XPost: soc.culture.canada, can.general, can.politics   
   From: abc@a123.ca   
      
   Why is CIDA sending aid to a de facto enemy?   
      
   Jonathan Kay  Dec 1, 2011   
      
   This week, in response to a deadly border incident that involved NATO   
   troops, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani declared that there   
   will be no more “business as usual” with the United States. Canada should   
   make precisely the same declaration in regard to its own bilateral   
   relationship with Pakistan.   
      
   For years, “business as usual” between Canada and Pakistan has involved a   
   significant list of Canadian aid projects. In 2009, the Canadian   
   International Development Agency (CIDA) selected Pakistan as a “country   
   of focus” — meaning that it is one of just 20 nations around the world   
   that, collectively, receive 80% of CIDA’s bilateral resources.   
      
   This humanitarian policy is well-intentioned: Pakistan is a very poor   
   country, and ranks near the bottom (145th out of 187 nations) on the   
   United Nations Development Program’s 2011 human development index. But   
   given that Pakistan is emerging as an open enemy of the United States-led   
   war effort in Afghanistan, where Canadian troops are still fighting, it   
   seems odd for us to keep a regular aid spigot going to Pakistan. Every   
   dollar that we spend on civil projects in Pakistan is another dollar that   
   the country’s security establishment has available to it for providing   
   material support to the Taliban and the Hakkani network in the Afghan-   
   Pakistan borderlands. In replacing Pakistan on its country-of-focus list,   
   CIDA can pick from plenty of other poor countries that aren’t supporting   
   the terrorists who are planting the roadside bombs that kill our troops.   
      
   The circumstances of the Saturday military confrontation that resulted in   
   the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers are contested. Western military   
   sources say that Afghan and NATO troops fighting with militants near the   
   Pakistani border were attacked by fire emanating from the Pakistani side   
   of the line, and merely engaged in self-defence. Pakistan, on the other   
   hand, contends that it was a deliberate attack on a known Pakistani   
   military emplacement.   
      
   It is impossible to know where the truth lies. But the NATO version of   
   events, if borne out, would hardly be surprising. The Pakistani military   
   establishment, and particularly its military-intelligence wing, the ISI,   
   is full of Taliban sympathizers. These men have been running guerrilla   
   operations in Kashmir and Afghanistan since the Soviet era, and regard   
   the Taliban as their future partners in controlling Afghanistan once the   
   Americans leave Kabul.   
      
   Some of Pakistan’s Pashtuns even dream of annexing much of Afghanistan   
   outright, in order to create a greater Pashtunistan that would give   
   Pakistan strategic depth in its campaign against India. (The Indians   
   themselves, who are busy building an increasingly prosperous democracy,   
   have lost interest in confronting Pakistan — but that hasn’t stopped   
   Islamabad from pursuing a hostile posture unilaterally.)   
      
   Canadian readers who are interested in the extent of Pakistan’s   
   destructive meddling in Afghanistan should read Christopher Alexander’s   
   recently published book “The Long Way Back: Afghanistan’s Quest for   
   Peace.” Alexander, a Conservative MP who served as Canada’s ambassador to   
   Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and then deputy special representative to   
   the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, dedicates several   
   chapters to detailing the extent of Pakistani double-dealing. Indeed,   
   though stationed in Afghanistan, he spent much of his time shuttling to   
   Pakistan, pleading (in vain) with the country’s generals and leaders to   
   confront the Taliban leaders who staged their attacks from Pakistani   
   soil.   
      
   In many Pakistani places, such as Peshawar and Quetta, the jihadis’   
   presence is an open secret. And, of course, we now know about Osama bin   
   Laden, who spent the last years of his life housed in the heart of a   
   Pakistani military garrison city.   
      
   In response to Saturday’s raid, Pakistan peevishly announced that it   
   would boycott the upcoming Dec 4-5 international meeting in Bonn,   
   Germany, which is aimed at creating a long-term plan for Afghan   
   stability. That is no loss: Pakistan has been a fixture at such meetings   
   for the last decade, always promising to be part of the solution, and   
   always breaking those promises.   
      
   America’s decision about how to deal with Pakistan is a complicated one.   
   While it functionally acts as an enemy, Pakistan’s government also   
   (grudgingly) permits the passage of American supplies to Afghanistan from   
   Pakistani ports. As well, the two nations have a tense agreement that   
   permits the United States to occasionally launch drone strikes against   
   militant enclaves on the Pakistani side of the border (though not without   
   Pakistan pretending to be enraged by it). And, most importantly, the   
   United States wants to do everything in its power to prevent a total   
   meltdown of Pakistan’s government, if only because such a meltdown would   
   raise the prospect of the country’s nukes falling into militant hands.   
      
   But even as Washington weighs all these complexities, Canada’s aid   
   decision is relatively easy. There are plenty of nations that deserve our   
   aid money more than Pakistan. It’s time to stop being so generous with an   
   enemy.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)