U.S. SUSPENDS AT LEAST $900 MILLION
IN SECURITY AID TO PAKISTAN
BY ROBERT SPENCER
SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/01/u-s-suspends-at-least-900-million-in-security-aid-to-pakistan;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
At last, some common sense in U.S. foreign policy. This means several hundred million dollars that the Taliban and the Haqqani Network won’t get. We can only hope that there will be much, much more of this sort of thing to come.
“U.S. suspends at least $900 million in security aid to Pakistan,” by Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Landay, Reuters, January 4, 2018 (thanks to Inexion):
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States said on Thursday it was suspending at least $900 million in security assistance to Pakistan until it takes action against the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network militant groups._____________________________________________________
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.
Pakistan has long rejected accusations that it fails to tackle the militants battling the Kabul government and U.S.-led foreign forces in Afghanistan, from sanctuaries on its side of the border.
On Friday, Pakistan criticized what it called “shifting goalposts” and said the U.S. suspension of aid was counter-productive.
U.S. officials said two main categories of aid are affected: foreign military financing (FMF), which funds purchases of U.S. military hardware, training and services, and coalition support funds (CSF), which reimburse Pakistan for counter-terrorism operations. They said they could make exceptions to fund critical U.S. national security priorities.
CSF funds, which fall under Defense Department authority, are covered by the freeze, said Pentagon spokesman Commander Patrick Evans, saying Congress authorized up to $900 million in such money for Pakistan for fiscal year 2017, which ended Sept. 30. None of that money has yet been disbursed.
The freeze also covers $255 million in FMF for fiscal year 2016, which falls under State Department authority and whose suspension has already been announced, as well as unspecified amounts of FMF that went unspent in earlier fiscal years.
Briefing reporters, U.S. officials stressed the suspension did not affect civilian aid to Pakistan and that the money could go through if Islamabad took decisive action against the groups.
“Our hope is that they will see this as a further indication of this administration’s immense frustration with the trajectory of our relationship and that they need to be serious about taking the steps we have asked in order to put it on more solid footing,” a senior State Department official told reporters.
“We’re hoping that Pakistan will see this as an incentive, not a punishment,” he added.
The Trump administration briefed Congress on its decision on Wednesday….
Pakistan’s PM: Aid from US is
“very, very insignificant” and Pakistan is
“on the forefront of the war on terror”
BY ROBERT SPENCER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
He says Pakistan has been getting less than $10 million a year. USAID
says that the U.S. gave Pakistan $778 million in 2016 alone. And then
Abbasi added that whopper about Pakistan being on the “forefront” of the
fight against jihad terror. “War is deceit,” said Muhammad. In any
case, Abbasi, fine. Just send it all back, and the U.S., if common sense
prevails, won’t send any more.
“Pakistan PM calls US aid ‘insignificant’ as Trump threatens to cut it off,” by Haroon Janjua and Julian Borger, Guardian, January 5, 2018:
Pakistan’s prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, has declared himself mystified by US threats to cut off funding, saying that US financial assistance was “very, very insignificant” and that Pakistan was “on the forefront of the war on terror”.
In an interview with the Guardian, Abbasi said that reports that the US was considering cuts of up to $2bn in security assistance were bewildering because the total aid Pakistan – civilian and military – actually received was a tiny fraction of that amount.
“I am not sure what US aid has been talked here,” Abbasi said in his office in Islamabad. “The aid in the last five years at least has been less than $10m a year. It is a very, very insignificant amount. So when I read in the paper that aid at the level of $250m or 500 or 900 has been cut, we at least are not aware of that aid.”
Donald Trump used his first tweet of 2018 to threaten to withhold aid to Pakistan because of what he called its “lies and deceit” over terrorism, claiming: “They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help.” The president has that the US had “foolishly” given Pakistan $33bn over the past 15 years.
According to the US Agency for International Development, the US gave $778m to Pakistan in assistance in 2016, of which 35% was military and the rest economic….
