CONGRESSMEN POE AND NOLAN INTRODUCE BILL REVOKING PAKISTAN'S MNNA STATUS

[StraightShooter]

http://poe.house.gov/press-releases?ID=D4A4598F-CB92-459D-9A60-43E87E5FD2B6

CONGRESSMEN POE AND NOLAN INTRODUCE BILL REVOKING PAKISTAN'S MNNA STATUS
June 22, 2017
WASHINGTON, D.C.- Today, Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) and Congressman Rick Nolan (D-MN) introduced H.R. 3000, a bipartisan bill revoking Pakistan’s major non-NATO ally (MNNA) status.

In 2004, then-President Bush granted Pakistan MNNA status in an effort to get Pakistan to help the United States fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban. MNNA status is significant, granting critical benefits in the areas of foreign aid and defense cooperation. A MNNA country is eligible for priority delivery of defense material, an expedited arms sale process, and a U.S. loan guarantee program, which backs up loans issued by private banks to finance arms exports. It can also stockpile U.S. military hardware, participate in defense research and development programs, and be sold more sophisticated weaponry.

Last August, then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter withheld $300 million in military reimbursements because he could not certify that Pakistan was taking adequate action against the Haqqani network, as required by the NDAA.

“Pakistan must be held accountable for the American blood on its hands,” said Congressman Poe. “For years, Pakistan has acted as a Benedict Arnold ally of the United States. From harboring Osama bin laden to backing the Taliban, Pakistan has stubbornly refused to go after, in any meaningful way, terrorists that actively seek to harm opposing ideologies. We must make a clean break with Pakistan, but at the very least, we should stop providing them the eligibility to obtain our own sophisticated weaponry in an expedited process granting them a privileged status reserved for our closest allies.”

“Time and time again, Pakistan has taken advantage of America’s goodwill and demonstrated that they are no friend and ally of the United States,” Nolan said. “The fact is, the billions of dollars we have sent to Pakistan over the last 15 years has done nothing to effectively fight terrorism and make us safer. It is time to wake up to the fact that Pakistan has ties to the same terrorist organizations which they claim to be fighting. I am happy to join my colleague Congressman Poe in introducing this important legislation which will protect American taxpayer dollars and make us and the world safer.”

Congressman Ted Poe represents Texas' Second District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and serves as chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-proliferation and Trade.



Permalink: http://poe.house.gov/2017/6/congressmen-poe-and-nolan-introduce-bill-revoking-pakistans-mnna-status

 

[StraightShooter]

PAKISTAN IS NOT ON OUR SIDE
March 9, 2017
Mr. Speaker, it is no surprise Pakistan is not the friend they portray themselves to be. They are a devious, deceptive, and disloyal ally.

For years they have supported the Taliban by providing them cover, cash, and weapons. However, this Benedict Arnold ally is among the leading recipients of U.S. foreign assistance for the last 14 years.

Mr. Speaker, we don’t need to pay Pakistan to betray us, they will do it for free.

The Taliban’s headquarters is, you guessed it, in Pakistan. When a U.S. drone attack took out the Taliban’s leader in May 2016, he was in Pakistan.

This should be the last rodeo for Pakistan. This is why I have introduced the Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act. The bill requires the administration to issue a report containing either a determination that Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism or a justification as to why it is not. It is time to determine whose side Pakistan is on.

And, Mr. Speaker, they are not on our side.

And that is just the way it is.



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Permalink: http://poe.house.gov/2017/3/pakistan-is-not-on-our-side

Time for a Radical Reset with Pakistan
March 9, 2017
National Intrest

By: Congressman Ted Poe

For years and, we would say, for decades, the United States has acquiesced in a toxic relationship with Pakistan, putting up with this nominal ally whose military and security leaders play a lethal double game. Most dangerously, the “game,” if one can call it that, involves headlong nuclear-weapons production and exporting Islamist terrorism.

Successive U.S. administrations haven’t found a way out of this, playing instead the theater of “shared interests” with Islamabad, even when Pakistan’s links with insurgents imperil American lives in Afghanistan while feeding wider instability in central Asia.

None of this is news. Congressional testimony over the years plus expert analysis from in and out of government monotonously reinforce the point: Pakistan has become a quasi-adversary, receiving hundreds of billions through the years in direct and indirect U.S. support, a strange hostage-like arrangement in which we pay Islamabad to do what it should be doing anyway to protect its own domestic security and buttress Afghan stability.
Successive Pakistani military leaders have held their country’s civilian governments on a tight leash. The Pakistani military plays to its various constituencies in Washington very well—especially defense corporations, some residual voices in the intelligence community and parts of the foreign-policy establishment for whom “maintaining access” in Islamabad edges out realism.

Repeat: None of this is news. Each new generation of senior U.S. commanders thinks it can square the circle, relying on “personal” links with Pakistani army corps commanders. Then some new subcontinental crisis erupts, and the immediate need to influence Pakistan pushes aside longer-term goals. For years we looked the other way as Pakistan acquired nuclear-weapons capability, going through the kabuki dance of annual nonproliferation certification.

If none of this is news, what can be done? Colleagues from both parties, in both the House and the Senate, have tried to attach conditionality to successive aid packages for Pakistan. We have supported these moves, which invariably fail.
Conditionality goes back many years. In the weeks after 9/11, for example, the United States offered a grant of many hundreds of millions to Pakistan, on the basis that the money would go towards education reform. Our ally used it instead to write down some of its massive foreign debt. And few forget the wink-and-nudge annual certification that Pakistan was not developing nuclear weapons—which, of course, it was.

How can this weird psychology be reversed? Over the years, the broad strategic balance has shifted against Pakistan which, unlike its neighbor to the east, fails to invest in human capital. Unlike the impression of imminent dissolution (which Islamabad likes to give as an excuse for tolerating domestic extremism), Pakistan in important ways is actually a strong state. But as Amb. Robert Gallucci, a prominent nuclear weapons expert, pointed out to a closed-door meeting of congressional staffers on Tuesday, it’s not enough to wait until Pakistani leaders come to their senses.

Instead, it’s time that the United States sets, unilaterally, the limits of its indulgence.

Here are ways we can finally put the toxic psychology behind us:

• Don’t let the next crisis in South or Southwest Asia deflect our focus.

• Don’t rush to shore up Pakistan’s balance of payments via the IMF or other intermediaries, as we’ve done in the past.

• Let China pay that, if the Pakistanis wish to mortgage their future in that way. (China’s “one belt, one road” infrastructure plans for Pakistan are running into big problems.)

Changing our reactive accommodating stance vis-à-vis Pakistan won’t come quickly. But it must change—irrespective of trends in U.S.-India relations, which have steadily come to be on a sounder footing since the George W. Bush administration. There’s a tendency to think of Pakistan as part of a troubling duality, with India and Pakistan in a death spiral. That’s out of date—and we have our issues with India too.

But something must change in our dealings with a terrorist-supporting, irresponsible nuclear-weapons state, and it must change soon. Acquiescing in the current trends is not an option.

Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade. James Clad was a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia in the George W. Bush administration.



Permalink: http://poe.house.gov/2017/3/time-for-a-radical-reset-with-pakistan

CHAIRMAN POE INTRODUCES PAKISTAN STATE SPONSOR OF TERRORISM ACT OF 2017
March 9, 2017
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, Congressman Ted Poe (TX-02), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism introduced H.R. 1449, the Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Act of 2017. The bill requires the President to issue a report within 90 days detailing whether Pakistan has provided support for international terrorism. Thirty days after that, the Secretary of State is required to a submit a follow-up report containing either a determination that Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism or a detailed justification as to why it does not meet the legal criteria for such a designation.

“Not only is Pakistan an untrustworthy ally, Islamabad has also aided and abetted enemies of the United States for years. From harboring Osama bin Laden to its cozy relationship with the Haqqani network, there is more than enough evidence to determine whose side Pakistan is on in the War on Terror. And it’s not America’s. It is time we stop paying Pakistan for its betrayal and designate it for what it is: a State Sponsor of Terrorism.”

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Permalink: http://poe.house.gov/2017/3/chairman-poe-introduces-pakistan-state-sponsor-of-terrorim-act-of-2017

 

[StraightShooter]

Bill seeking revocation of Pakistan’s non-NATO ally status moved in US Congress

Republican Congressman Ted Poe and Democratic lawmaker Rick Nolan introduced the bill. Photo: AP/file

WASHINGTON: A bipartisan bill seeking to revoke Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO-ally (MNNA) was moved by two US Congressmen in the House of Representatives on Thursday.

Republican Congressman Ted Poe and Democratic lawmaker Rick Nolan introduced the bill, HR 3000.

Pakistan was granted MNNA status in 2004 under President Bush to assist the United States in combating Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

“Pakistan must be held accountable for the American blood on its hands,” claimed Poe, who currently serves as chairman of the subcommittee on terrorism, non-proliferation and trade.

“For years, Pakistan has acted as a Benedict Arnold ally of the United States. From harbouring Osama bin Laden to backing the Taliban, Pakistan has stubbornly refused to go after, in any meaningful way, terrorists that actively seek to harm opposing ideologies,” he alleged.

“We must make a clean break with Pakistan, but at the very least, we should stop providing them the eligibility to obtain our own sophisticated weaponry in an expedited process granting them a privileged status reserved for our closest allies.”

“Time and time again, Pakistan has taken advantage of America’s goodwill and demonstrated that they are no friend and ally of the United States,” Nolan stated.

Nolan insisted that such a measure was necessary to create a safer world for Americans to live in.

Under MNNA, a country is eligible for priority delivery of defence materials, an expedited arms sale process and a US loan guarantee programme, which backs up loans issued by private banks to finance arms exports.

It can also stockpile US military hardware, participate in defence research and development programmes and be sold more sophisticated weaponry.

https://www.geo.tv/latest/146829-bi...ans-non-nato-ally-status-moved-in-us-congress

Narendra Modi, Donald Trump’s meeting has Pakistan rattled. Here’s why
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States, his first since US Donald Trump’s inauguration as President, has left Pakistan jittery
Amit Palit, New Delhi [Published on:23 Jun 2017, 12:18 PM IST]

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Narendra Modi, Donald Trump’s meeting has Pakistan rattled. Here’s why
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States, his first since US Donald Trump’s inauguration as President, has left Pakistan jittery. The reason behind Pakistan’s fears is the buzz around a possible downgrading of Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally or MNNA. Just ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, two senior American Congressmen have introduced a bipartisan bill that seeks to significantly pare down ties with the Islamic country.

The bill, introduced on Friday by Republican Ted Poe and Democrat Rick Nolan, calls for making "a clean break" from the country that they said had "harboured terrorists" and had "little in the way of being accountable for the money given for fighting, eradicating these groups".

The media and experts in Pakistan are interpreting it as a pro-India move by the Trump administration. The two leaders will be meeting on June 25 and 26 in Washington DC. Among the many issues that are likely to be discussed, terrorism and relations in South Asia are tipped to feature prominently. Also on the agenda will be Afghanistan where both India and US have major stakes.

While India is Afghanistan’s closest ally and is helping the war-torn country redevelop, for the US, it is a question of high stakes as far as its war on terror is concerned. It’s been 16 years since US entered Afghanistan and the country is still at war. The Taliban, which was ousted from power in 2001, has regained control over 40 per cent of the area over a period of time.

The Afghanistan government, on its part, has time and again blamed Pakistan-based terror outfits for instigating terror on its soil.

The recent attack in Kabul’s diplomatic area which left 90 dead and more than 400 injured was the latest big attack that Kabul has held Pakistan responsible for. Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) has blamed Pakistan-based terror outfit Haqqani Network for the Kabul attack. The attack, it said, was carried out with direct help from Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

That India and Afghanistan are victims of cross-border terrorism backed by Pakistan is no secret. Neither is the fact that India is bound to raise this matter before the US in seeking strong action against Pakistan which supports the Taliban, the Haqqani network and other outfits. It is in this backdrop that the US bill to pare ties with Pakistan assumes significance. And if you were to go by the views of the Congressmen, Pakistan’s worries shouldn’t come as any surprise.



"Pakistan must be held accountable for the American blood on its hands," Republican Ted Poe said, in some of the sharpest comments in the Capitol yet against Pakistan. "From harbouring Osama bin Laden to backing the Taliban, Pakistan has stubbornly refused to go after, in any meaningful way, terrorists that actively seek to harm opposing ideologies. We must make a clean break with Pakistan, but at the very least, we should stop providing them the eligibility to obtain our own sophisticated weaponry," he said.

Media reports have it that the Trump administration is exploring hardening its approach towards Pakistan and crack down on Pakistan-based militants launching attacks in Afghanistan. The Trump administration, reports said, may even opt for drone strikes inside Pakistan and withholding some aid to it.

The recent bill introduced just ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, thus, creates more trouble for Pakistan. Pakistan was granted MNNA status in 2004 by then President George W Bush to get Pakistan to help the US fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban. What makes the MNNA status crucial is that it makes the country eligible for priority delivery of defence material, an expedited arms sale process, and a US loan guarantee program, which backs up loans issued by private banks to finance arms exports. It can also stockpile US military hardware, participate in defence research and development programs, and be sold more sophisticated weaponry.


There is another facet to Pakistan’s worries. The Trump administration has already decided to send 4000 more troops to Afghanistan. As China and Russia increase their influence in the region, it appears unlikely that the US would leave from here anytime soon. Its bases in Afghanistan also allow keeping an eye on Iran. Moreover, the US is also bound to keep a close eye on the ambitious China Pakistan Economic Corridor which will allow China access to the Gulf region. If you were to view things from the US perspective, one would assume that it would like to work with India in Afghanistan keeping in mind its interests.

This is what has Pakistan even more worried. Pakistan knows its failure in clamping down on terror has not been hidden. It also knows that India has managed to create pressure over this failure by Pakistan and that its duplicity may not work too long. "Time and time again, Pakistan has taken advantage of America's goodwill and demonstrated that they are no friend and ally of the United States... The fact is, the billions of dollars we have sent to Pakistan over the last 15 years has done nothing to effectively fight terrorism and make us safer. It is time to wake up to the fact that Pakistan has ties to the same terrorist organisations which they claim to be fighting," said Rick Nolan.

India, on the other hand, has an opportunity at hand. When PM Narendra Modi meets Trump, it can use the opportunity to persuade US to put pressure on Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan knows it well and understands it is being increasingly cornered. No wonder, the country is rattled.

http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/wor...eeting-has-pakistan-rattled-here-s-why-387697

 

[mzeeshanfahd]

i hope this will let you win afghan war ..... the only new thing is that now you are coming out openly/in public against Pakistan .....

 

[jamal18]

I have always said that a US/Pakistan conflict is inevitable. The Afghan war just slowed it down.

Time to get the US/Nato out of Afghanistan and the Taliban back in. Secure our western border against US airbases in time of conflict.

 

[StraightShooter]

i hope this will let you win afghan war ..... the only new thing is that now you are coming out openly/in public against Pakistan .....

The same could be said by US that Pakistan is finally come out in the open about their anti-US alliances and activities.

 

[Mangus Ortus Novem]

Oh, this is nothing... just playing the gallery. Mr. Modi's welcome is being prepared.... some great deals will be signed.

An oval office handshake, smiles... cameras. Biggest democracy and oldest one...shared values... la di da, la di da... more cameras.

Mr. Trump will be empathesising with indian victomhood and blaming Pak for everything... from Pigeons to bats.... more handshakes, more smiles... F16 deals done.... Strategic partnership annouced...


And let there be no illusions.... America wants india fully onboard for their strategy against China... so throwing Pak overboard is not big a price to be paid.

Just waiting for indian troops to be stationed in AF.

Harming Pak is an integeral part of Contian China policy... a blind can see that!

 

[Dash]

Harming Pak is an integeral part of Contian China policy... a blind can see that!

Pak is still not targeted like Russia which is the actual force behind or with China.

US doesn't even consider

You and your dillusons.

 

[cloud4000]

Such bills have been proposed by Congress, but never passed. Usually in matters of foreign policy, Congress is willing to defer to POTUS. So far all we have heard are rumors that Trump is hardening his policy against Pakistan, but nothing concrete has been released yet.

Given that so many posts in the State Department have yet go be filled, including key posts regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan, it will be interesting to see if there is a communication disconnect. Nothing about how Trump operates surprises me.

Nevertheless, we shall see.

 

[maximuswarrior]

So what are the Americans waiting for? First, stop using Pakistani supply routes that feed your soldiers and coalition forces in Afghanistan. It is easy to play this blame game.

We have been hearing these sick noises for such a long time now. Just cut off the ties and do whatever you have to do. The common Pakistani will breathe a sigh of relief. Don't worry too much about the cooperation between China and Pakistan ole man Ted Poe. Whether CPEC succeeds or fails should be no concern of your country. You just get on with your threats. For once don't be a disgrace and get your bill passed.

 

[cocomo]

“Time and time again, Pakistan has taken advantage of America’s goodwill and demonstrated that they are no friend and ally of the United States,”

Pakistan has given you path way for your food and supplies to Afghanistan in return for your supposed "goodwill". You must be thinking something else if you expect Pakistan to fight eternally vengeful Afghans or be a proxy against China our long term ally.

 

[El Sidd]

How did it go in 1994?

I guess its the long route again if this goes through.

 

[HAIDER]

Indian lobby

 

[wiseone2]

Indian lobby

I hate to say it there is no Indian lobby

Pakistan has given you path way for your food and supplies to Afghanistan in return for your supposed "goodwill". You must be thinking something else if you expect Pakistan to fight eternally vengeful Afghans or be a proxy against China our long term ally.

After Sep-11 Pakistan could have told America to take a hike

 

[Kabira]

Is getting money from foreign countries to introduce bills legal? Most be nice being American congressman and also getting free money.