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June 16, 2011 Pakistan's Terror Addiction How Your Tax Dollars Kill Our Troops <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/id.192/author_detail.asp> Ralph Peters Print This <javascript:%20printVersion()> E-mail This <javascript:%20emailVersion()> <javascript:void(0);> http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/images/share.png ShareThis <javascript:void(0);> Comments (5) <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/comments.asp?id=9750> http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20110112_RALPHPETERSBANNER.jpg Forget creepy Congressman Anthony Weiner's supposed "sex addiction." Our real problem is Pakistan's deadly addiction to terrorism as a tool of statecraft and policy. And we're subsidizing it. Too many Washington political hacks think that money can buy everything (after all, it bought them their elections). So there's no stick, just carrot. No matter how badly the Pakistanis behave, the answer remains the same: More aid dollars. We give Pakistan $2-billion a year to support us in the war on terror. And Pakistan passes on the largesse to the terrorists. It's not an open secret. It's isn't a secret at all. Your tax dollars are being used to help kill and maim our Soldiers, Marines and Navy corpsmen fighting in Afghanistan. This is beyond obscenity. http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20110615_ISIflagburn.jpg Over the past ten years, we've given the Pakistanis-primarily their military-over $20 billion in aid. What did we get in return? Our Pakistani allies hid and protected Osama bin Laden; they increased their support to the Afghan Taliban and its partner, the Haqqani terror network; they sponsored repeated terrorist attacks against India; they provided safe-haven bases on Pakistani soil for terrorists from a "rainbow coalition" of extremist organizations; and all the while they purposely whipped up anti-American hatred among the country's 180-million Muslims. Your tax dollars at work. Let me be blunt: Any member of Congress who, at this point, votes to approve additional aid dollars for Pakistan will have the blood of our troops on his or her hands. No excuses. We're paying the Pakistanis to kill or cripple the finest young people we've got. That's what it comes down to, folks. Why does this go on? Partly, it's Washington's sheer mediocrity, the utter lack of serious strategic thought. Attempting to get Washington pols in either party to think about long-term strategy is like trying to get a junkie to focus on his retirement plan. But the primary reason this grim charade of pretending that the Pakistanis are our "allies in the war on terror" continues today is that the Obama administration is struggling desperately to keep the lid on Afghanistan and Pakistan until the 2012 elections. Obama's starry-eyed policy in Afghanistan has failed comprehensively. His embrace of Pakistan has been a disaster. But he and his deputies will try to keep up the bluff that everything's just fine, no matter how many young Americans are killed and maimed over the next eighteen months. http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20110513_ShabqadarMap480.jpg What would success in Afghanistan really look like? Dead terrorists, President Karzai swinging from a lamp-post, and 15,000 (not 100,000) U.S. troops focused exclusively on killing our enemies. Obama's approach? Defeat al Qaeda by giving platinum toothbrushes to toothless villagers. Pakistan isn't a country with an army. It's an army with a country. A pathetic, powerless figure, "President" Asif Ali Zardari probably didn't know that his military and intelligence gang was shielding bin Laden. They don't trust him enough to have told him. But have no doubt: their chief of staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, knew exactly where bin Laden was hidden. Osama was being kept on ice as a strategic resource. Our entire government goes along with the Pakistani lie that nobody knew anything about bin Laden's presence. Because it's just easier that way. Again and again, we've found terrorists in the shadow of Pakistani garrisons. Even now, Mullah Omar-Mr. Taliban-and his minions have a base of operations in Quetta, an important Pakistani military city (where I taught classes to Pakistani officers, by the way-I know these murderous clowns). There's a pattern. An obvious pattern. A screamingly obvious pattern. And we just close our eyes. Pakistani nukes? Should we really allow this scumbag outhouse of a poverty-pit country blackmail us? If we had to, we could deal with Pakistan's nuclear weapons. But it would be even better to throw our weight behind India and let New Delhi do it. Think the Pakistanis would launch any more terror attacks against India if they thought we wouldn't be there to stop India from beating the daylights out of them? We're such patsies. It's just unbelievable. Pathetic. Idiotic. Pick your modifier. The most powerful country in the world allows a terrorist state to blackmail us, extort billions from us, and actively help kill our military men and women. Yeah, I know I'm repeating that point about the Pakistanis killing and maiming our troops-but Pakistan's Taliban buddies keep repeating their attack on our troops (then running back to their safe havens in Pakistan). http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20110413_PakistanUSFlagBurning.j pg What should we do? Stop pretending that Pakistan is an ally and start treating it as the rogue state that it is. How do we do that on a practical level? Step one is to reduce our forces in Afghanistan to a size that doesn't depend on our current lengthy supply routes through Pakistan. We should not have one more Soldier in Afghanistan than we could re-supply or evacuate by air, if necessary. Step two is to cut all aid of any kind to Pakistan, from cash payments, through intelligence-sharing, to spare parts for their F-16s. I'd even close our embassy in Islamabad (no more visas for Pakistani extremists, thanks). Step three is to throw all of our weight behind India, the world's largest democracy and a country with a future-not just a savage record of failure like Pakistan. What will actually happen? Washington is going to send even more money to Pakistan. And you're going to hear that, yes, the relationship is a little rocky sometimes, but Islamabad's an "indispensable partner." You're going to hear that again and again through November 2012. So far, not a single would-be Republican presidential candidate has posed an intelligent challenge to this suicidal policy. They're not exactly deep strategic thinkers, either. To end with an alternative analogy: Our "alliance" with Pakistan is like a really, really, really bad marriage. We've tethered ourselves to a calculating slut who sleeps with our worst enemies. And we shut our eyes to the rampant infidelities, get the shots, and tell ourselves that just one more little blue box from Tiffany's will turn our spouse into a Sunday-school teacher. Good luck. Anthony Weiner will enter a monastery before Pakistan stops aiding terrorists. <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/> Family Security Matters Contributing Editor <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/id.192/author_detail.asp> Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer, a former enlisted man, a journalist and a bestselling author. He has experience in seventy countries on six continents. His latest books are " <http://www.amazon.com/Officers-Club-Ralph-Peters/dp/0765326809> The Officers' Club," a novel of the post-Vietnam military, and " <http://www.amazon.com/Endless-War-Middle-Eastern-Western-Civilization/dp/08 11705501> Endless War: Middle-Eastern Islam vs. Western Civilization." Ralph Peters worked briefly with the Pakistani military and intelligence leadership during in the mid-1990s. His military report on his on-the-ground experience warned of growing Islamization within the Pakistani forces. Nobody in Washington cared. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [email protected]. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [email protected] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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