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Being taken for a ride by an "ally," and financing yet another jihad. "'Pak using US aid against India,'" from the Times of India, with thanks to Ranajit:
NEW YORK: Pakistan has received $1.8 billion as security assistance from the US for the war against terrorism, but the weapons financed under it are "more useful in countering India" than fighting Al Qaida and Taliban, according to a study.In addition, Pakistan has got $5.6 billion from Washington over the last five years as reimbursements for fighting Taliban and Al Qaida, the New York Times reported on Sunday quoting a research by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Here is the New York Times story in question: "U.S. Pays Pakistan to Fight Terror, but Patrols Ebb," by David E. Sanger and David Rohde:
WASHINGTON, May 19 — The United States is continuing to make large payments of roughly $1 billion a year to Pakistan for what it calls reimbursements to the country’s military for conducting counterterrorism efforts along the border with Afghanistan, even though Pakistan’s president decided eight months ago to slash patrols through the area where Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are most active.The monthly payments, called coalition support funds, are not widely advertised. Buried in public budget numbers, the payments are intended to reimburse Pakistan’s military for the cost of the operations. So far, Pakistan has received more than $5.6 billion under the program over five years, more than half of the total aid the United States has sent to the country since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, not counting covert funds.
Some American military officials in the region have recommended that the money be tied to Pakistan’s performance in pursuing Al Qaeda and keeping the Taliban from gaining a haven from which to attack the government of Afghanistan. American officials have been surprised by the speed at which both organizations have gained strength in the past year.
Good idea. Or cut it off altogether. But Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the national security adviser, says that's not going to happen:
“I’m not aware of any serious discussion to cut off the funding,” Mr. Johndroe said. The payments are critical to bolstering the military, General Musharraf’s greatest source of support, particularly as he faces growing street protests over his removal of an independent-minded Supreme Court chief justice as the court was about to consider the legality of the president’s decision to hold the nation’s top military and political posts at the same time....A study of the roughly $10 billion sent to Pakistan by the United States since 2002, conducted by Craig Cohen and Derek Chollet of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that $5.6 billion in reimbursements was in addition to $1.8 billion for security assistance, which mostly finances large weapons systems.
But those weapons are more useful, the authors concluded, in countering India than in fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The United States has also provided about $1.6 billion for “budget support,” which Pakistan can use broadly, including for reducing debt....
Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO supreme commander, said that when American or NATO forces saw Taliban fighters crossing the border and radioed nearby Pakistani posts, there sometimes was no answer. “Calls to apprehend or detain or restrict these ongoing movements, as agreed, were sometimes not answered,” General Jones said. “Sometimes radios were turned off.”...
Mr. Durrani, the ambassador, denied that Pakistani troops were failing to stop Taliban fighters at the border. He said the troops were carrying out joint operations with American forces based inside Afghanistan.
Two American analysts and one American soldier said Pakistani security forces had fired mortars shells and rocket-propelled grenades in direct support of Taliban ground attacks on Afghan Army posts. A copy of an American military report obtained by The New York Times described one of the attacks.
Durrani denies this also, of course.
Posted by Robert at May 21, 2007 8:39 AM
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The very idea of the United States giving aid to any nation is stupid, especially considering that the US is in the red everywhere. We are the world's most successful debtor nation. Our mortgages are held by Japanese and South Koreans and we owe huge sums to China now.
The idea that we'd be giving money to any nation seems out of touch with financial reality at this point. The idea that we'd give money in any amount to authoritarian governments in the third world is stupid. None of these govt's is going to use the money to help their people and double agent governments like Pakistan will use aid to further agendas opposite of what the United States would like to see.
If people with no rank like me can see all of this - you know people in power positions should be able to. If they don't or won't those people need to be replaced until we find some that do understand and do something consistent with that understanding.
Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 21, 2007 9:04 AM
"mostly finances large weapons systems"
I wonder where they bought those weapons? In the US?
Some form of subsidizing the arms industrie?
at May 21, 2007 9:17 AM
no more money to Muslim countries....let them live or die by their own policies..
Posted by: exsgtbrown at May 21, 2007 9:30 AM
Pak == ISI == State Funded Terrorism
To find the USA are funding PAK sponsored State Terrorism is a shock. (not!)
Time to wake up USA and fund your allies and not those "fair-weather friends" who will not and can not prevent Islamic Terrorism within their borders ..
Posted by: drk at May 21, 2007 9:45 AM
The guy from India express should probably have also added,
"And against Hindus, Christians and damn near every non-muslim minority in pakiland there is, against Balochis, Sindhis and Kashmiris from Azad Kashmir/Balawaristsn, often the fiercest opponents of the Taliban they are supposed to be fighting, against anyone in pakiland who doesn't want to see it become a shariah state, against basically everyone in pakiland who isn't an arabist Pak *punjab*, Mohajir or Taliban suporting Pathan, against everyone in Afghanistan who is opposed to their brainchild Taliban, against Israel and Lebanese Christians and all Jews and Christians in the Middle East, against American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and pretty much anyone resisting agianst jihadists worldwide".
Then, he would have really been on the path to exposing what they stand for.
Posted by: maxwell46&2 at May 21, 2007 10:00 AM
Indians can thank Indira Ghandhi.
India should have been a natural ally during the Cold War but it sided with the Russians and then claimed to be "non-aligned", which meant it saw no difference between decmocracy and dictatorship.
The Pakistanis were shrewd. They saw the vacuum and jumped right in. Although they were hardly democratic, they saw the benefit to themselves in countering the spread of communism from the USSR and China. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
at May 21, 2007 10:00 AM
Pakistan is not just supporting Taliban attacks ... they launched several attacks of their own last weekend, including crossing the border and briefly holding Afghan territory.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C05%5C15%5Cstory_15-5-2007_pg1_8
To top it off, on Monday after a "truce meeting" between Afghan-US and Pakistani delegates INSIDE PAKISTAN, a Pakistani soldier (shouting "Allah-u-Akbar") opened fire on our side killing one US soldier and wounding 4 others.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/southasia/news/article_1305180.php/Thousands_protest_Afghan-Pakistani_clashes__Roundup_
Musharraf's hold over his intelligence service and now his own military seems tenuous, at best. Islamists feel emboldened enough to take over mosques in the capital and to declare fatwas against him, and now he is having to shoot rioters in the streets. How long before a pro-Taliban military junta (with nukes) drops the Musharraf mask and openly takes his place?
at May 21, 2007 10:01 AM
'Terror' in Islam-speak is the existence of infidels - as long as infidels exist, Muslims are terrified that their cult could be exposed.
That's why they terrorize the filthy kuffar until Islam is the ONLY religion that rules the globe...
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at May 21, 2007 10:17 AM
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are G. W. Bush's and the State Department's and Pentagon's "friends and allies." None of these--no Islamic area on earth--is either an ally, let alone a friend, of the American people of the United States.
Do you see the disparity between our governing powers and the American people? What is good for the governing powers is not good for the people. The reverse may well be true.
The sad thing is that American military personnel is paying the price with lives, limbs, and mental health.
Or troops are being sacrificed to help bring "freedom and democracy" to the unwashed Islamic masses.
We, the American people, are only discomfited by less disposable income due to higher gas prices, perhaps the poisoning of our educated children by America-hatred at American universities, and complete confusion of the rest of us as to what to do.
So, we go along as we always heave. Perhaps it will blow over. Perhaps, the Moslems that are agitating for supremacy here will assimilate, become "good Americans." Perhaps we will elect a President that will look out for us--the American people--and not for whatever is being looked out for that is bad for us.
Perhaps things will change without us having to do anything other than what we have been doing all along: keep on shopping, driving, going to the mall, watching TV.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Quizas, quizas, quizas.
Posted by: unicorns62000 at May 21, 2007 5:02 PM
From unicorn
"Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are G. W. Bush's and the State Department's and Pentagon's "friends and allies." None of these--no Islamic area on earth--is either an ally, let alone a friend, of the American people of the United States"
You've gotta larf when Dubya lectures people on the "War on terror" and then adds "You're either with us or against us" . Using his own words it seems that he's on the wrong side
Also from dh4a
"on Monday after a "truce meeting" between Afghan-US and Pakistani delegates INSIDE PAKISTAN, a Pakistani soldier (shouting "Allah-u-Akbar") opened fire on our side killing one US soldier and wounding 4 others"
You'd have thought that 911 would've taught the Americans about blowback. But it seems the answer is still, "Blowback? What's that again?"
Posted by: ewha1 at May 22, 2007 2:01 AM
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