ISLAMABAD — Pakistan on Friday successfully test fired new missiles and torpedoes from ships, submarines and aircraft in the Arabian Sea, the navy announced.
"Pakistan navy fleet today tested its fire power in the north Arabian Sea to assess lethality, precision and efficacy of its weapon system," it said.
The navy did not disclose range or technical details but said "this included successful firing of a variety of missiles and torpedoes from the ships."
The tests included anti-surface missiles from an F-22P frigate, acquired recently from China, air-to-surface missiles from P-3C aircraft and sub surface-to-surface missiles from Agosta 90B submarines that originate from France.
"While reassuring Pakistan navy's commitment of defending the motherland, this strike capability would also send a message of deterrence to anyone harbouring nefarious designs against Pakistan," the statement said.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan navy test fires missiles, torpedoes: AFP
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Pakistan navy test fires missiles, torpedoes: AFP
Friday, March 12, 2010
How the CIA Uses Pakistan as a Launch Pad for Drones: Spiegel.de
By Hasnain Kazim in Islamabad
As so often, the sky is a radiant blue over Mir Ali, a small Pakistani town in the province of North Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan. Alerted by a buzzing sound, a few people come out of their houses. Spotting a small aircraft a few hundred meters away, they panic, and those who can flee into the next village. The craft is a Predator drone, an unmanned plane launched from a secret airbase in Pakistan and controlled remotely by the CIA in Virginia back in the US. "We panic because we live in constant fear of being hit by a rocket," says Haji Gul, one of the inhabitants of Mir Ali.
Almost every day now, Pakistani television shows footage of houses destroyed and villages devastated by drone attacks. One such attack in mid-January killed three people in Mir Ali, all of them allegedly members of an extremist militia.
However the rockets fired by these remote-controlled mini-planes do not only kill terrorists. Drone strikes have an indirect -- and sometimes also direct -- impact on everyone who lives in the affected regions along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Some of the locals are worried, others are angry. They fear for their lives now that the CIA's drone war is taking on ever greater dimensions and using Pakistan as a launch pad.
For it is here, in hidden airfields in Pakistan, that the drones are primed and launched. And it is mainly here that they carry out attacks, especially in North and South Waziristan, two regions that border Afghanistan and which are a stronghold of an unknown number of militant groups.
Controversial Campaign
Despite its success against the Pakistani Taliban, the use of drones by the Americans remains controversial in Pakistan. According to a Gallup poll, only 9 percent of Pakistanis are in favor of them. Two-thirds reject them outright.
There are several reasons for this. People living along the border with Afghanistan, for example, regularly complain that the rockets also kill civilians who have nothing to do with the insurgents. What's more, the Pakistani government feels the US has put it in a tight spot. Islamabad doesn't like foreign military activity on its territory -- at least officially. It claims America's actions constitute a violation of Pakistani sovereignty.
In a November 2009 interview with SPIEGEL, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani went so far as to describe the drone attacks as "counterproductive." "The political and the military leadership have been very successful in isolating the militants from the local tribes. But once there is a drone attack in their home region, they get united again," he said. "This is a dangerous trend, and it is my concern and the concern of the army. It is also counterproductive in the sense that it is creating a lot of anti-American sentiment all over the country."
For more on this article, please click on the following link: How the CIA Uses Pakistan as a Launch Pad for Drones: Spiegel.de
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Pakistan proved right in Regi case: The News
By By Amir Mir
LAHORE: The arrest of the Jundallah chief Abdolmalek Regi by Iranian authorities hardly 24 hours after he had left an American military base in Afghanistan has vindicated Islamabad’s October 2009 stance that the anti-Shia renegade leader was no more hiding in Pakistan and was now operating from Afghanistan.
Regi, being Iran’s most wanted terrorist leader, had claimed responsibility for several major terrorist attacks carried out in Iran in the recent past, including the October 18 suicide bombing in Tehran. He was finally arrested along with his deputy after Iranian fighter planes intercepted a commercial flight over Persian Gulf which was travelling from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan and forced it to make an emergency landing at an unknown location. Informed circles in Islamabad say the most vital tip about the travel plans of Regi leading to his arrest actually came from Pakistan.
The Iranians have already recovered from him his Afghan passport, which according to Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, had been supplied to him by the United States. The recovery of Afghan passport has also refuted the October 2009 Iranian claim that Abdolmalek Regi carries a Pakistani national identity card by the name of Saeed Ahmed, son of Ghulam Haider. Regi comes from the Regi tribe of the Baloch in Iran.
Jundallah, or “Army of God”, which is also known in Iran as the Regi group is a rebel anti-Shia Sunni militant group of Iranian Baloch, who claim to represent their minority’s rights in Iran’s southeast province of Sistan-Balochistan. The dedication of the Regi brothers to the cause of Jundallah can be gauged from the fact that one of them -- Abdolgafoor Regi - opted to sacrifice him by executing a suicide car bombing on December 28, 2008, against the headquarters of Iran’s joint police and anti-narcotics unit in the Saravan city. Before the arrest of the 30-year-old Regi, his hideout was believed to be cross-border, in the Pakistani Balochistan. In the wake of the October 18, 2009 suicide bombing in Tehran, Islamabad came under tremendous pressure from Tehran for the arrest and extradition of Regi. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad on March 20, 2009, the ambassador of Iran to Pakistan Mashallah Shakeri accused Pakistan of allowing its soil to be used against Iran and demanding concrete steps to contain its activities. Pakistan consequently maintained that its security agencies were making frantic efforts to dismantle the Jundallah network from Balochistan, adding Regi has already moved to Afghanistan after the June 15, 2008 extradition of his younger brother, Abdolhamid Regi (from Pakistan to Iran), who is now being tried by an Iranian court on terrorism charges.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan proved right in Regi case: The News
Americans Against Freedom of Judiciary in Pakistan: WSJ
Judicial Coup in Pakistan: WSJ
By DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. AND LEE A. CASEY
When U.S. President Barack Obama sharply challenged a recent Supreme Court decision in his State of the Union address, prompting a soto voce rejoinder from Justice Samuel Alito, nobody was concerned that the contretemps would spark a blood feud between the judiciary and the executive. The notion that judges could or would work to undermine a sitting U.S. president is fundamentally alien to America's constitutional system and political culture. Unfortunately, this is not the case in Pakistan.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the country's erstwhile hero, is the leading culprit in an unfolding constitutional drama. It was Mr. Chaudhry's dismissal by then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2007 that triggered street protests by lawyers and judges under the twin banners of democracy and judicial independence. This effort eventually led to Mr. Musharraf's resignation in 2008. Yet it is now Mr. Chaudhry himself who is violating those principles, having evidently embarked on a campaign to undermine and perhaps even oust President Asif Ali Zardari.
Any involvement in politics by a sitting judge, not to mention a chief justice, is utterly inconsistent with an independent judiciary's proper role. What is even worse, Chief Justice Chaudhry has been using the court to advance his anti-Zardari campaign. Two recent court actions are emblematic of this effort.
The first is a decision by the Supreme Court, announced and effective last December, to overturn the "National Reconciliation Ordinance." The NRO, which was decreed in October 2007, granted amnesty to more than 8,000 members from all political parties who had been accused of corruption in the media and some of whom had pending indictments.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: Americans Against Freedom of Judiciary in Pakistan: WSJ
GORDON DUFF: PAKISTAN’S IMRAN KHAN; LOOKING FOR “AMERICA” IN THE STRANGEST PLACES: Veterans Today
Traveling around Pakistan is a challenge for an American nowadays. It’s not the highways. It isn’t even that our second vehicle was “armed to the teeth” as we weaved through traffic and up and down superhighways and dusty back roads. The difficulty is the landscape itself, a land, at times, very American in appearance and yet strange and wondrous too. It was the similarities that scared us.
We were there as Americans for a series of lectures and meetings to discuss economics and regional politics at universities and “think tanks.” Pakistan, a country of poverty and wealth, a nation threatened like no other was much like looking in a mirror, perhaps a mirror into America’s future.
A couple of nights ago, author and economist Jeff Gates and I along with Editor Raja Mujtaba of Opinion Maker, the controversial open forum where academics, military leaders and political dissidents from that region fight it out daily on the internet, met with Pakistani political leader, Imran Khan.
Meeting Khan was important to us because he is the only political figure in Pakistan that is widely respected in Afghanistan, a nation that could, potentially, bog American down for years in a bizarre and indefinable combination of “counter-terrorism” and traditional tribal warfare. Only Khan is respected on both sides of the border, Khan and General Aslam Beg, former Army Chief of Staff in Pakistan.
That there is suspicion between Pakistan and Afghanistan is an understatement. Millions of Afghanis and Pakistanis are, not only ethnically identical, but members of the same tribes, even families. Today, up to 4 million refugees from Afghanistan live in Pakistan’s tribal areas. These refugees combined with elements of a Pakistani Taliban have created a drain on Pakistan’s resources, a breeding ground for religious extremism and provided safe havens for Taliban sects that are clearly extremist, terrorist and criminal in nature.
With as many as 50 million people considering themselves “Taliban,” most non-extremist, differentiating between good and bad “Taliban” has been difficult and, in the case of American efforts, something approached with questionable intent.
Not that many years ago, the United States and Pakistan trained and armed the Mujahedeen, both Afghan and foreign fighters to overthrow Soviet dominance in Afghanistan. A generation later, our failure to demilitarize and rehabilitate these elements and the region has led to untold instability, world terrorism and a war against Pakistan supported by terrorist elements aided by massive funding and sophisticated weaponry and training whose origin can be traced with little difficulty to India and Israel.
Man or legend.
If a man describes “controversy” it is Imran Khan. Few people define the hopes of Islamic moderates as does Khan. This “Khan’s” empire, a “superstar” athlete of the cricket world, a sport unknown to most Americans, consists of that huge portion of the world our maps used to color pink, the regions we used to call the British Empire, a region covering 40% of the globe. When the British conquered the world they took their most beloved sport with them, cricket.
What if an American baseball pitcher won 30 games a year with an ERA of 2.0 and batted .400? Then surround him with controversy, a Muslim with a Jewish ex-wife, looks and charm and a reputed “way with the ladies” that keeps the tabloids stalking him and, oh, I forgot to mention this, make him the head of a political party. You will now begin to understand the enigma of Imran Khan
It gets worse.
He is Pashtu, a Pashtun, one of the same ethnic group Americans know as the Taliban, a group well out of the mainstream in Pakistani politics. In a country ruled by the “Europeanized” Punjabi and Sindh, a Pashtu political leader makes Barak Hussein Obama seem “mainstream.”
It gets worse still.
Khan is not only a controversial celebrity, but an outspoken reformer fighting government corruption. Khan is a friend of Americans but strong enemy of American influence in Pakistan and very critical for the west for its mistrust of Islam. He believes the west doesn’t know the difference between a Taliban extremist and a moderate Sufi cleric but can pick out a Methodist from a Lutheran in seconds.
Imagine an American sports hero who is an Oxford trained economist, sponsored the nation’s largest cancer center and is now building a university for those who would never otherwise see a higher education.
We had to meet this guy.
His political offices were moderate. We had visited political parties in Pakistan that looked more like Ivy League campuses. Khan’s party was used furniture, peeling paint and the sound of work, footsteps up and down stairs and a lot of noise. It was an election night in Rawalpindi. A seat in the national assembly was up for grabs and charges of election fraud had charged the air.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: GORDON DUFF: PAKISTAN’S IMRAN KHAN; LOOKING FOR “AMERICA” IN THE STRANGEST PLACES: Veterans Today
Pakistan’s nuclear profile: Sun2Surf
PAKISTAN encapsulates some of the key security challenges facing the international community. The presence of al-Qaeda and nuclear weapons on its soil under the overhang of conflict-prone ties with India remain critical geo-political concerns.
Although media coverage related to Pakistan has emphasised the militancy issue in light of the violence in Pakistan and the conflict in Afghanistan, analysing the full dimensions of Pakistan’s nuclear programme is essential to understanding its security profile. Pakistan’s nuclear engagement began in 1955 as part of the Atoms for Peace programme launched by the US. Thirty-seven Pakistani scientists trained at US atomic facilities and a small research facility was established in Pakistan with US assistance.
Yet following Pakistan’s defeat in the 1971 war with India, its nuclear ambitions were weaponised.
In 1972, President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto declared, “if India builds the Bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry. But we will get one of our own.”
Two decades later in May 1998, in a series of tit-for-tat nuclear tests, India and Pakistan officially joined the nuclear club. Estimates suggest Pakistan has enough material for sixty to hundred bombs deliverable by attack aircraft and missiles.
To ensure proper command and control over this arsenal, in February 2002, the National Command Authority (NCA) was set up to formulate policy and exercise employment and development control over all strategic nuclear forces and organisations.
Under a presidential ordinance passed by Gen Musharraf in 2007, the president was to chair the NCA that was to include the prime minister as vice-chairman and senior cabinet and military officials. Last November, President Zardari handed his powers in the NCA to the prime minister though real control remains with the military.
Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine is geared toward ensuring a “credible minimum deterrent” against India. As a result of India’s conventional military superiority, Pakistan has refrained from adopting a no-first-use doctrine, ie it retains the right to use nuclear weapons in a conflict even if it has not been attacked with them. Pakistan has not articulated a formal nuclear doctrine; however, in January 2002, Gen Khalid Kidwai who chairs the NCA’s secretariat outlined general conditions of use: if India attacks Pakistan and conquers a large part of its territory; destroys a large part either of its land or air forces; proceeds to the economic strangling of Pakistan; or pushes Pakistan into political destabilisation or creates a large scale internal subversion.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan’s nuclear profile: Sun2Surf
Pakistan court blocks Baradar extradition: FT
By Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad
A Pakistani provincial high court yesterday blocked the extradition of captured Afghan Taliban leaders including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in an unexpected twist that threatens to undermine Islamabad’s commitment to hunt down islamist militants
Mullah Baradar, the Taliban military chief in Afghanistan, was captured by Pakistan’s intelligence agents assisted by the CIA, from the southern port city of Karachi earlier this month. On Thursday, a statement from the office of Afghan president Hamid Karzai announced an agreement with Pakistan for Mullah Baradar to be handed over to Afganistan.
The government - which has come under intense western pressure, especially from the US, to crackdown on Taliban militants in the country - could appeal to the supreme court to have the decision overturned.
Khalid Khawaja, a pro-islamist campaigner who has actively opposed Pakistan forging closer ties with the US and who filed the petition to the court said; “I feel encouraged as we can’t hand over our people to the US, Afghanistan or any other country”.
Judge Khawaja Mohammad Sharif issued his order in Lahore saying: “They [the Taliban] should not be handed over to any other country” and set March 15 as the next date for hearing the case.
In addition to Mullah Baradar, other Taliban militants named by Mr Khawaja among those arrested recently include Mullah Abdus Salaam, Mullah Kabir, Mullah Mohammad and Mullah Amir Muawiya.
Analysts said, Friday’s development underlined a tendency among islamists to use Pakistan’s increasingly robust civil society, the media and the courts to press their case.
“Whatever you might say otherwise, it is the case that Pakistan’s civil society, courts and the press are all among the freest in the developing world” said one western diplomat in Islamabad. “This is a strength which we may not like in this particular case because the islamists are using it to their advantage, but it is a strength”.
Lieutenant General (retired) Abdul Qayyum, a former Pakistani military commander, warned that handing over Taliban militants to a foreign country would provoke a backlash. “If these people are sent to Afghanistan, it is as good as sending them to America. We can’t hand over these people to an outside power. That will annoy Pakistanis even more so than before” he said.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan court blocks Baradar extradition: FT
US to spend $50 million on media in Pakistan: Examiner
Ibrahim Sajid Malick
The Obama administration plans to spend nearly $50 million on Pakistani media this year to reverse anti-American sentiments and raise awareness of projects aimed at improving quality of life, confirms a Washington insider.
After the Kerry-Lugar Bill debacle, the Obama administration had struggled with the idea of ‘branding’ aid and many within the State department and the USAID had argued that identifying projects may backfire.
“By announcing that a school was built and is being maintained – partly because of the aid received from America – you can alienate people,” said someone who had proposed not ‘branding’ the aid.
The US Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke believes that a substantial amount of monies spent on media- especially private TV channels will reduce tension and may even bring Pakistan-US relations back on the right path.
Senator John Kerry, the main architect of Kerry-Lugar bill also supports the idea of claiming credit for all “the good work being done to improve infrastructure, energy and education,” said a source in Senator’s office.
Reuters today reported that the Obama administration has sent lawmakers a plan for funding water, energy and other projects. Report said the US intends to spend $1.45 billion of earmarked for the Kerry-Lugar bill in fiscal 2010.
The trust deficit had surged after a well intended aid package focused to uplift Pakistan’s civilian society was trashed by a section of Pakistani media. Interviews with diplomatic sources in Washington, D.C. and media coverage of the KLB debacle had demonstrated growing frustration of the Obama administration.
Although American officials publicly praise military operation in South Waziristan, in private they sing a different tune; their assessment of ”alignment” is rather pessimistic. Stories leaked to media consistently allege that al-Qaeda leadership is still enjoying safe haven in Pakistan.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: US to spend $50 million on media in Pakistan: Examiner
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Indian Army Chief’s outrageous admission of Armoured debacle stuns the world: Daily Mail
By Makhdoom Babar
(Additional reporting by Ajay Mehta in New Delhi & Hina Kayani in Rawalpindi)
While the Indians celebrate 62nd Army Day, country’s Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor, just after a couple of weeks of announcing a new war doctrine of Indian army to eliminate Pakistan and China in matter of hours even if it has to fight on simultaneous fronts, outrageously admitted Indian Army’s Armoured debacle and expressed concern about the force's 'night blindness' in the area of Armoured Corps and mechanised infantry. 'My major concern is that night blindness of the army is removed so we are able to fight in the night as in the day,' Kapoor said at New Delhi Yesterday, an admission that stunned the world in the back drop of his two weeks old remarks. The situation also forced Indian Defence Minister Antony to chew his own buts as he had been endorsing and projecting General Kapoor’s announcement regarding the new war doctrine for Pakistan and China Earlier, when his attention was brought to the fact that the Indian Army's tanks have a night vision capability of 20 percent, Pakistan's have 80 percent while China has 100 percent, General Deepak Kapoor admitted this outrageous military debacle by saying: 'You are right.'
'Projects are already in the pipeline to ensure that we have the night vision capability that our adversaries have. It may take three-four years,' Kapoor added. The lack of night vision capability of the Indian Army has affected its fighting capability during the night. The deficiency has been persistent since the Kargil conflict.
On a query about the obsolete artillery of the Indian Army, the army chief said that successive bans have delayed acquisition of new guns for long. 'Artillery is a cause for concern. We need to have better guns. Trials for towed guns are underway. Because of bans the process got delayed. We are now acquiring (ultra light) guns through FMS (Foreign Military Sales) route (from the US),' Kapoor added.
The Daily mail’s investigations into the matter reveal that despite a numerical strength of tanks over Pakistan, Indian army otherwise armoured and infantry capabilities are even below average if compared with Pakistan Army. According to these findings, Indian armoured corps comprises around 4, 059 tanks with a backup of 1, 133 as reserve while Pakistan Army’s Tank strength is 2,401 with a backup of 270 as reserves. However this numerical supremacy of Indian army is outraged with the fact that Indian armoured corps relies mainly on its Main Battle Tank (MBT) Arjun which emerged as a big failure while Pakistan Army’s armoured corps’ main strength has become Al-Khalid MBT which is a great success story, endorsed across the world. But the latest admission of Indian Army Chief about failure of its armoured corps to fight a battle in the night time is an additional and a rather huge disadvantage to the Indian Army and crystal clearly negates the claims of Indian Army Chief regarding smooth victory in case Indian army has to fight a war with Pakistan or China or even both at the same time.
The Daily Mail’s findings further disclose that India’s MBT Arjun is more flab than brawn. More a heavyweight than a performer. A potpourri really, with a French engine, and German seals fitted into an Indian hull and turret. And transporting this heavyweight is going to be another problem, which could limit its operational performance.
These findings further indicate that Arjun has indeed suffered throughout its development, from confusion and inexplicable delays and by imbalances between the Army, the DRDO and the bureaucracy. Pakistan by contrast, has drawn a lesson from the Indian experience and avoided the trap of over lasting her R&D’s indigenous know-how in the development of its MBT Al-Khalid.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: Indian Army Chief’s outrageous admission of Armoured debacle stuns the world: Daily Mail
Monday, December 21, 2009
Try Pakistan’s M2 motorway: The Gazette
ISLAMABAD - If you want a slice of peace and stability in a country with a reputation for violence and chaos, try Pakistan’s M2 motorway.
At times foreign reporters need to a give a nation a rest from their instinctive cynicism. I feel like that with Pakistan each time I whizz along the M2 between Islamabad and Lahore, the only motorway I know that inspires me to write.
Now, if the M2 conjures images of bland, spotless tarmac interspersed with gas stations and fast food outlets, you would be right. But this is South Asia, land of potholes, reckless driving and the occasional invasion of livestock.
And this is Pakistan, for many a "failed state". Here, blandness can inspire almost heady optimism.
Built in the 1990s at a cost of around $1 billion, the 228-mile (367-km) motorway -- which continues to Peshawar as the M1 -- is like a six-lane highway to paradise in a country that usually makes headlines for suicide bombers, army offensives and political mayhem.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: Try Pakistan’s M2 motorway: The Gazette
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Pakistan has Given Reverse Aid to the US Worth $5.1 Billion Since 2006: Economistan
Much hue and cry has been made out of the Aid US has given to Pakistan over the years. However, all this Aid amounts to pittance when we realize that US has given Pakistan over a period of 60 years only $8.9 billion dollars in economic assistance. This amount is less than even the remittances that Pakistanis would send this year which would amount to a little more than $9 billion dollars. The military aid that the US has given to Pakistan over the past 62 years amounts to $14.7 billion, which includes $5 billion dollars which were given to Pakistan during the Zia years to drive the Soviets back from Afghanistan thus signaling the end of the Cold War. In short, Pakistan won the war for the US for just $5 billion which speaks volumes about the efficiency and determination of Pakistan Armed Forces.
This $5 billion not only covered the cost of arming and training Afghan fighters and the supply of stinger missiles which were instrumental in bringing down Russian air power but also helicopters and other weapons and fuel needed to defeat the Soviets. It was a war in which many Pakistani fighter pilots also laid down their lives in an effort to drive the Russians away from Afghanistan.
The US basically used Pakistan to win its war against Russia and dubbed the Foreign Direct Investment in this Cold War as US Aid. Paying another country to fight its own war should not be called as Aid but wages for fighting the war. Again during so the called “War on Terror”, the US has enrolled its old and forgotten partner to do all the work for it and given Pakistan a little more than $ 9 billion as Coalition Support Funds (or “Military Aid”) to win the war.
A major portion of these Coalition Support Funds however, also includes the cost of fuel that Pakistan supplies to the US forces based in Afghanistan. In effect the US calls the money it gives to Pakistan for the fuel that the US itself uses in Afghanistan as “Military Aid”. There are also reports that Pakistan is supplying the fuel to the US below cost. The Coalition Support Funds and Security Assistance almost entirely are composed of fuel plus the military hardware costs that the US has supplied to Pakistan. Given below is a complete breakdown of the so called “Military Aid” since 911 to Pakistan,
“Military Aid” to Pakistan since 911 | |
Coalition Support Funds | $5.6 b |
Security Assistance | $1.8 b |
Budget Support | $1.6 b |
Development | $0.9 b |
The breakdown of the total aid given to Pakistan by the US is as follows,
| Military | Economic |
1950-1964 | 700 | 2500 |
1965-1979 | 26 | 2550 |
1979-1990 | 5000 | 0 |
1991-2000 | 5 | 429 |
2001-2009 | 9000 | 3500 |
Total | $14.731 billion | $8.979 billion |
Ken Stier writes in an article on aid to Pakistan writes,
The US is using US companies and contractors to channel this so called “Aid” which is used to support US companies presently operating in Pakistan against Chinese firms along with the construction of infrastructure projects like the building and expansion of the $One billion dollar US Embassy in Pakistan. Under the same token if Pakistan spends some money from its exchequer to build part of its embassy in the US, would that also be termed as Pakistan’s aid to the US? or for that matter if Pakistan purchased any military hardware from the US would it be termed as Pakistan’s aid to the US? Under the current US definition of “aid” it would. If so then it would not be wrong to say that Pakistan has given the US aid worth $5.1 billion since 2006 because of the money it spent for the purchase of F-16s from the US. Well the logic behind the Kerry-Lugar bill is the same. This so called aid is not really aid at all instead it is US Foreign Direct Investment in Pakistan to accomplish its nefarious designs such as expansion of US military infrastructure in Pakistan through use of private military contractors and blacklisted companies like Black Water and stationing of US marines and hardware in Pakistan through overt and covert means.
The funny thing is that this so called US Aid is spread over many years comes with harsh conditions. The US just playing with terminologies and fooling the people of Pakistan into thinking that the money US is using in supporting US companies in Pakistan and building its own embassy is aid. It is about time for Pakistan to wake up and aggressively address the issues of the sovereignty in Pakistan and excessive US interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs in the garb of this so called aid. Pakistan would also be well served to reject this so called aid and closely scrutinize all of this “Foreign Direct Investment” from the US which it calls aid to Pakistan. Pakistan should require the US to give a detailed list of each and every item that is purchased through this money in Pakistan and which US companies, contractors and concerns are the beneficiaries of the so called “aid”.
Pakistan's Aid to the US since 2006 | |
$ 3 billion | |
$ 650 million | |
Item 3: F-16A/B Mid-Life Update Modification Kits – $1.3 billion | $ 1.3 billion |
Item 4: F-16A/B Engine Modifications & UP/STAR – $151 Million | $ 151 million |
Thanks to the billions of dollars that overseas Pakistanis have sent to Pakistan just this year($ 9 billion), the current account deficit of the current financial year for Pakistan has reduced to a mere $462 million dollars which bodes well for Pakistan. Pakistan’s stock market is also in recovery mode and rose by 2.4% to 9,374 points since Sept 24. It is about time Pakistan reconsidered its partnership with the US and called the US military aid or foreign direct investment in Pakistan “US military expense” and the US economic assistance to Pakistan over the last 62 years of $ 8.9 billion dollars what it is, a “Pittance”.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: Pakistan has Given Reverse Aid to the US Worth $5.1 Billion Since 2006: Economistan
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
About Those Billions: Newsweek
By Katie Paul
It was with the best of intentions that the U.S. funneled nearly $5.3 billion to Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. After all, that money helped strike down a Cold War adversary. But there were unintended consequences too—namely, the Taliban. Since 9/11, the U.S. has turned on the spigot again, sending more than $15 billion in assistance to Pakistan. President Barack Obama just approved another $7.5 billion this month, which triples aid while committing to another five years of funding. It also bolsters development efforts, which, according to bill coauthor Sen. John Kerry, will "build a relationship with the people [of Pakistan] to show that what we want is a relationship that meets their interests and needs."
But how effective will this round of money be? Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad have alleged that Pakistan misspent some 70 percent of the U.S. funds that paid the Pakistani military to run missions in the unwieldy provinces along the Afghan border. U.S. officials accuse Pakistan of running a double game with the money, keeping the Taliban at bay just enough to persuade American benefactors to keep their wallets open, thereby ensuring a lifeline for the country's mangled economy. All of which raises the question: will any amount of money produce results?
A big part of that answer lies in determining how much bang the United States has gotten for its buck so far—whether or not some of the money was siphoned off along the way to fund Army generals' new houses or Taliban elements. Here's an accounting of aid sent over from the United States to Pakistan in recent decades, divided into eras based on the ebbs and flows of assistance. (Figures are in historical dollars.)
1950-1964: As the Cold War heated up, a 1954 security agreement prompted the United States to provide nearly $2.5 billion in economic aid and $700 million in military aid to Pakistan.
1965-1979: With the Indo-Pakistani hostilities in the late 1960s, the United States retreated. Between 1965 and 1971, the U.S. sent only $26 million in military aid, which was cut back even further to $2.9 million through the end of the decade. Meanwhile, economic aid kept flowing, totaling $2.55 billion over the 15 years. Everything came to a halt in 1979, however, when the Carter administration cut off all but food aid after discovering a uranium-enrichment facility in Pakistan. Pakistani leader Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq refused $400 million, split for economic and military aid from President Jimmy Carter, calling it "peanuts." The following year, he was rewarded with a much more attractive offer.
1979-1990: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan changed everything. Pakistan's ISI security apparatus became the primary means of funneling covert U.S. assistance to anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan. From 1980 to 1990, the United States ramped up its contributions for both development and military purposes, sending more than $5 billion over the course of the decade.
1991-2000: But even while Pakistan was serving a strategic Cold War purpose, concerns persisted about the country's nuclear ambitions. That gave President George H.W. Bush an easy out from the massive funding commitments in 1990, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Aid over the next decade withered to $429 million in economic assistance and $5.2 million in military assistance, a drop-off Pakistanis still cite bitterly, accusing the United States of leaving them high and dry during the decade.
2001-2009: Since 9/11, the United States has once again bolstered its funding commitments, sending nearly $9 billion in military assistance both to aid and reimburse Pakistan for its operations in the unwieldy border regions with Afghanistan. Another $3.6 billion has funded economic and diplomatic initiatives. But U.S. officials and journalists' accounts have raised concerns that such funds are not being used as intended, and not just because of the typical concerns about corruption. Documented military and civilian government deals with Taliban elements, like a 2004 agreement with Waziri militant leader Nek Mohammed, have confirmed that money intended to fight the Taliban is, in many cases, being used instead to pay them off. (Islamabad is currently battling Taliban fighters in Waziristan.) When the deals fall through, as rapidly shifting alliances in Pakistan's tribal regions often do, that money ultimately ends up funding the insurgency. U.S. officials have expressed particular concerns about the Pakistani government's links to the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, which reportedly has ties to Al Qaeda. At the same time, former president Pervez Musharraf has recently admitted to using U.S. military funding to strengthen defenses against India.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: About Those Billions: Newsweek
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