Tell me again why we're throwing money at Pakistan?

Following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, there were many comments about the untrustworthiness of (at least some) Pakistani security services, particularly the infamous ISI. Now it seems the US has handed Pakistan's government further proof of that. The Telegraph reports:

Mr Panetta visited Islamabad during the weekend to deliver damning evidence that Pakistan – or at least some elements within its security services – was continuing to protect extremists in its tribal belt.

In a meeting with Pakistani military chiefs, he handed over satellite imagery showing insurgents evacuating two bomb factories in Waziristan, days after the US had passed on surveillance video of the sites, according to a security source in Islamabad.

It is understood that Marc Grossman, US envoy to the region, delivered a video of the two installations in meetings last month with General Ashfaq Kayani, head of the Pakistan military, and Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director of the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. One was in a girls' school in the city of Miramshah, where the Haqqani network is headquarted. The second, in South Waziristan, was believed to be operated by al-Qaeda.

But the militants had fled by the time Pakistani forces moved in, raising suspicion that that the intelligence had been leaked.

There's more at the link.

We're caught on the horns of a dilemma here. If we stop funding Pakistan with handouts of billions of dollars a year, its fundamentalists will probably gain enough influence to take over the country - and that would put nuclear weapons and delivery systems into the hands of merciless religious fanatics. On the other hand, if we go on funding that country, we're basically throwing good money after bad, as its government dare not try to take down the fundamentalists for fear of starting a full-blown civil war. We saw just a few weeks ago how terrorist penetration of its armed forces has already reached alarming proportions.

What to do? I don't know . . . but I'm disgusted enough to want to wash my hands of the whole damn lot of them, and walk away. I know that's not the optimum solution, but right now, US lives are being lost in Afghanistan to weapons and ammunition that's reached the terrorists there through Pakistan, probably with the active co-operation of at least some in that country's security forces. That calls for a forceful response, in my opinion. I don't think Pakistan's worth a single American life.





Peter