AbdulQadir7
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2024
- Messages
- 1,229
- Reaction score
- 0
- Country
- Location
According to a congressional aide, the Trump administration has approved $397 million for a US-backed program in Pakistan that tracked the country's use of US-made F-16 fighter jets to make sure they were used for terrorist missions and not against rival India.
According to a list of exemptions examined by Reuters, which only included minimal humanitarian aid the action was a part of the release of $5.3 billion in previously blocked foreign aid primarily for security and counter narcotics programs.
Tech stock footage 3 on February 25Tech stock footage 3 on February 25
The money will help the Technical Security Team (TST), a group of contractors stationed in Pakistan to supervise the use of F-16s under "strict end-use monitoring rules, which seem to require the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to only use the F-16s, especially the newer F-16C/D Block-52 fighters, for counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism operations," according to Quwa, a defense and analysis group focused on Pakistan.
The TST has been in Pakistan since 2019, when the US authorized its current deployment with a $125 million support package for the PAF F-16 fleet, the report added, noting that the oversight was "not new."
But according to a 2019 Foreign Policy magazine article, Pakistan signed an end-use agreement when it received the F-16 from the US, which did not prohibit it from being used in a combat with India.
The well-known American magazine also denied India's allegation that it shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet during a dogfight in the heightened tensions that followed the 2019 Pulwama incident.
According to two US defense sources FP spoke with who had "knowledge of the count" every F-16 was "present and accounted for."
One of them went on to say "We would be incredibly naive to think that we could sell Pakistan some sort of equipment that they would not intend to use in a fight."
The officials added that after India claimed that its air force had shot down an F-16 fighter jet during a duel on February 27, 2019, Pakistan urged the US to conduct the count.
The US is able to perform these counts thanks to an end-user agreement that was negotiated at the time the foreign military sale was finalized.
According to a report by US News and World Report the US also recognized that Pakistan needed to defend itself against the Indian invasion in February 2019 by using F-16 fighter jets.
However, Washington was not pleased with Islamabad's choice to place these US-supplied aircraft and missiles in forward positions during the conflict according to the paper the magazine was able to secure.
Despite this the US administration informed Congress in 2022 of a potential $450 million foreign military sale to Pakistan in order to support the PAF's F-16 program.
The US does not block aid for security funding but it does so for social programs.
Shortly after taking office on January 20 President Donald Trump issued an order to freeze foreign aid for 90 days. This halts financing for everything from programs that combat fatal diseases and famine to sheltering millions of displaced people worldwide.
US authorities and humanitarian organizations rushed to get exemptions from the freeze in order to continue their programs. In late January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has stated that all foreign aid must be in line with Trump's "America First" policies, granted waivers for both life-saving humanitarian aid, such as food, and military aid to Israel and Egypt, the two main US allies in the Middle East.
Those cash should have been able to be used because of the waivers. But according to aid organizations and current and former US officials not many exceptions for humanitarian help have been authorized.
A list of 243 further exclusions that had been approved as of February 13 and totaled $5.3 billion was provided to Reuters. The White House's intention to reduce help for programs it deems unnecessary for US national security is reflected in the list, which offers the most thorough accounting of exempted cash since Trump issued the aid freeze.
Programs that will get funding are listed along with the US government office in charge of overseeing them.
More than $4.1 billion, or the great bulk of the released monies, went into programs run by the US State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which is in charge of managing military aid and arms sales to other nations and organizations. Other exclusions aligned with Trump's efforts to curb the flow of illegal drugs such as the lethal opioid fentanyl into the United States and his immigration crackdown.
According to the list, the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL, will oversee more than half of the programs that are permitted to continue. These programs are designed to combat drug trafficking and illegal migration to the United States.
The $293 million worth of exemptions included money for databases that follow immigration, identify potential terrorists, and exchange biometric data.
A request for comment from the State Department was not answered. Reuters was unable to ascertain whether certain exclusions that were not on the list had actually been granted.
According to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible government Budget, Trump has long complained about foreign aid, which has accounted for less than 2% of all government spending on average over the previous 20 years. The US "foreign aid industry" is "in many cases antithetical to American values," according to Trump.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the primary delivery system for US international aid and a vital component of US "soft power" for gaining sway overseas, has been targeted for dismantling by billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
The list shows that USAID programs received less than $100 million in exemptions compared to security-related programs. This is comparable to the approximately $40 billion in USAID programs that were run each year prior to the freeze.
$78 million for non-food humanitarian aid in Gaza, which has been ravaged by Israel's attack, was one of the exempted USAID programs. According to the list, an additional $56 million was made available for the International Committee of the Red Cross in connection with the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Some of the biggest humanitarian crises in the globe, such as those in Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Myanmar, and Afghanistan, were not specifically excepted from the list, which suggests that funding for those countries has remained halted.
According to the list, security exclusions included $870 million for programs in Taiwan, $336 million for the modernization of Philippine security forces, and more than $21.5 million for armored vehicles and body armor for Ukraine's border guards and national police.
The largest non-security exception was $500 million for PEPFAR, the United States' premier HIV/AIDS program that primarily provides funding for medical services in Africa and is said to have saved millions of lives. This contrasts with PEPFAR's $6.5 billion 2024 yearly budget. The global health bureau of the State Department is in charge of administering PEPFAR.
Speaking on condition of anonymity a current USAID employee called the exemption request process "very dysfunctional" and stated that the agency's remaining staff members had asked for clarification on the criteria being applied.
According to Rubio, the Trump administration contacted USAID outposts abroad to determine which programs would be exempt.
Reducing foreign aid to a limited number of exemptions, according to J. Brian Atwood, USAID's administrator from 1993 to 1999, was a misguided move. "People who are hungry or in a desperate situation will eventually become a security issue" he stated. "They'll migrate, cause immigration issues, or they'll be more likely to join terrorist organizations."
Under the US Constitution Congress which controls the federal budget had previously approved the foreign aid that Trump halted. Trump has stated both as president and as a candidate that he would rather use the funds domestically and oppose international aid for "countries that hate us."
before to a federal judge last week ordering the Trump administration to reinstate financing for foreign aid contracts and awards that were in place before to January 20, the exclusions on the list were approved. Since 13 February Reuters was unable to determine whether any exemptions had been given.
Trump's attention on drug trafficking is evident in many of the unfrozen programs, such as funding for Mexican security units' fentanyl interdiction efforts and initiatives to fight transnational criminal organizations.
But their attempts have been hampered by Trump's aid freeze.
According to a Reuters story last week the stoppage put an end to anti-drug initiatives in Mexico that were supported by the INL Bureau and had been attempting for years to stop the importation of synthetic opioids into the United States.
To help Haiti's government combat the rising gang violence that has forced over a million people to flee their homes, more than $64 million was made available to support Haitian police and an international security force authorized by the UN.
According to the list, the funds are used for small guns, ammunition, drones, night vision goggles, vehicles, and other force support items. Personnel from Jamaica, Belize, the Bahamas, Guatemala, and El Salvador are part of the force, which is headed by Kenya.
According to the list, 17 exemptions totaling more than $30.4 million were granted to the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, which works to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and other WMDs.
Smaller expenses were covered by some of the released monies, such as $604 for Musk's Starlink satellite internet system to operate biometrics registration programs in the Darien Gap, a dangerous 60-mile corridor connecting South and Central America that illegal migrants traveling to the US use.
US releases $397m for monitoring programme of Pakistan’s F-16s https://www.dawn.com/news/1894241
According to a list of exemptions examined by Reuters, which only included minimal humanitarian aid the action was a part of the release of $5.3 billion in previously blocked foreign aid primarily for security and counter narcotics programs.
Tech stock footage 3 on February 25Tech stock footage 3 on February 25
The money will help the Technical Security Team (TST), a group of contractors stationed in Pakistan to supervise the use of F-16s under "strict end-use monitoring rules, which seem to require the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to only use the F-16s, especially the newer F-16C/D Block-52 fighters, for counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism operations," according to Quwa, a defense and analysis group focused on Pakistan.
The TST has been in Pakistan since 2019, when the US authorized its current deployment with a $125 million support package for the PAF F-16 fleet, the report added, noting that the oversight was "not new."
But according to a 2019 Foreign Policy magazine article, Pakistan signed an end-use agreement when it received the F-16 from the US, which did not prohibit it from being used in a combat with India.
The well-known American magazine also denied India's allegation that it shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet during a dogfight in the heightened tensions that followed the 2019 Pulwama incident.
According to two US defense sources FP spoke with who had "knowledge of the count" every F-16 was "present and accounted for."
One of them went on to say "We would be incredibly naive to think that we could sell Pakistan some sort of equipment that they would not intend to use in a fight."
The officials added that after India claimed that its air force had shot down an F-16 fighter jet during a duel on February 27, 2019, Pakistan urged the US to conduct the count.
The US is able to perform these counts thanks to an end-user agreement that was negotiated at the time the foreign military sale was finalized.
According to a report by US News and World Report the US also recognized that Pakistan needed to defend itself against the Indian invasion in February 2019 by using F-16 fighter jets.
However, Washington was not pleased with Islamabad's choice to place these US-supplied aircraft and missiles in forward positions during the conflict according to the paper the magazine was able to secure.
Despite this the US administration informed Congress in 2022 of a potential $450 million foreign military sale to Pakistan in order to support the PAF's F-16 program.
The US does not block aid for security funding but it does so for social programs.
Shortly after taking office on January 20 President Donald Trump issued an order to freeze foreign aid for 90 days. This halts financing for everything from programs that combat fatal diseases and famine to sheltering millions of displaced people worldwide.
US authorities and humanitarian organizations rushed to get exemptions from the freeze in order to continue their programs. In late January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has stated that all foreign aid must be in line with Trump's "America First" policies, granted waivers for both life-saving humanitarian aid, such as food, and military aid to Israel and Egypt, the two main US allies in the Middle East.
Those cash should have been able to be used because of the waivers. But according to aid organizations and current and former US officials not many exceptions for humanitarian help have been authorized.
A list of 243 further exclusions that had been approved as of February 13 and totaled $5.3 billion was provided to Reuters. The White House's intention to reduce help for programs it deems unnecessary for US national security is reflected in the list, which offers the most thorough accounting of exempted cash since Trump issued the aid freeze.
Programs that will get funding are listed along with the US government office in charge of overseeing them.
More than $4.1 billion, or the great bulk of the released monies, went into programs run by the US State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which is in charge of managing military aid and arms sales to other nations and organizations. Other exclusions aligned with Trump's efforts to curb the flow of illegal drugs such as the lethal opioid fentanyl into the United States and his immigration crackdown.
According to the list, the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL, will oversee more than half of the programs that are permitted to continue. These programs are designed to combat drug trafficking and illegal migration to the United States.
The $293 million worth of exemptions included money for databases that follow immigration, identify potential terrorists, and exchange biometric data.
A request for comment from the State Department was not answered. Reuters was unable to ascertain whether certain exclusions that were not on the list had actually been granted.
According to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible government Budget, Trump has long complained about foreign aid, which has accounted for less than 2% of all government spending on average over the previous 20 years. The US "foreign aid industry" is "in many cases antithetical to American values," according to Trump.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the primary delivery system for US international aid and a vital component of US "soft power" for gaining sway overseas, has been targeted for dismantling by billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
The list shows that USAID programs received less than $100 million in exemptions compared to security-related programs. This is comparable to the approximately $40 billion in USAID programs that were run each year prior to the freeze.
$78 million for non-food humanitarian aid in Gaza, which has been ravaged by Israel's attack, was one of the exempted USAID programs. According to the list, an additional $56 million was made available for the International Committee of the Red Cross in connection with the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Some of the biggest humanitarian crises in the globe, such as those in Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Myanmar, and Afghanistan, were not specifically excepted from the list, which suggests that funding for those countries has remained halted.
According to the list, security exclusions included $870 million for programs in Taiwan, $336 million for the modernization of Philippine security forces, and more than $21.5 million for armored vehicles and body armor for Ukraine's border guards and national police.
The largest non-security exception was $500 million for PEPFAR, the United States' premier HIV/AIDS program that primarily provides funding for medical services in Africa and is said to have saved millions of lives. This contrasts with PEPFAR's $6.5 billion 2024 yearly budget. The global health bureau of the State Department is in charge of administering PEPFAR.
Speaking on condition of anonymity a current USAID employee called the exemption request process "very dysfunctional" and stated that the agency's remaining staff members had asked for clarification on the criteria being applied.
According to Rubio, the Trump administration contacted USAID outposts abroad to determine which programs would be exempt.
Reducing foreign aid to a limited number of exemptions, according to J. Brian Atwood, USAID's administrator from 1993 to 1999, was a misguided move. "People who are hungry or in a desperate situation will eventually become a security issue" he stated. "They'll migrate, cause immigration issues, or they'll be more likely to join terrorist organizations."
Under the US Constitution Congress which controls the federal budget had previously approved the foreign aid that Trump halted. Trump has stated both as president and as a candidate that he would rather use the funds domestically and oppose international aid for "countries that hate us."
before to a federal judge last week ordering the Trump administration to reinstate financing for foreign aid contracts and awards that were in place before to January 20, the exclusions on the list were approved. Since 13 February Reuters was unable to determine whether any exemptions had been given.
Trump's attention on drug trafficking is evident in many of the unfrozen programs, such as funding for Mexican security units' fentanyl interdiction efforts and initiatives to fight transnational criminal organizations.
But their attempts have been hampered by Trump's aid freeze.
According to a Reuters story last week the stoppage put an end to anti-drug initiatives in Mexico that were supported by the INL Bureau and had been attempting for years to stop the importation of synthetic opioids into the United States.
To help Haiti's government combat the rising gang violence that has forced over a million people to flee their homes, more than $64 million was made available to support Haitian police and an international security force authorized by the UN.
According to the list, the funds are used for small guns, ammunition, drones, night vision goggles, vehicles, and other force support items. Personnel from Jamaica, Belize, the Bahamas, Guatemala, and El Salvador are part of the force, which is headed by Kenya.
According to the list, 17 exemptions totaling more than $30.4 million were granted to the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, which works to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and other WMDs.
Smaller expenses were covered by some of the released monies, such as $604 for Musk's Starlink satellite internet system to operate biometrics registration programs in the Darien Gap, a dangerous 60-mile corridor connecting South and Central America that illegal migrants traveling to the US use.
US releases $397m for monitoring programme of Pakistan’s F-16s https://www.dawn.com/news/1894241
