The United States continues to pour foreign military aid and other funds into Pakistan by the billions despite years of knowledge that the Pakistani intelligence service was protecting terrorist suspects. Now, a report has surfaced that our erstwhile allies arranged to have the Chinese inspect the wreckage of the secret Stealth helicopter used in the operation — even as the U.S. was trying to recover the wreckage from Osama Bin Laden’s compound.
The access given to the Chinese in Abbottabad can only be viewed as a hostile act designed to curry favor with China. The Chinese were allowed to not only inspect the wreckage but to take pictures of it.
The Pakistani government was expressly asked by the United States not to give anyone access to the wreckage. They acknowledged this request and proceeded to take the Chinese to the site. Later, General Ashfaq Kayani, head of the Pakistan military, and a key aide lied to American officials and denied that they had given access to the Chinese.
American officials would only say that the incident “doesn’t make us happy.”
What doesn’t make me happy is billions of dollars given to Pakistan only to learn that its intelligence service clearly knew the location of Bin Laden and later helped the Chinese in this way.
Source: FT
Pete,
So true.
as always Mike, rich mans war, poor mans fight.
Major General Smedley D. Butler
USMC, Retired
“WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.”
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
On the heels of your comment, Larry B:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/08/15/drones/index.html
Excerpts:
Qaeda officials who are killed by drones will be replaced. The group’s structure will survive and it will still be able to inspire, finance and train individuals and teams to kill Americans. Drone strikes hinder Qaeda fighters while they move and hide, but they can endure the attacks and continue to function.
Moreover, as the drone campaign wears on, hatred of America is increasing in Pakistan. American officials may praise the precision of the drone attacks. But in Pakistan, news media accounts of heavy civilian casualties are widely believed. Our reliance on high-tech strikes that pose no risk to our soldiers is bitterly resented in a country that cannot duplicate such feats of warfare without cost to its own troops.
Last month, I interviewed Chris Woods of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which had just published a report conclusively documenting the falsity of John Brennan’s public claim that “in the last year, ‘there hasn’t been a single collateral death'” from U.S. drone attacks. Last week, the Bureau published an even more detailed report focusing on the number of Pakistani children killed by American drone attacks:
The Bureau has identified credible reports of 168 children killed in seven years of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas. These children would account for 44% of the minimum figure of 385 civilians reported killed by the attacks. . . .
The highest number of child deaths occurred during the Bush presidency, with 112 children reportedly killed. More than a third of all Bush drone strikes appear to have resulted in the deaths of children. . . . President Obama, too, has been as Commander-in-Chief responsible for many child deaths in Pakistan. The Bureau has identified 56 children reported killed in drone strikes during his presidency . . . . (end of excerpt)
I would suspect that someone who had a family member killed by a US drone attack may have made that decision. We’ll never learn. The one presidential candidate who would get us out of Afghanistan and cut funding to Pakistan, Ron Paul, will likely never receive the support of the Republican neo-cons who are happy with the status quo.
Amen to all of the above. If we leave Afghanistan now, and stop giving money to Pakistan, we will save lives and Billions of dollars that we can give to the rich somehow.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. – President Dwight D. Eisenhower. (posted by Roman Berry in his prior comment)
Roman Berry,
Thanks for the apt quote… and the link to Eisenhower’s “The Chance for Peace”…
And I agree with you.
OS,
The real reason not to be confused with the obstructed reasoning for being there is this: They have OUR OIL underground, they have OUR Precious Minerals….Banks have money invested over there…We have to protect them….because if we protect them….the banks protect US…right?
The access given to the Chinese in Abbottabad can only be viewed as a hostile act designed to curry favor with China.
Lessee here…
The US government essentially invaded and conducted a covert operation inside a sovereign nation with which we are not at war, and you wanna talk about hostile acts? If this were a tort, I’d be asking you about unclean hands.
Yes, Pakistan is not exactly a reliable ally. But no, the United States is not a nation of pure virtue in the conduct of its foreign affairs. And even disregarding all of that, the fact is that the situation with Pakistan (as with many other putative “allies”) is…complicated.
As far as Pakistan giving China access to the stealth copter, as a veteran who has seen the rot from the inside, I say good for them. I’d have done the same thing. The US military industrial complex is a parasite. It could use a little poke here and there.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. – President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The USofA gives the Pakistani’s money in ANTICIPATION of their co-operation, not as REWARD for their co-operation.
USofA = Dumbest Nation on Earth.
Somebody please tell me again why we are over there in the first place? We are not wanted, our guys don’t want to be there, the locals are untrustworthy and we are pouring billions of dollars to prop up corrupt governments in the area. Did I miss something?