The US & others working with Pakistan

[davidbfpo]

I have asked about the Saudi-Pakistani relationship before, IIRC with a few comments, but there is little depth to any information and so Wikileaks may have helped shine some light on the linkage.

Hat tip to Watandost and their short story:http://watandost.blogspot.com/2010/1...bia-close.html

The most substantial link being to Time magazine's article 'WikiLeaks: The Saudis' Close but Strained Ties with Pakistan', which ends with this:

Whatever their differences, however, the WikiLeaks cables reveal a belief in Washington that Pakistan's road to salvation still winds through Riyadh.

Link:http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...035347,00.html

[davidbfpo]

A BBC report on the PM's visit for talks in Islamabad, sub-titled:

David Cameron has said he wants a "fresh start" in relations with Pakistan as he offered £650m in aid and better security co-operation.

The most substantial aid is for education:

The prime minister...also pledged £650m of additional aid for Pakistan's schools system...to help more children go to primary school. He said the four-year package of support would help an extra four million children go to primary schools, train an extra 90,000 teachers and provide six million text books.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12967819

I doubt this aid to schools will be endorsed by the 'man on the Clapham omnibus' as cuts in spending spread here. Given the weakness of the Pakistani school system, as reported by Owen Bennett-Jones (BBC reporter) who never found a teacher present in any state school he visited, implementation will be messy.

What happened to supporting the civil police, as advocated recently?

[Ray]

2967819"]

I doubt this aid to schools will be endorsed by the 'man on the Clapham omnibus' as cuts in spending spread here. Given the weakness of the Pakistani school system, as reported by Owen Bennett-Jones (BBC reporter) who never found a teacher present in any state school he visited, implementation will be messy.

What happened to supporting the civil police, as advocated recently?

The issue is not money that will assist Pakistan as far as education is concerned.

What is essential is that there has to be less emphasis on religion in the text books as also correct historical untruth aimed at generating a Muslim identity aimed at generating some sort of a patriotism.

Some links on Pakistani Education and curriculum:

Education Reform in Pakistan
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rs22009.pdf

The Subtle Subversion
AH Nayyar and Ahmad Salim
http://www.sdpi.org/whats_new/report...&TextBooks.pdf

[davidbfpo]

Following on Post 114 and the arrest in Pakistan of a Bali bombing suspect in Pakistan.

Today I noted, hat tip to CLS mailing, there is a viewpoint that the suspect should be handed over to the USA, not Indonesia; see NYT story 'The biggest terrorist catch of the Obama era':http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...PcC_story.html

[omarali50]

As a Pakistani, I really think this is not a good way to earn ou keep. We are selling nuisance value (or rather, our ability to control nuisance value), but the problem is that we may not have what we are selling…we may not have control. We may not even know what we are trying to control.
Someday, the bubble may burst and we will be left holding nothing. David Cameron is thinking he can buy “deradicalization” (not just in Pakistan, but in the Pakistani-British community) and in the short term, he may be right…but long term, I dont think so. I think money is fungible. What the deep state saves here, it spends on insane schemes elsewhere. Unless something has seriously changed in the heart of GHQ, its not going to end well (or unless the old empire is really as schemingly evil as we were told and they have “a cunning plan”….I am thinking of Black Adder).
I may be wrong. I accept that I dont have inside information and maybe NATO and the American embassy have all sorts of secret ways of making sure things are going the way they want. Maybe they even know what they want. Maybe what they want is even a good idea. But these are a lot of maybes and public information does not seem to support too many of them....Still, one hopes for the best.

[davidbfpo]

Understandably SWC have tired of this issue, partly I expect from a good amount of frustration over the perceived and actual sanctuary afforded to those who attack those in Afghanistan. Secondly, the diplomatic and other "dancing" around the issues.

Hat tip to FP Blog and 'Khyber Impasse' and sub-titled How long can the United States and Pakistan keep pretending that they actually have any interests in common?

No surprises, but a good current summary:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...khyber_impasse

I liked these passages:

..in the past Pakistan's national security elite have been willing to ignore public sentiment in order to allow the United States to conduct operations that are also in the Pakistani interest. This is the crux of the new dilemma: The fundamental incompatibility of Pakistani and American national security interests can no longer be avoided. And it can't be cured; it can't even be admitted.

Ends with:

..Obama would be wise to bring the war in Afghanistan to a quicker end than he now plans, to expect less and demand less of Pakistan, and to turn his attentions toward the kind of problems the United States can actually do something about, at home and abroad.

Not sure how the later would go down inside the US government.

[omarali50]

Cross posting from another thread, since it seems more relevant here:
\
the following article

http://www.brownpundits.com/2011/04/...ean-and-saarc/

may be a way to get to the pathology underlying the current "strategic" direction of Pakistan. Pakistan's military rulers are obsessed with an outdated and self-destructive vision of "national interest". And they learned this focus from their mentors in Western militaries and strategic schools. The diffference is that in Western countries (and in China, for that matter) other parts of the state take care of other concerns (like trade policy) and even supervise the generals (to some extent)...and basic notions of modern social and economic development are taken for granted, even by most generals. What the visiting generals don't fully grasp is that this is NOT the case in Pakistan (and possibly in some other countries). OUR generals are NOT under adult supervision and don't even know what they dont know...
when they show up to have 3 cups of tea with Kiyani, they dont ask him why his institution spends so much time and effort making sure things dont get too cozy with India (or if they ask him, they are happy to accept the strategic bull#### he offers in return, that bull#### being familiar to them from their own staff college days). Unless they do so, there will be no change in the strategic disconnect between the US and Pakistan. That strategic disconnect is not about Taliban or LET, its about the fact that Pakistani generals still see India and Pakistan as a zero-sum game between one warrior-state and another, and American Generals have no idea how deeply that notion poisons all their actions...

[carl]

Understandably SWC have tired of this issue, partly I expect from a good amount of frustration over the perceived and actual sanctuary afforded to those who attack those in Afghanistan. Secondly, the diplomatic and other "dancing" around the issues.

Perceptive as always David. Mr. Traub said "For the U.S. side, the stakes are only getting higher because Pakistan's repeated intransigence has given the Afghan Taliban a sanctuary that virtually ensures the failure of the current massive counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan."

If that doesn't change, what's the use?