“The US should stop Aid to Pakistan”: THE GOATMILK DEBATES

“THE GOATMILK DEBATES” will be an ongoing series featuring two debaters tackling an interesting or controversial question in a unique, intellectually stimulating manner. 

Each debater makes their opening argument,  followed by an optional rebuttal.

The winner will be decided by the online audience and judged according to the strength of the respective arguments.

The motion: ” The US should stop Aid to Pakistan”

For the motion: Saqib Mausoof

Against the motion: Sabahat Ashraf

Saqib Mausoof For the Motion

US should stop military aid to Pakistan. It is seen as a tactical waste by the US lawmakers and blood money by the populist Pakistan media. Some of this aid also bolsters Pakistan’s covert nuclear armament program and extraneous benefits for the top military brass. Very little of this approximately $2.5 bn annual aid trickles down to the Pakistani people. Investing this money at home in the USA for public services and infrastructure upgrades is better use. Eventually, divesting from Pakistan Army will enable US law makers to see Pakistan without the perception of an “ally from hell” but as an independent nation that is not subservient to US interests only.

Since 1948, US have provided $55 bn in Aid to Pakistan and most of it has gone to the Pakistan military. This aid has created an oligarchy which is controlled by various Military foundations. It has further ruined democratic institutions like the judiciary and the parliament. Since early 1950’s, when the Dulles brothers, John as Secretary of State and Allen as head of CIA, snubbed Pakistan’s civilian leadership under then premiere Liaquat Ali Khan and gave Field Marshall Ayub Khan special treatment, Pakistan has served as a “Sipahi” state for American policy makers. The first rectifying treaty on this was the Baghdad pact or CENTO signed between Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, UK and US in 1955.

This relationship was fully intact in 1960 when Gary Powers flew out of Peshawar airbase his ill-fated U-2 spy plane which was subsequently shot down by a Russian SAM missile. It continued with Prime Minster Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto negotiating President Nixon’s secretive visit to China, and probably climaxed under Gen Zia’s “Jihad” which created the Mujahedeen’s as a religious force to fight off the Soviets occupation of Afghanistan. During that time, the heads of the Haqqani clan were called the “moral equivalent of America founding fathers” by President Ronald Reagan. A case can be made that successive American administrations have always supported and preferred a military ruler in Pakistan rather than a civilian leadership.

The first decade of the 21^st century under the military leadership of Gen Pervaiz Musharraf had seen an increasing amount of US military aid to Pakistan. The offering of the aid carrot was accompanied by a big stick in a not so subtle threat by the US deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage, who told President Musharraf that Pakistan should be prepared to be bombed “back to the stone age” if they refuse to fight against Al-Qaida and the Taliban. The subsequent agreement between the two governments created a complex aid package that constituted of four buckets, Military assistance, Economic Assistance, USAID projects, and coalition support funds.

Threats, Options and Risks in Pakistan

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/pakistan_strikes.html?elqIsAgent=True

SOURCE: AP/Hasbunallah Khan

Pakistani tribesmen show pieces of missile in a house damaged by a suspected U.S. missile in Zharki village, near Miran Shah, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

By Colin Cookman | March 5, 2009

On March 1, two missiles from a remote-piloted American aircraft struck a camp in the Sararogha region of South Waziristan. At least seven people were reportedly killed, including four Arab Al Qaeda fighters; few other details emerged, and the incident passed largely without remark. Covert strikes along Pakistan’s border, initially a relatively rare occurrence, have taken place with increasing frequency since the summer of 2008, when the Bush administration reportedly authorized an expansion of the covert targeting program in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Although operations have slowed from a peak tempo of multiple strikes per week, they have continued under the Obama administration, with two occurring just three days after the president’s inauguration.

Pakistan’s Muddled War

February 5, 2009

Author:	Jayshree Bajoria

http://www.cfr.org/publication/1847/pakistans_muddled_war.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2Fpublication_list%3Ftype%3Ddaily_analysis

Militancy in Pakistan has been spreading inward from the lawless tribal region along the Afghan border. The Pakistani Taliban has seized large swaths of territory (CSMonitor) in North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Militants have also increasingly mounted attacks in Peshawar, the provincial capital, as well as on trucks transiting the city to supply NATO forces in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani says Pakistan remains committed to fighting terrorism (FT) using dialogue, development, and deterrence. Yet experts say after nearly ten months of effort, the government has done little to inspire confidence. CFR Senior Fellow Daniel Markey told CFR.org, “intellectually, both the civilian government and the military are committed to their plan, but in implementation they are falling short.”

On the trail of Pakistan’s Taliban

The authorities in Pakistan have often seemed in cahoots with home-grown terrorists. Not any more. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark report from Islamabad and the border badlands as a new intelligence unit gets serious about tackling the bombers.

• Adrian Levy
• The Guardian, Saturday 10 January 2009
• Article history

Special Investigation Group files. Photograph: Warrick Page

As the first reports of explosions at the Taj and Oberoi hotels in Mumbai reached Islamabad just after 9pm on November 26, Pakistan‘s counter-terrorism investigators twitched. Later that night, CCTV cameras inside Mumbai’s Victoria railway station relayed footage of a blood-spattered concourse and the faces of some of the gunmen. The guests fleeing from the hotels told TV reporters that their assailants were speaking Urdu and were hunting down British and American passport holders. Almost immediately, over the border, the Pakistani investigators began pulling out files and photographs that accompanied the “Red Book” – their most-wanted list.

Pakistan: Accusations Rejected

NEW DELHI – INDIAN Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused Pakistan on Tuesday of acting irresponsibly, saying November’s Mumbai attacks must have had support from some of its nuclear-armed neighbour’s official agencies.

Mr Singh’s comments were the latest in almost daily government criticism of Pakistan, and a sign that New Delhi has become increasingly frustrated at what it sees as Islamabad’s slowness at identifying and arresting the attack’s planners.

India blames Pakistan militants for the coordinated strikes in November by 10 gunmen that killed 179 people and have revived tension between two nations that have fought three wars since 1947. Pakistan denies any involvement by state agencies.

Mr Singh said investigations, including by intelligence agencies from some of the foreign countries whose nationals were killed in the attack, had also suggested official complicity.