US military aid to Pakistan and double talk

[Silk]

Thanks for your question to me. Nothing in life is "static or fixed." Times and events change. During my tour of duty in the USAF in Pakistan as the US Embassy Liaison Officer in Karachi for the US Base at Badabur, nearby Peshawar, violence and separatist as well as early stages of radical Islam terrorism existed. Over time, with the advent of Wahabism out of Saudi Arabia, it has gotten worse.

Terrorism and the war on terrorism is here to stay. You have to deal with that fact and expect it to continue.

When a terrorist heretical brand of Islam murders mainstream peaceful Muslim citizens inside Pakistan it is a stand alone drive if you will to impose radical sharia law, kill democracy, you name it.

Wishing for the past does not address reality now. Violence in the name of religion is nothing new, it is just better communicated about via world media nowadays.

To me it does not matter whether terrorism is spread by fanatic imported ideology or foreign occupying forces or drones. I see no reason that humiliating and terrorizing entire nations is representing a good and those that resist as bad. And democracy is just another man made system with many limits. It is no longer based on its original principles. So I disagree with you on principles. Your nation lost a few thousands. Just count the number of victims as result of your collateral damage. Let me put hypocrisy here as what I see in western world. It took 7500 males (man and children) to be slaughtered brutally by Mladic. Yet you could not find him for more then 16 years in an area not much bigger then New York. It was a deal. Yet you blame us for not finding OBL in a huge nation. You killed OBL/Sadam etc on spot while you transfer Mladic as a prince to the International Tribunal for fair trial. I honestly start puking when I read western comments. I hope you get the message.

 

[MastanKhan]

AH:

"my question is how do we go about it without imploding Pakistan in the process, and the region around it in to a more serious conflict and what should be the role of US if we want to get ahead on this agenda​

."

What would you suggest?

David Salmon

Hi,

There is an issue with marketing the ideology in pakistan---both the americans and the pakistanis admin have totally failed in this venue---whereas the radicals of al qaeda and taliban are having a hay day on the media circus tour. Pakistan and america have lost this war on the tv screen----.

Come on---some american tell me---how did the americans fail in the field where they were considered the strongest---marketing and media. They get beat up in the battle field----they get beat up in the media by these illeterates ----.

 

[Aamir Hussain]

MK:

I am afraid besides all else and the failures -- the Marketing Campaign has been a bust from all angles. US Aid has done so much in Pakistan but strangely, the USG has not tried to capitalize on this at all. To me, it seems, that the staffers in Pakistan are either too junior or are just not interested in a long term stay here from an American commitment perspective.

I am privy to quite bit of inside info. on USG's efforts to engage the Madressahs but sadly in the south (Of Pakistan -- I have very little info. on the north) this has been a misguided and recently highly unprofessional effort (a Pakistani lady with degree in political science from KU has been appointed in place of an experienced hand who was very well respected by the "Maulana's" and had made in-roads in opening up dialogues with them. Now any one knowing our culture would quickly understand that no lady - overtly- would succeed in close engagement with these Maulana's).

To me this shows classic bureaucratic and red tape behavior that we Pakistanis are so used to. There is an over all lack of direction in the in country team and the show is not in the hands of the State. They seem, on quite a bit of occasions, overwhelmed or lost.

 

[khurasaan1]

Hi,

There is an issue with marketing the ideology in pakistan---both the americans and the pakistanis admin have totally failed in this venue---whereas the radicals of al qaeda and taliban are having a hay day on the media circus tour. Pakistan and america have lost this war on the tv screen----.

Come on---some american tell me---how did the americans fail in the field where they were considered the strongest---marketing and media. They get beat up in the battle field----they get beat up in the media by these illeterates ----.

This all is the game from Allah SBWT.....
If u get beat up by Allah SBWT then nobody can save u ..whatsoever......

 

[Donatello]

No one can deny how badly Americans have been defeated. In doing so, they took Pakistan down with them.

Now with their economy in Tatters......i see their options quickly vanishing. Wait 10 more years and you will have the like of Britain in it's last days of the Raj........and no one will give a F*** about America.

 

[American Eagle]

MastanKhan, your comments about law and order, etc, deal with core values of nationalism and loyalty to Pakistan.

Sessession based on primitive tribal loyalties are a key underlying issue within Pakistan...but tribalism is also a key underlying issues for folks in Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco, to name but a few.

Somehow the Jews seem to on a worldwide basis have gotten on top of severe tribalism which gives them some line of central tendency in ruling and managing the nation of Israel. As Israel, together with India, are the best working models for democracy in SW Asia and the Middle East, hard though it may be for some who want to spend their days blaming Israel and the Jews for problems in Swat, Sind, and elsewhere in Pakistan, leaders and leadership have to look to role models. The US per se is an academic role model but due to differences in topography, natural resources, and the severe tribal nature of parts of Pakistan it is hard to find a role mode outside Pakistan to follow.

In short fixing the problems of Pakistan "ain't easy." Musharraf's frustration when as President he wanted to freeze courts and much of the media to try to "control" the chaos was not viable, but certainly was understandable for a man with a structured lifelong military management experience.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

You killed OBL/Sadam etc on spot while you transfer Mladic as a prince to the International Tribunal for fair trial. I honestly start puking when I read western comments. I hope you get the message.

Sadam , did get the trial unlike the Shia and Kurdish people he gassed and mowed down in hail of bullets and bombs

 

[khurasaan1]

No one can deny how badly Americans have been defeated. In doing so, they took Pakistan down with them.

Now with their economy in Tatters......i see their options quickly vanishing. Wait 10 more years and you will have the like of Britain in it's last days of the Raj........and no one will give a F*** about America.

Alhamdolillah!...Nobody gives a F*** about it now either.....

 

[Solomon2]

Come on---some american tell me---how did the americans fail in the field where they were considered the strongest---marketing and media. They get beat up in the battle field----they get beat up in the media by these illeterates ----.

I think there are three problems here.

One is that our propaganda arm, the U.S. Information Agency, was dismantled after the Cold War. The State Department absorbed its remnants but often cannot carry out the core mission and maintain a pleasant diplomatic environment.

Two, the current interpretation of the Constitution is so strict that the U.S. cannot be seen to advocate one religion or creed over another. Thus, U.S. officials can't really participate in religious debates with crazy mullahs. I'm not even sure if U.S. officials can sponsor private parties to do so.

Third, there is great difficulty for U.S. officials to reach the Pakistani media. The problem is two-fold: one, I'm told Pakistani newsmen often won't report what Embassy officials tell them, simply as a matter of pride. Two, the low literacy level of Pakistanis means one can't simply post on a website or advertise in newspapers to reach a target audience.

One story I heard was that to propagate news about a reward for a criminal who took refuge in Pakistan the embassy was reduced to advertising on matchbooks. That actually worked.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

it isn't ''aid''

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

To me, it seems, that the staffers in Pakistan are either too junior or are just not interested in a long term stay here from an American commitment perspective..

i had an informal talk with John Wall -- the former Resident Director of the World Bank's mission in Islamabad...a genuinely good friend of Pakistan (speaks fluent Urdu), who still does small-time consulting for Pakistan development and even owns a property in Islamabad.

he tells me exactly what you are saying....a lot of the people working for these financial/developments orgs like USAid are young and not experienced at all. They work mostly for the money (''risk pay'') and the fact that they are doing some ''international experience'' (i.e. resume-building) and are very basic in their knowledge of the language and local customs. They are accompanied by small security details and confined to certain enclaves. They have little exposure to the locals, so their presence is not exactly ''felt'' by them.

media of course is partly to blame for the anti-American sentiment though recent politics also play a huge role here....



the fact of the matter is yes -- America has been generous to Pakistan, but at the same time they've also been callous and self-serving at the same time. We've done a lot for the US and its interests, and have in some ways been short-sighted and callous as well (mostly to ourselves)

 

[MastanKhan]

Amir, American Eagle, Solomon, Abou,

Here is what I am trying to say----there has to be an educated response in the media---that is the watcher, who is sitting in front of the TV and watching the talk show---must need to hear someone who can show the other side of the picture as well, to clear the fog that has been created by the pakistani elite aganist the americans since the last sanctions aganist them.

Pakistanis are very happy in smashing america on the public forums, on the pakistani tv channels, they are also very happy in listening to those who are doing this talking. Why---because no one steps up to tell them the truth about this relationship. It seems like it is a taboo topic to discuss, say and talk about the help that america has provided pakistan over these years, since its inception.

What concerns me the most is that why can I see the picture clearly, whilst my countrymen can't even acknowledge the presence of the portrait right in front of their faces---what is stopping them to make a clear, honest, truthful analysis---what is stopping them to talk about the good stuff that america has done in this relationship---we all know about the bad stuff, we all know about the blame that the u s has taken for all the pakistani ills---but is all the bad stuff blamed on the u s is really their doing, or most of it is made up and basically most of it is our doing.

Pakistanis have taken this issue of the blame game, ie, blaiming the other party for everything that is going wrong and that has gone wrong in the past and that will go wrong in the future to the level that has never been seen before in the history of mankind.

No nation is entirely right all the time in their relationship and handling of mutual and individual interests and no nation is always wrong in what they do with pakistan.

Pakistanis need to stop reciting the sob-story of how they have been used and abused. This crying game is not going them to ahead of anyone, as a matter of fact it won't even help them to stay at the same spot in the coming months, it would rather pull them back and take them down the road to the abyss to a dismal ending.

I wrote many a years ago on this very board---if pakistanis think that the things were bad then, they have a surprise in coming. They will be crying and blaming everyone else, when the things will go worse, and they will do nothing to correct the underlying issues, and the things will keep getting worse and worse and the pakistanis will lose and lose more and more at every step---and they will look back at the better times they had in the past---but their imcompetence will not allow them to take the blame for their indulgences or the very lack of it to what happened in the past and as they will not be able to take corrective actions and measures to overcome their shortcomings, in the end, the history will blame then for their own demnise.

Going back to the topic----about the media issue----when someone talks about the F 16 sanctions---then there should be someone to tell how and what happened---. When america dropped the support of the taliban in 90-91, people need to know what the taliban did to deserve that----when america got involved in afghanistan jihad---people need to know how pakistan lied, cajoled and tricked the americans into a war they didnot want to be in the first place ( all the pakistanis don't know about that either )-----our nuclear program----how it had the inadvertant blessings of the agency and other groups in the unbited states---how united states and europe allowed our engineers to study nuclear physics and get training in active nuclear reactors in u s and europe.

How someone forgot to tell the pakistanis that we had the u s in our hands after 9/11---instead of milking them over the years slowly and gradually---if we had jumped the gun and taken out osama and his team right at one go---pakistan had its carte blanche written in any which way it wanted to---it would have had a blank check given to it by the american public to fill out the amount what it wanted it to be---and how and when to cash it and how to get whatever it wanted.

Only the cards needed to be played in a simple and truthfull manner---old animosities forgotten and new alliances formed, to be worked at 110% of the capabilities.

When pakistan and pakistanis started to play these little games of arresting one alqaeda here one day and another the other day and started parading them in front of the coming american dignitories----it all became a staged affair after sometime---it all became fake after awhile. It all lost momentum, it lost its integrity and truth----once the thing became fake---that was the downhill moment for pakistan, from where it has not recovered, and as there has been no change in ideology and perception, there is no recovery in sight in the foreseeable future. Mastankhan

 

[Aamir Hussain]

i had an informal talk with John Wall -- the former Resident Director of the World Bank's mission in Islamabad...a genuinely good friend of Pakistan (speaks fluent Urdu), who still does small-time consulting for Pakistan development and even owns a property in Islamabad.

he tells me exactly what you are saying....a lot of the people working for these financial/developments orgs like USAid are young and not experienced at all. They work mostly for the money (''risk pay'') and the fact that they are doing some ''international experience'' (i.e. resume-building) and are very basic in their knowledge of the language and local customs. They are accompanied by small security details and confined to certain enclaves. They have little exposure to the locals, so their presence is not exactly ''felt'' by them.

media of course is partly to blame for the anti-American sentiment though recent politics also play a huge role here....



the fact of the matter is yes -- America has been generous to Pakistan, but at the same time they've also been callous and self-serving at the same time. We've done a lot for the US and its interests, and have in some ways been short-sighted and callous as well (mostly to ourselves)

AZ:

I know this first hand -- what you have mentioned. There is a distinct lack of long term commitment in the actions of USG in Pakistan. That my friend has hurt American interests more than anything else. The other side is no fool ---they also know what projects USG are taking up and are of what nature. They have voiced their concern that almost all projects are scattered, and of smaller tenures as compared to significant major projects which no media can ignore.

A point of caution -- all AID by any country is in their own interest -- we just need to see where we can make max use and benefit out if it. A case in point; Madressah reforms were given US$100 million -- only US$ 4 million were spent by GoP!!!!! Now that is not the mistake of USG.

 

[Aamir Hussain]

I think there are three problems here.

One is that our propaganda arm, the U.S. Information Agency, was dismantled after the Cold War. The State Department absorbed its remnants but often cannot carry out the core mission and maintain a pleasant diplomatic environment.

Two, the current interpretation of the Constitution is so strict that the U.S. cannot be seen to advocate one religion or creed over another. Thus, U.S. officials can't really participate in religious debates with crazy mullahs. I'm not even sure if U.S. officials can sponsor private parties to do so.

Third, there is great difficulty for U.S. officials to reach the Pakistani media. The problem is two-fold: one, I'm told Pakistani newsmen often won't report what Embassy officials tell them, simply as a matter of pride. Two, the low literacy level of Pakistanis means one can't simply post on a website or advertise in newspapers to reach a target audience.

One story I heard was that to propagate news about a reward for a criminal who took refuge in Pakistan the embassy was reduced to advertising on matchbooks. That actually worked.

S2:

Agreed -- USIS was a potent agency and dismantling and merging it into State was, atleast in my opinion, counter productive and a shortsighted action. State has not done justice to that mission at all.

Another element that has caused confusion in US efforts in Pakistan has been the complex relationship between AFPAK envoy, Secretary of State, The Centcom Chief/CJCS, and the CIA -- while leaving Senator Kerry aside.. Who is playing the lead role here?? There is bound to be confusion and as a result, start/stop actions that we see on the ground.

Another issue that has severely hampered sustained actual results on the ground is the nature and tenure of reviews. Teacher training -- essentially train the trainers was wound up after a quarterly review that tried to calculate the impact of this project over last year. How does one measure quality of education in one year. To me it seems that short haul actions, without a defined long term objectives are the rules of the game. They closely resemble our own "Karawai" style of doing things (i.e. just doing it for the sake of doing it). US AID Projects are known the world over for bringing grass root level change in areas of education, health, energy, agriculture etc. We have seen it in past but not this time around.

No major water management or energy related project that can be easily identified has been taken up by US Aid in Pakistan over the last ten years. If the objective was to win the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan --this was the route to go. I am not going to comment on why this was not done but this was the obvious and logical route to take.

To me the effort both on the military side and the USAID efforts reflect the short term nature of the commitment despite what is being said in public regarding a necessity for long term strategic relationship.

As far as the media is concerned -- our own government is trying to come to grips with the reality of an open and most of the time biased media. How does one tackle a genie out of a bottle? -- USG would know it better than us -- they have been dealing with one back home for decades. May be they can pass on some tips us.

 

[OrionHunter]

AE:

What should be done -- that is in your opinion? If and when voicing your opinion, please keep in mind that this war on terror has crippled our country and by one estimate we have lost over US$ 40 billion in trade, tourism, infrastructure since 9/11. Not counting the wear and tear of our equipment, thousand of soldiers and civillians killed (five times the size of WTC casualties).

On top of this, the timing of Natural disasters (An earthquake, once in 100 year flood) has not helped our cause. Any third world country in normal times would have gone back atleast ten years.

It would be interesting to debate this based upon the ground reality, neccessity, and actual results.

This would not have come to pass had Musharraf not joined the so called war On Terror! But Bush, the Almighty had warned him that either you are with us or against us. And if you are against us we will bomb you to the stone age!

If Mush had the balls he would have called America's bluff and opted out. You think Bush really would have 'bombed Pakistan to the stone age'? Nuts!
So, had Pakistan not joined this 'war', then things would have been different. But then, Bush had also promised him those billions as a quid pro quo. Now who could resist that tempting offer? After all, Pakistan needed those dollars without which it would have been difficult to maintain a fairly healthy growth rate that existed prior to 9/11.

And then those dollars were also needed to bolster the defences against a numerically superior Indian Army on its Eastern front. For example:

1. Air defence radars despite the fact the terrorists fighting the Pakistani Army had no air attack capability!
2. Expanding nuclear capability including delivery systems.
3. F-16s.
4. Aircraft‐mounted armaments.
5. Anti‐ship and antimissile defense systems including P3C Orions.

Over half of the total funds—54.9 percent—were spent on fighter aircraft and weapons, over a quarter—26.62 percent—on support and other aircraft, and 10 percent on advanced weapons systems. These for fighting a band of brigands?

There is also clear evidence of corruption within the Pakistani army.

The United States provided $1.5 million to reimburse Pakistan for damage to Navy vehicles which had not been used in combat, $15 million for the Pakistani army to build bunkers for which there is no evidence that they exist, and about $30 million for Pakistani road‐building for which there is no such evidence either. Fifty‐five million dollars was provided for helicopter maintenance for the entire national helicopter fleet which was not performed. Pakistan continued to receive around $80 million per month for military operations during ceasefire periods when troops were in their barracks. U.S. officials visiting the FATA found Pakistani Frontier Corps units poorly equipped, one reporting that he saw members of the Corps “standing ... in the snow in sandals,” with several wearing World War I–era pith helmets and carrying barely functional Kalashnikov rifles with “just 10 rounds of ammunition each”. At one point, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf himself complained that Pakistan’s helicopters needed more U.S. spare parts and support, despite reports from U.S. military officials that the United States had provided $8 million worth of Cobra parts over the previous six months.

“The great majority” of the Coalition Support Funds given by the United States to reimburse Pakistan for counter terrorism operations was reportedly diverted to the Ministry of Finance, with only $300 million reaching the Army in the financial year ending 2008. This is evidence of corruption at the highest level. The result is that, after eight years of funding, many Pakistani troops in the FATA lack basic equipment such as sufficient ammunition, armored vests, and shoes. For many years, U.S. officials ignored clear evidence that the military was not using U.S. funds to further U.S. foreign policy objectives.

Though aid should not be stopped at this critical juncture, it is clear that the United States needs to change how it provides assistance to Pakistan. Aid must be broadened beyond Pakistan’s military. The United States must ensure that funding it gives to Pakistan’s military is utilized for the right purposes.

More here....

U.S. Aid to Pakistan—U.S. Taxpayers Have Funded Pakistani Corruption - Harvard - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs