Trump administration suspends at least $900 million aid for Pakistan
The Trump administration, unsatisfied with Pakistan’s actions against Islamic terrorists, has suspended at least $900 million in military and security aid.
The U.S. State Department announced the decision, saying it reflected the Trump administration’s frustration that Pakistan has not done more against the two groups that Washington says use sanctuaries in Pakistan to launch attacks in neighboring Afghanistan that have killed U.S., Afghan and other forces. The department declined to say exactly how much aid would be suspended, saying the numbers were still being calculated and included funding from both the State and Defense departments.
It is unclear from the article whether this suspension includes or is in addition to the $255 million suspended last week.
These actions against Pakistan are essentially the Trump administrations version of a shot across the bow to every nation in the world. What the administration is telling everyone is that they meant it when they said they were “taking names” and would punish those who took actions that were in opposition to the United States interests.
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The Trump administration, unsatisfied with Pakistan’s actions against Islamic terrorists, has suspended at least $900 million in military and security aid.
The U.S. State Department announced the decision, saying it reflected the Trump administration’s frustration that Pakistan has not done more against the two groups that Washington says use sanctuaries in Pakistan to launch attacks in neighboring Afghanistan that have killed U.S., Afghan and other forces. The department declined to say exactly how much aid would be suspended, saying the numbers were still being calculated and included funding from both the State and Defense departments.
It is unclear from the article whether this suspension includes or is in addition to the $255 million suspended last week.
These actions against Pakistan are essentially the Trump administrations version of a shot across the bow to every nation in the world. What the administration is telling everyone is that they meant it when they said they were “taking names” and would punish those who took actions that were in opposition to the United States interests.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
This looks great on the surface, and I hope it’s well thought out. As mentioned in the article, Pakistan could easily shut off our Ground Lines of Communication (GLOC) and Air Lines of Communication (ALOC) into Afghanistan. Hopefully we have viable alternatives, or there’s some reason for Pakistan to not close them.
Even if they do close them, it’s refreshing to have a president who is willing to call bluffs instead of always caving in to other countries’ demands. We can always negotiate a reopening, and I’d think that even in the worst reasonable scenario we’d come out ahead of where we are now.
I’m glad that Trump is unpredictable, but it’s a double-edged sword.
One thing I don’t understand from the article is that the money is budgeted for FY2017, which ended in September. (the $255 million frozen last week was from FY2016) I thought they had to spend the money during the time specified, but then again, federal bureaucracy rarely makes much sense without some inside info on how the system works.
This is the advantage of having a real businessman as president. To him $900 million is not an abstract figure or a tiny fraction of some other made up money figure like “the GDP”. It took some effort for him to earn his first million for himself. He won’t give that amount of money away for nothing. He’ll hire Ebenezer Scrooge as secretary of finance, and still personally check the books every night.
China is building a military base in Pakistan.
It wouldn’t be too hard to imagine them meddling on the side of the Taliban, or at least preventing us from pushing Pakistan to actually fight the Taliban. But considering that China has their own problems with Islamic terror militias, maybe there is an opportunity here for a transactional ally.
Pakistan announces that it now expels a million and a half Afghanistanis. Although they seem to have been on the way out for a long time and nothing is conclusive.
India should be the ones taking care of Pakistan, it’s their back yard and they have an attitude that works against muslims. Except for Spain thanks to its inquisition, and tiny areas in Yugoslavia during the 1990s wars, India is the only territory in the world that has ever been liberated from islam! They know something about it, let them go at it as they please.
Black-hawk Down
The Pakistanis were the ones who helped big time in the fight of Mogadishu.
It is amazing what can happen when there is freedom from Islam. Wholly Different explains, in mega repetition, how the Muslim mindset works against freedom.
The Trump Administration, pretty much from the start, appears to have been conducting an exercise in redefining what it means to be an acceptable “ally” of the U.S. Not surprisingly, it is finding that under a number of preceding administrations, especially the immediately preceding one, the criteria for acceptable behavior by “allies” had been successively “dumbed-down” so as to cover almost any degree of non-cooperation and even active opposition to U.S. policy. This re-evaluation of “ally-ship” is a work in progress, but two things, at least, are now clear anent the minimum standard of behavior expected:
(1) Thou shalt honor thy treaty obligations to the U.S., including the financial ones, and,
(2) Thou shalt not, by default or active connivance, behave in ways that aid and comfort our declared enemies.
Pakistan has been busily violating (2) for a least the last couple decades. That Mr. Trump has now – quite correctly in my view – cut off U.S. funds to egregious and long-standing bad actors, including Pakistan, the U.S. will be increasingly free to adopt other measures sure to cause equal or even greater outrage among “The Smart Set” in DC. He could continue, for example, by building a border wall between Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as between the U.S. and Mexico.
A billion here, a billion there… Ya know, pretty soon we’ll be talking about real money!