As the Bush Administration enters its final months, even common sense seems to be in short supply.
The latest example is a proposal by the Bush Administration to shift $226.5 million of your tax dollars earmarked as 'counterterror' funds to Pakistan, with the rationale of upgrading Pakistan's F-16's 'for use in counterterrorism operations.'
"The F-16s that they have are used in counterterrorism operations," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "We made them available to the Pakistanis and they need to be maintained."
Let's analyze this in a little detail, shall we?
Here we have a largely dysfunctional country rife with sectarian and religious violence and turmoil that has already signed deals and treaties with our enemies the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And they have already made it clear that any US attempts to root the Taliban and al-Qaeda out and stop them from killing our soldiers are an unwelcome infringement on their 'sovereignty.'
It's also a country implicated in the illegal proliferation of nuclear weapons to rogue states like Iran who just freed AQ Kahn from house arrest, the nuclear scientist who ran what amounted to clandestine supermarket for nuclear weapons technology.
Pakistan is a major source of Islamist terrorism aimed at the West and India, filled with Saudi funded madrassahs churning out fresh jihadis by the boatload where the majority of the population harbor anti-American and anti-Western sentiments. And it's ruled by a coalition of leftist leaning kleptocrats and Islamists.
And the Bush Administration's answer to this is throw money at the problem and increase the efficiency of their weaponry, supposedly to upgrade some F-16s?
For starters,the nonsense about the F-16s has to be a blatant and not very skillful lie.
The last time I checked,the Taliban and al-Qaeda didn't have an air force, so upgraded F-16s are hardly a necessity, and even if they were, the Pakistani government has made it clear that they've essentially ceded a large part of Waziristan and the North West Frontier Province to al-Qaeda and the Taliban and have no intention of going after them with any great degree of effectiveness. I'd love to know to what the degree Pakistan's existing F-16s have been used to attack the jihadis in their country..and of course, the answer is that they haven't been.
In any case, should the use of F-16s be necessary for 'counterterrorism operations', the Pakistanis could either use what they have now or do what an actual ally of the US would do...create a joint strategic liaison with our forces so that US planes could hit the necessary targets.
In fact, Pakistan has no intention of doing that and the rationale of giving them $226.5 million with the idea that they're going to suddenly do so is ridiculous.The volatile nature of the country's political situation alone would argue against giving them upgraded weapons.
No, this is some kind of clandestine, back door exercise in 'diplomacy' by the Bush Administration.
Or it might in fact be a simple bribe.
Right now,a major lifeline for NATO's forces in Afghanistan flows through the Pakistani port of Karachi. Afghanistan, along with its other attributes is a landlocked country and because of that, a difficult place to supply. The only other practical overland route would involve going through the Black Sea through Georgia and Azerbaijan and then crossing the Caspian Sea and shipping the stuff through Turkmenistan and then over rough, mountainous country into Afghanistan from the Northwest. It could be done, but it would be much more difficult.
This, in case you're wondering, is what Pervez Musharraf was talking about when he made that famous quote about how the US needs Pakistan and without Pakistan " there is no war on terror."
There's no telling how much money we've actually poured down that particular rathole.
In any case, if it is a bribe, it's a bad idea, and even a worse idea to upgrade their air force. If Pakistan goes over the edge, we may very well have to contend with those planes if the worst comes to pass and we need to secure or destroy Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
Fortunately, Congress isn't entirely asleep on the matter. Nita Lowey, the New York Democrat who chairs the State and foreign operations subcommittee of the powerful House appropriations committee has been a roadblock on some of the Bush Administration's dubious proposals before and said in a written statement that the administration's request "raises serious concerns."
"Congress provided these funds specifically for counter-terrorism and law enforcement," she wrote. "It is incumbent on the State Department and Pakistan to demonstrate clearly how these F-16s would be used to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban in order to get congressional support."
Yes, I'd certainly like to see how the State Department finesses that one.
Absolutely amazing that they would even consider it. It makes no sense at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment