because I have been focussing on Iraq. I have, however, noted the resentment, among the Arabs "of the north" -- Egypt, Syria, Jordan -- for the "desert Arabs of the peninsula," whom the Syrians and Egyptians think of as bedu, primitives who nonetheless have unfairly somehow been given all that oil wealth, oil wealth that those "desert Arabs" (supposedly so much more uncivilized than the suave Syrians and Egyptians, but it's no longer true, because some of those younger Qataris and Kuwaitis and Saudis have acquired a sheen from going to school in America or England). But if the Infidel funds are cut off, and if Egypt, Jordan, the "Palestinian" Arabs, and even the Pakistanis (who by such things as the Mumbai raid are, some of the annoyed Arabs realize, "harming the image of Islam" -- they care only about the p.r. aspect of the thing, they don't disapprove of violent Jihad in the slightest) have to go hat in hand to the rich Arabs, and call the bluff of the whole "loyalty of the Umma" business, by demanding that that oil wealth be shared, really shared -- well, you can jsut imagine what would happen.

Talk about resentment. Talk about fury. Talk about the rottenness of those "rich Arabs" who won't share the wealth, and it's Allah's wealth, for god's sake. It has nothing to do with geology. Allah decides everything. And of course those rich Arabs are supposed to share those oil (and gas) revenues with their fellow members of the Umma. Why, it almost makes you feel like setting of a bomb or two in Kuwait City, and Doha, and Riyahd, and Jiddah.

Go to it, boys. You're right to be mad.

That's the Long Answer to your question "Is it possible that, for America, things could even become worse? [if we stop supplying tens and hundreds of billions of dollars to the Muslim lands and peoples]."

And here's the Short Answer:

http://newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/18547

The American government supports Jihad. We must fix ourselves first…

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at December 21, 2008 6:53 PM

Bush's allies on the phony war-on-terror are terrorist themselves: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. DUH!
Ofcourse, Wafa Sultan noted this as well: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52962
.. and Americans voted for Bush twice!

Give Pakistan nothing...Not only that, 'I want my money back'...

There is nothing in the US constitution that calls for 'foreign aid'. However G.Washington did warn against 'foreign entanglements'.

All 'foreign aid', no matter what else they call it, should stop. Only aid that is truly humanitarian in nature should be legal.

With the Prophet Elect Obama (PBUH) at the helm, we can expect a lot more of American taxpayers money flowing to dubious people, in dubious countries, pushing dubious agenda's and even more dubious ideologies. (Think 'Global Poverty Act', among other acts of financial kindness).
Watch Kenya be among the first 'worthy' recipients of all this financial kindness...
Soon Odinga the Mohammadan leader, and pal of Prophet Obama (PBUH), will have a shiny new limo to drive around in the jungle...That's what friends are for...

$300 million dollars to Pakistan? Why? Pakistan is a country that harbors terrorists and terrorist organizations. We should be going into Pakistan secretly searching for terrorists behind the government's back. Pakistan is not cooperating with us.

Christopher Hamilton
The Right Opinion, for the Right Wing

Hugh: Thanks for both the long and short answer. You seem absolutely convinced that, in effect, walling off the Islamic world from the rest of the earth should have been the strategy pursued long ago. Perhaps you're right. Not sure. Muslims turned in upon themselves would produce a human catastrophe which I should think the humanitarian impulses of the West could and would not ignore. An Egypt without a very cold peace with Israel these thirty years and deprived of American money to prop up its corrupt regime could have imploded by now. Would this be better? Perhaps. As bad and disgusting as the Saudis are, can you not imagine something even worse running Arabia had America had no ties whatsoever with that mess of a monster peninsula these past seventy years? Imagine how eager China and Russia would be above and beyond what they are at present to build close ties with at least some Arab countries, particularly the oil-producing states, if the West had done as you suggest, i.e., opt out of the Muslim sphere of mankind. However the oil markets are supposed to work, back-room deals could be cut for a special client like the Chinese.

Does the path taken by America and the West to date suck? Yep. Pretty much. It's cost a lot and, worst of all, we got Muslims aplenty in our midst (the single greatest mistake to date, as I see it, has been not essentially banning all Muslim immigration to Western countries; this is far worse than the vast sums spent on deeply ungracious Muslim nations). But I'm not as sanguine as you are that your approach would have produced essentially positive results for the West. In fact, I have to entertain the possibility that things could be even worse by now had your strategy been pursued rather than one of divide and conquer. A Muslim world with one or two or more of its countries with WMD capacity, supplied courtesy of China or North Korea, might not like being ignored by Western nations and conclude there's really nothing to lose by unleashing a bevy of them on the West since there really then would be nothing in the West of any value to Muslims, things like real estate, opportunities for higher education or assets galore in Western banks. Then again, there could always be a victor among the Muslim factions that you envision fighting one another tooth and nail if left alone by America and her allies. What then? What if, holy hell, a caliphate really was established across much of the Middle East with Chinese educated technocrats advising the new sultan?

One thing's for certain and that is that the Islamic world is a burden of immense proportions to all mankind. Here I don't think we'd have a disagreement at all. Where we really differ is that I'm inclined to the view that all our options are bad where dealing with the Islamic portion of mankind is concerned. But I remain somewhat in doubt as to which is the least bad option before us. Thanks, in any case for your extensive response. Appreciated.

The US is addicted to making bad deas with bad guys.

The US is addicted to making bad deals with bad guys.

It's called Extortion......pure and simple.....
It's a primary tactic, a tactic all Moslems use.......and always have used....

Terrorism pays....

Cut them all off.

९/११ के बावजूद अमेरिका आतंकवादियों की मदद कर रहा है!!?

It's baffling to Indians to see the US continue to aid and abet terror-harboring countries.

Arjun08!

Its completely baffling to Americans too! At least to those Americans who know whats going on.....

Long live India! India has suffered so much over the years....

Some of us know history,,

I'm sure the US thinks this aid will be used to curtail terrorist activities in Pakistan, but it will in fact end up being used against India either in a war or a proxy terrorism war, as has been the case for decades since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

This money would be better spent in beefing up US security or finding an alternative to oil which would have the effect of cutting off the terrorist money supply from the other US allies like Saudi Arabia.

Cut the money off from oil or aid, and watch the brainwashing schools wither away.

The US in bed with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - let's just hope it's a case of "keep your enemies closer" so as to understand what makes them tick or get advance notice of their plans".

Arjun08- Are you in India? What is happening there with the electric car from Tata motors?

"Muslims turned in upon themselves would produce a human catastrophe which I should think the humanitarian impulses of the West could and would not ignore."
Posted by Wellington

I could ignore it.

And frankly, if the West was/is able to ignore the genocide in Rwanda, and the disaster that is Darfur, we should be happy to ignore a bunch of insane, blood thirsty mohammedans butchering each other. Who gives a rat's ass?

Let's get off this notion that Afghanistan is a very important place to Muslim terrorists. No one place, no particular places, are necessary for Muslim terrorists to do their stuff. What they most need are other Muslims to help them out, to provide the sea in which they swim. The more Muslims in a Western country, the wider and deeper that sea.

exactly
And it only takes a tiny minority of fish to be sharks for the sea to become too dangerous for others.

Comforting, at least, that the Federal Government is not mired in debt and can afford such packages to such dubious recepients.

[Irony Off]

Looks like all possible kinds of Government responsibility are being abandoned...

It is obvious to me at least, that any money we give to Pakistan, is straight down the enemies rathole. But these days, our "ever sober" leaders are very good at throwing good money after bad. As a matter of fact, that is all they have been doing lately.

Just remind me again, how did the US feel when the old USSR was arming Cuba?

Continued US spport for pakistan is evil and for as long as it continues, India should vote against the US in all UN reslutions, side up with her ideological foes like Russia, China, France and Germany and view US as India's long term enemy.

US has on its hands the blood of every man, woman and child killed in India.

Hit Pakistan army where it hurts -- its funding
Hit Pakistan army where it hurts -- its funding
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Islamabad [Images] and gave 6 million pounds (about Rs 433 million) to Pakistan's government as a reward for the attacks on Mumbai, carried out by trained Pakistani militants.

Not that Gordon Brown meant to encourage terrorism. Quite the contrary. The funds were given to Pakistan for counter-terrorism support. But in the equation of action and consequence, the Pakistan army [Images] would be happy to cash in another six million pounds. Every bit helps. But it is time for Western governments to ask whether the strategy of doling out dollars and pounds for terror has delivered the goods.

Being the 'frontline State' in the war on terror has netted the Pakistan army over $10 billion (Rs 500,000 million) in military assistance from the United States. The frontline of terror runs through the state of Pakistan -- for its army it has proven to be rich vein of gold. Most of the military assistance from the US has helped the Pakistan army arm itself to the teeth against its so called 'enemy State' India and helped tighten its dominant economic and coercive control over Pakistani civil society. Fighting terror is such a profitable business for the Pakistan army that one wonders what they would do if they actually caught the terrorists.

Instead, the Inter Services Intelligence, another arm of the Pakistan army, is busy eliminating evidence to maintain a very implausible deniability. A journalist from the respected Pakistani newspaper Dawn interviewed captured Mumbai attacker Ajmal Kasab's parents before a pall of secrecy descended on the town of Faridkot in Pakistani Punjab. Subsequent journalists noted the carpeting of the area by the ISI. Enough fear and awe was generated for Faridkot residents that subsequent visitors found their lips were securely sealed.

The evidence of Kasab's testimony, including the very existence of his parents, needed to be swiftly removed before too many other nosey journalists came calling. When the army's perpetual fig leaf, the need of India to provide more 'evidence', has become so tattered, every fibre is worth saving. Kasab's parents may well have been made to disappear yet, according to news reports, Hafiz Saeed, leader of the banned Jamat-ul-Dawah, is plainly visible outside his house despite his official 'house arrest.'

The more things change, the more they remain the same in Pakistan. A nudge and a wink, a few months of decreased visibility, and the terror apparatus will be back in business. The tactic of the carrot has not worked. Billions of dollars of US military aid has not led to a Pakistan that is any less an epicentre of terror than it was ten years ago.

Like a reliable cash machine, Gordon Brown went to Pakistan and coughed up some more money for terror. One wonders, what is the incentive for the Pakistan Army to change -- what it has done so far is clearly working well to keep it well-fed and well-polished.

Just as a thought experiment -- what if Gordon Brown had gone to announce that the International Monetary Fund is putting a stringent cap on defence spending in Pakistan? What if every terror attack having a link with Pakistan, caused the army's budget to be slashed and compensation handed to the attacked country? One suspects that the pro-active willingness of the army to take care of terror emanating from its soil would be greatly increased. After all, this is an institution that has shown it can protect its own interests fairly well.

The cost of terror must be raised. Not for ordinary Pakistani citizens. Not for its largely impotent civilian government that has become a diplomatic attache of the army. Not even for the terror camps and its brainwashed participants that emerge from and merge back into the Pakistani landscape. Wispy ghosts, these appear and disappear at the whims of the powers that be. But the cost must be raised for the Pakistan army, the singular institution that is responsible for the creation of the terror infrastructure and must be held responsible for its dismantling.

And there is no better way to raise this cost than to hit the army exactly where it actually bleeds -- from its pocket books. What the Pakistan army lacks is not resources but will. It needs a clarifying message that the support of terror will directly hit its interests rather than those of the over-burdened citizens of Pakistan

Hugh is right. You may monitor the aid money but you free up the recipient's own funds for mischief. Kinda like buying a drunkard a week's groceries; helps him lay by more money to support his habit. Every penny to Pak helps to fund jihad, directly or indirectly.

Continued US spport for pakistan is evil and for as long as it continues, India should vote against the US in all UN reslutions, side up with her ideological foes like Russia, China, France and Germany and view US as India's long term enemy.

Hermit,
That's just fine. Then the US can stop spending so much money in India upgrading their NUKES! India should have been a natural ally of the West but instead aligned itself (under the guise of non-alignment) with the forces of Communism.
You want us to choose between India and Pakistan but India couldn't bring itself to side with US during the Cold War. What goes around comes around.

"A Muslim world with one or two or more of its countries with WMD capacity, supplied courtesy of China or North Korea, might not like being ignored by Western nations and conclude there's really nothing to lose by unleashing a bevy of them on the West since there really then would be nothing in the West of any value to Muslims, things like real estate, opportunities for higher education or assets galore in Western banks."

Wellington,

Would China really be that self-destructive? It would not be spared if its WMD were given to those who used it to attack the US.
This is not to say that the US would then bomb China but it does mean that Americans won't be able or inclined to buy one damn thing from China. Until China has enough of a market elsewhere to make up for the loss of the American market, it would be stupid for them to even seem to be supporting Islamists.
And the Muslim nations might not like being ignored but if attention was what they wanted, they should have wished for something else. The best thing for autocrats is to be ignored. The terrorists might not have any assets here or in Europe but it's a safe bet that their leaders DO.
Remember Iran in 1979? Iranian assets in the US were frozen after the "students" took over the embassy.

PMK: I'm not sure what China might do. Nations often do very self-destructive things (like letting loads of Muslim immigrants into their countries). Nations also try to get away with things they shouldn't (like stimulus packages to help a failing economy). My larger point in responding to Hugh was to indicate that his approach might work, but it might not too. Ditto for any alternative to Hugh's. Islam has created a monster of a problem for the whole world and I don't think there's a terrific option waiting out there which can be invoked to deal with the mess that Islam leaves most anywhere its practitioners exist. The one thing I'm certain of, though, is that, on whatever pretext, Muslim immigration to Western nations has been a huge mistake and it should stop forthwith.

"That's just fine. Then the US can stop spending so much money in India upgrading their NUKES!"

Hmm, let's be clear here - the US is "selling" civilian nuclear technology to India. Selling as in "making money", "creating jobs in the US" and so on. Let's not pass this off as an 'aid' package. Every bit of money that's going into upgrading the energy plants in India is coming from India.

"India should have been a natural ally of the West but instead aligned itself (under the guise of non-alignment) with the forces of Communism.
You want us to choose between India and Pakistan but India couldn't bring itself to side with US during the Cold War. What goes around comes around."

Very one-sided. I recommend you read the history of what happened. Starting out unaligned, why India was forced to go to the USSR for arms when the US started arming its neighbor under SEATO. Today, India is not completely pro-US either. There are pro- and rabidly anti-US groups in India as you'd expect.

"What is happening there with the electric car from Tata motors? "

Borg, it's not an electric car unfortunately. Electric would be amazing for Indian traffic conditions and improve pollution dramatically. Unfortunately, it's a normal petrol-engine. Hopefully, we'll see electric soon. Good nickname, by the way. Muslims do have an uncanny resemblance to the Borg, in the way an individual behaves once he's been assimilated, as part of one giant hive-mind.

Hermit,

That's just fine. Then the US can stop spending so much money in India upgrading their NUKES! India should have been a natural ally of the West but instead aligned itself (under the guise of non-alignment) with the forces of Communism.
You want us to choose between India and Pakistan but India couldn't bring itself to side with US during the Cold War. What goes around comes around.

Posted by: PMK

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PMK, your post is mind blowingly wrong on so many levels that I'm wondering wheather is it worth my while to even respond to you.

I've decided that you're just too far out man, best to just leave you to your own devices.

But in the meantime, what "Arjun08" has said should keep you occupied for some time, so why add more!

Hermit,
Sorry.