Spending blood and treasure on Pakistan

The situation in Pakistan is grim. Osama bin Laden hid in plain sight in a large, comfortable home in Pakistan’s equivalent of Annapolis, Maryland. It stretches credulity, to say the least, to suggest that bin Laden was there for years without the knowledge or support of the Pakistani military or intelligence leadership. This is hardly the first time that something like this has happened. 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, which is the headquarters of the Pakistani army.

Despite the importance of the situation, there is no evidence of progress since President Obama took office. On the contrary, one episode after another has strained diplomatic relations between the United States and both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The fallout from the WikiLeaks scandal was ugly for American-Afghan relations, and American-Pakistani relations deteriorated in the wake of the January shooting of two Pakistanis in Lahore by an American. These incidents revealed deep resentment toward American policy before the bin Laden raid. Since the raid, U.S. relations with Pakistan have unraveled almost completely.

Incredibly, there is scant evidence that policy makers in Washington are even thinking about how to ease tensions between India and Pakistan. Therefore, there is no meaningful plan for Afghanistan or the region. When, for example, was the last time there was any official discussion about resolving the Kashmir dispute?

This is a sorry state of affairs for a president who disdained his predecessor for, to his mind, damaging the reputation of the United States abroad by failing as a diplomat. In the absence of leadership from the White House, the situation on the ground in Afghanistan is a stalemate.

The fallacy in Kilbourne’s argument is exposed:

“Pakistan has long raised and supported an array of Islamist militant groups to act on the state’s behalf in India and Afghanistan. Scholars generally argue that Pakistan has done so due to its long-standing security competition with India over the disputed territorial disposition of Kashmir.

Pakistan, which lacks military, political or diplomatic means to wrest Kashmir from India, has relied upon these Islamist militant groups in hopes of coercing India to make some territorial concession in Pakistan’s favor. By extension, Pakistan’s pre-occupations in Afghanistan stem principally from its concerns about India. Pakistan has sought to use Islamist militants there to deny India access to Afghanistan from which it could support insurgencies in Pakistan. This understanding of Pakistan’s principle reasons for supporting these militants leads to a policy prescription that focuses upon resolving the Indo-Pakistan security competition as a necessary if insufficient condition that would permit Pakistan to abandon its reliance upon Islamist militant groups throughout South Asia. However, in this article, I argue that this understanding is incomplete because it disregards the domestic politics of these groups. Focusing upon Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in particular, I marshal a new body of evidence to demonstrate that LeT also services Pakistan’s domestic security goals. This suggests that even if Pakistan and India could normalize relations, Pakistan would not likely turn against LeT. “

The author correctly identifies the threat to the US as emanating from Pakistan. He then argues that the threat emanates from Pakistan because of Pakistan’s concerns about India, and therefore it is in the US’ national interest to resolve Indo-Pakistan disputes.

Let us note that Pakistan can resolve its disputes any day it chooses – the problem is that as the weaker party, it will not get all that it thinks it deserves. What Kilbourne is arguing then, is that the US should help tip the scales in favor of Pakistan – that is the US national interest.

Extremely childish of Kilbourne to think this way.

Pakistan's Terror Addiction How Your Tax Dollars Kill Our Troops

Our real problem is Pakistan’s deadly addiction to terrorism as a tool of statecraft and policy.

And we’re subsidizing it. Too many Washington political hacks think that money can buy everything (after all, it bought them their elections). So there’s no stick, just carrot. No matter how badly the Pakistanis behave, the answer remains the same: More aid dollars.

We give Pakistan $2-billion a year to support us in the war on terror. And Pakistan passes on the largesse to the terrorists. It’s not an open secret. It’s isn’t a secret at all. Your tax dollars are being used to help kill and maim our Soldiers, Marines and Navy corpsmen fighting in Afghanistan. This is beyond obscenity.

I wonder if pakistan was (or, is) really sharing information about terrorists with US. HuJI warns Pakistan against sharing information about it with India