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Aid to Pakistan, and Other Policy Mistakes, Part 2

Some level of Washington’s outrage with Pakistan that led to the cutting of aid  may date back to 2016, when Abubakar Siddique, writing in Gandhara, reported that “Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan’s adviser for foreign affairs, admitted that “Islamabad is housing senior Taliban leaders and has influence over them,” despite the fact his government had previously “vehemently denied giving shelter to Taliban leaders after their hard-line regime crumbled in late 2001…Aziz  told participants at a Washington think tank event that Islamabad holds sway over the Afghan Taliban because the insurgent leaders and their families live in Pakistan and ‘get some medical facilities.’”

The Obama Administration may have set an example that induced Islamabad to deal with the Taliban as a legitimate political entity. In a 2014 American Enterprise Institute  study, Ahmad K. Majidar pointed out that “After taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama argued that ‘there will also be no peace without reconciliation,’ and negotiation with the Taliban became the main political pillar of Washington’s strategy in Afghanistan.”

Majidyar pointed out that Pakistan sought to promote its influence over a future Afghanistan regime by enhancing its relationship with the Taliban, even assassinating and arresting Taliban leaders who held back channel talks with the Afghanistan government. “At present,” he wrote, “Taliban leaders… have no incentives to cut ties with the Pakistani military and risk death or marginalization. On the contrary, the Pakistani military and the Taliban, especially the Haqqani network, see their relationship as a strategic necessity. Unless the Pakistani military believes that the costs of supporting the Taliban are greater than the benefits, it is unlikely to take any significant action to dismantle terrorist sanctuaries on its soil or force the group to make peace with Kabul.”

Someone told me once that she has sildenafil 25mg her period. All of them are called cheapest tadalafil india . Undoubtedly, erectile dysfunction medicines generic cialis for sale are effective when it comes to male’s sexual health. Frustration, embarrassment, fear of failure, disappointment and despair is what all he gets with this sexual condition. buy viagra tabs The Obama Administration apparent dismissal of the concept of an American victory in the war against the Taliban may have also discouraged Pakistan. An American Interest article by Paul Miller, points out that “In contrast to his campaign rhetoric, Obama spent the rest of his presidency carefully avoiding saying that the United States aimed to ‘defeat’ the Taliban or ‘win’ the war. Rather like Lyndon Johnson 45 years earlier, the President escalated a war while simultaneously doubting whether it could be won…President Obama spent nearly his entire presidency talking about withdrawing from Afghanistan…the deadline emboldened the Taliban and undermined the surge.”

Obama’s negotiations with the Taliban was equally unsettling to the Kabul government. A 2012 Heritage Society study noted that “the lack of transparency surrounding current U.S. talks with the Taliban has raised concern among parts of Afghan civil society that the U.S. is straying from these parameters and is considering striking a closed-door deal with the Taliban in order to justify a rapid U.S. troop withdrawal, which would sacrifice the hard-won human rights and security gains made over the past decade. During its rule over Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the Taliban forbade girls and women from attending school, holding jobs, or leaving home without a male companion. The Taliban also conducted systematic human rights abuses against the ethnic minority Hazara community, including two civilian massacres that resulted in the murders of nearly 200 Hazaras in 2000 and 2001. The Taliban regularly carried out public executions and floggings at stadiums and banned television, music, and the Internet.  While the media has reported on sporadic contacts between the U.S. government and Taliban leaders over the past two years, the substance of the discussions and the process under which they are taking place have been shrouded in mystery…”

Cutting aid to Pakistan in response to its contacts with the Taliban was appropriate and overdue. But in doing so, the mistakes made by the Obama Administration which played at least some part in the thinking of the Islamabad government should not be overlooked nor forgotten.

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Aid to Pakistan, and Other Policy Mistakes

The decision to cut aid to Pakistan was long overdue.

Legitimate questions had been raised in the past concerning U.S. financial assistance to Pakistan. The Islamabad government has continued to turn a blind eye towards terrorist activities within its borders that threatened American interests and the safety of the U.S. citizenry, both civilian and military.

American relations with Pakistan are extensive.The United States established diplomatic relations with Pakistan following the country’s creation in 1947, and included cooperation and assistance in areas ranging from education to energy to trade and investment. The United States is Pakistan’s largest export destination country. In FY 2016 (July 2015 – June 2016), Pakistan exported $3.7 billion to the United States in 2015 and imported $1.837 billion.  The United States has consistently been one of the top sources of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Pakistan, with cumulative U.S. FDI in Pakistan in calendar year 2015 at almost $400 million, including $38 million in new investment.

The State Department notes that “Attacks in 2014 on the Karachi airport and on an Army school in Peshawar had a catalytic effect across Pakistan and led to the adoption of a 20-point National Action Plan (NAP) to counter terrorism, and invigorated efforts to eliminate safe-havens within Pakistan. The United States welcomed Pakistan’s pledge to deny any militant group safe haven or the use of Pakistani soil to launch terrorist attacks.”

After the omission of patent protection from http://robertrobb.com/covid-19-credit-grabbing-and-blame-shifting-in-congress/ purchase cialis from india made by Pfizer because the generic drug is cost effective because the generic medicine manufacturer uses the formula discovered by Pfizer. They can go with the flow without being tensed about the coming. viagra 100mg tablet robertrobb.com Menorrhagia is common in women with von Willebrand disease are cialis without prescription http://robertrobb.com/why-arizona-shouldnt-have-an-anti-gouging-law/ asymptomatic. cheap viagra robertrobb.com This finding is particularly verifiable in patients with degenerative mitral valve disease. Despite that, terrorist have operated in Pakistan, and the Islamabad government has been far less than diligent in responding to that challenge.  In response, the Trump Administration announced the suspension of $255 million in aid.  President Trump tweeted that “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

The Brookings Institute notes that “The Trump administration’s decision to suspend military aid to Pakistan is one of the most significant U.S. punitive actions against that nation since 2001. The United States has long been frustrated with Pakistan’s persistent acquiescence to safe havens for the Afghan Taliban and its vicious Haqqani branch in Pakistan (both of which benefit more from misgovernance in Afghanistan, but Pakistan’s aid helps a lot). Worse yet, Pakistan has provided direct military and intelligence aid to both groups, resulting in the deaths of U.S. soldiers, Afghan security personnel, and civilians, plus significant destabilization of Afghanistan.”

The Daily Signal emphasizes that “the anger and frustration expressed by the president is not only justified, it’s long overdue. Through its support to the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and their militant allies, Pakistan has for over a decade consistently and critically undermined the U.S.-led effort to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. In efforts to persuade Islamabad to abandon this nefarious ‘double game,’ the U.S. government has deployed a constant stream of diplomatic and economic carrots—including $33 billion in aid and ‘reimbursements’ since 2002—but virtually no sticks. Predictably, each attempt has failed. It turns out it’s quite difficult to change a country’s cost-benefit calculation when you’re unwilling to impose any costs.”

The U.S. State Department explains that “we are suspending security assistance, security assistance only, to Pakistan at this time until the Pakistani Government takes decisive action against groups, including the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network. We consider them to be destabilizing the region and also targeting U.S. personnel. The United States will suspend that kind of security assistance to Pakistan…The President announced his South Asia policy in August of 2017. You all remember that. He made it clear that no partnership can survive a country’s harboring of militants and terrorists who target U.S. service members and officials. It has been more than four months since the President’s speech, and despite a sustained high-level engagement by this administration with the Government of Pakistan, the Taliban and the Haqqani Network continue to find sanctuary inside Pakistan as they plot to destabilize Afghanistan and also attack U.S. and allied personnel…We have now worked closely with Pakistan against these groups. Now, just as we have made Pakistan’s enemies our own, we need Pakistan to deny safe haven to or lawfully detain those terrorists and militants who threaten U.S. interests. The United States stands ready to work with Pakistan in combatting all terrorists without distinction, and we hope to be able to renew and deepen our bilateral security relationship when Pakistan demonstrates its willingness to aggressively confront the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and other terrorist and militant groups that operate from within its country…So we will not be delivering military equipment or transfer security-related funds to Pakistan unless it is required by law. I think that part answers your questions. There may be some exemptions that are made on a case-by-base basis if they’re determined to be critical to national security interests.”

The Report Concludes Tomorrow

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What Happens if America Loses in Afghanistan

The President’s decision to allow 8,400 U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan until next year is a recognition of the extraordinary harm that would result if the mistake he made in Iraq is repeated.

Mr. Obama’s total withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Iraq led to the disaster in Iraq, the rise of ISIS, general turmoil throughout the Middle East, and an escalation of worldwide terrorism. The result of withdrawing from Afghanistan while the Taliban is increasingly resurgent would be equally devastating.

While American troops could not remain in Afghanistan indefinitely, progress achieved before the current administration has been jeopardized by a series of poor decisions by the Obama Administration, including the opening of negotiations with the Taliban in violation of long-standing American policy of not negotiating with terrorists, and, against military advice, the announcement of a withdrawal date. The Obama White House has clearly renounced the goals candidate Obama announced “This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaida would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting; this is a – this is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

While the decision is appropriate, it may not be sufficient.

Off the record conversations by the New York Analysis with individuals who have been part of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan have indicated that during the Obama presidency the fight against the Taliban has been plagued by shortages of equipment, the forced layoffs of key officers, and the general reduction of funding for the U.S. military.

In 2014, notes the BBC,  Taliban leaders declared “victory” as NATO withdrew its (mostly American) forces, leaving only a residual training force. The potential to reduce the Taliban to relative impotence was eliminated in 2012, when America abandoned its policy of not negotiating with terrorists and the White House outlined a policy goal that discarded the prior Administration’s reasoning for entering into the conflict in the first place.
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A Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) study  notes that the “Taliban has seized swaths of rural Afghanistan in such provinces as Helmand, Uruzgan, Nangarhar, and Kunduz. Over the past year, Taliban forces have also conducted several offensives against district and provincial capitals. In September 2015, for example, the northern city of Kunduz temporarily fell to the Taliban before being retaken by government forces.”

Clearly, the CFR notes, more than just a diminished commitment to victory by Washington is to blame for the reversal of fortunes. “[T]he effectiveness of the National [Afghan] Unity Government continues to be undermined by poor governance and internal friction between President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah Abdullah, and their supporters.”

The Taliban resurgence could be halted through greater U.S. emphasis on fulfilling original goals such as insuring fair elections, and economic development of areas beyond the Taliban’s control. But a military option—similar to the 2007 “surge” in Iraq that produced outstanding results (which were destroyed as a result of the Obama pullout) remains the most important. The 8,400 troops will not accomplish that goal.  It prevents an immediate disaster but leaves the hard decision-making to the next President.

The CFR study suggests that  “The United States could halt further reductions—or even increase—the number and type of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. These forces can train, advise, assist, and accompany Afghan forces and conduct direct-action missions; supplement Afghan forces with more intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance enablers; and increase close air support. The United States could also broaden U.S. counterterrorism legal authorities to proactively target the Taliban and Haqqani network. At the moment, U.S. forces can only target al-Qaeda and ISIL-KP operatives in Afghanistan, except in situations where extremists are plotting attacks against U.S. or other international forces or during in extremis cases where the Afghan government requests U.S. aid. The United States could also increase the authority for U.S. forces, particularly conventional forces, to train Afghans below the corps level.”

It is fully understandable that after so long the American public would be weary of the effort in Afghanistan. But the results of a Taliban resurgence should also be realized. The Taliban played a key role in the 9/11 attacks, and would commit vast new resources if power is regained in Afghanistan. The influence that would be gained in neighboring Pakistan would be dramatic. A complete takeover of that government would give the terrorists access to the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.