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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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!