Ask the average American where problems are concerning the US, foreign policy, and where we’re dumping our money, and the usual list of suspects pop up. Specifically, the big three: Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel. While there are certainly points to be made there, we have a fourth suspect lately: Pakistan.
As the “War on Terror” spent its time moving west while we moved east, that can come as little surprise. What might surprise you is to see what’s happening to what efforts we are making in that area. We may not be fighting, but we’re giving economic boost to their government, so what’s that getting us? Not as much as we’d like. Big quote ahead, with a pair of bolded cuts I think are worth taking together.
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.
I often worry that the problem isn’t that we lack the resources to deal with the problems we face, but that the people in charge of moving those resources around are all looking in the wrong places, and they have been for over eight years. These situations are constantly seen in simple terms. This country’s got the good guys, these have the bad guys, these bad guys are moving into a good country and we need to stop it. Things ain’t quite that simple, unfortunately.
