Here is an excellent reason why upping Pakistan’s aid from about $500 million a year to $1.5 billion a year was and still is a terrible idea. Last year, the provincial government of Punjab handed over $951,000 to Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the thinly veiled front group for Hafiz Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba. This is the same group that launched the Mumbai assault in November 2008 and has participated in numerous raids against US forces in eastern Afghanistan. From India Today:
The government of Pakistan’s Punjab province provided Rs 82.77 million to Jamaat-ud-Dawah and its allied institutions during the last fiscal year, according to official documents.
The supplementary budget for the past fiscal tabled in the Punjab assembly for approval revealed that the PML-N-led provincial government made a grant of over Rs 79 million to the Markaz-e-Tayyaba, the JuD headquarters in Muridke near Lahore.
Another Rs 3 million was given as grants to schools run by the JuD in different districts of Punjab, according to the official documents.
Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, under a cloud for his links to banned groups like the Sipah-e-Sahaba, admitted that the money had been given to the JuD.
He told a TV news channel on Tuesday that the money was given to these institutions after the JuD was “banned” in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the Punjab government appointed an administrator for the organisation.
For those who wish to dismiss this as an Indian plot to defame Saeed & Lashkar-e-Taiba/Jamaat-ud-Dawa, you can read the Pakistani version at Dawn.
Just a reminder, Punjab Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah is under fire for publicly campaigning with top leaders of the radical Sipah-e-Sahaba, the forerunner to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an al Qaeda pawn that provides muscle for the terror group. Sanaullah is known to have links to other terror groups and has denied that terror groups operate in force in South Punjab. A group of Pakistani religious leaders recently called for Sanaullah’s dismissal.
Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
7 Comments
Links is links.
The Gravy Train goes like this:
USA taxpayer > Pakistan > ISI > Taliban > Kill ISAF soldiers
&
USA taxpayer > Pakistan> ISI > LeT/Jud/n # of international terrorists > Spectacular attacks in NYC, London, Madrid, Bombay….
&
USA taxpayer> Pakistan > Pak Army Generals/Pols/Misc Weasels Bank a/c’s in Dubai/Switzerland
RESULT:
1. Dead American soldiers/Cols arriving home in coffins
2. Dead innocent civilians around the World
3. Delighted Pakistani fat-cat Generals, Politicians, Misc middlemen weasels
————
Bill agree totally with “Here is an excellent reason why upping Pakistan’s aid from about $500 million a year to $1.5 billion a year was and still is a terrible idea.”
Important to point out that this NOT the only source of cash from the US. This is only the ‘civilian’ element, which we know is the junior-partner in Pak power dynamics. A LOT more comes through so-called reimbursements, CI funds etc. Most of that is “profit” in the hands of the Paks, as it is not based strictly on actual costs.
LASHKAR E TAIBA IN PERSPECTIVE: An Evolving Threat
“history suggests that Lashkar is capable and willing
to provide support to other actors that are based primarily
in the NWFP/FATA and intent on launching terrorist
attacks in the West. Support takes two main forms: as a
training provider or gateway to other organizations such as
al-Qaeda, and as a facilitator for attacks in Western
countries.”
Clich here to read the full NAF report (6 pages)
http://www.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/tankel.pdf
or access thru NAF’s website
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/publications/policy/lashkar_e_taiba_in_perspective
Interesting picture in the Dawn link – bearded freaks using US, Indian and Israeli flags as floor mats to stomp on. Reminds one of Bush Sr’s picture used for similar purposes in the Baghdad hotel by Saddam.
Are people still wondering why the terror tap from Pakistan just does not stop? Why the war in Afghanistan just does not end? Why is victory in War on Terror still not in sight?
Thank you, Bill…but frankly, I do not see how this is going to change the fact that many more huge aid and weapons consignments will be shipped to Pakistan in the near future. Just you see! We are feeding the DEVIL!
A more appropriate title should be “Saudi Arabia and Pakistan fund Lashkar-e-Taiba.”
In many ways, Pakistan is a vassal state of Saudi Arabia. This is especially true in the realm of Islamist ideology. How to navigate around this complex relationship is a focus of my book.
For the uninitiated, here are a couple of links (from my book):
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/terrorist_outfits/lashkar_e_toiba.htm
“LeT has an extensive network that run across Pakistan and India with branches in Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Bangladesh and South East Asia.
The outfit collects donations from the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic Non-Governmental Organisations, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. It receives considerable financial, material and other forms of assistance from the Pakistan government, routed primarily through the ISI. The ISI is the main source of LeT’s funding. Saudi Arabia also provides funds.”
Another independent one:
“The Mumbai attacks have been linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba and radical Islamic groups in Kashmir generally. Yet it would be a mistake to see Lashkar only as a local organization with only a local agenda.
Saudi Arabia has contributed very much to what Lashkar-e-Taiba looks like, how it thinks, its motivation, ideology, and funding. Saudi Arabia presents itself as the protector and the spearhead of the defense of Muslims around the world against what they define as the Western cultural attack.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, Saudi Arabia has contributed very much to what Lashkar-e-Taiba looks like, how it thinks, its motivation, ideology, and funding. Saudi newspapers at the time published calls for jihad to support all Muslim struggles around the world. Kashmir was seen as a place where jihad was taking place, so donations were solicited for the Muslims living there. Allah was said to bless the warriors of this financial jihad.
In August 1999, the Saudi newspaper Al Jazeera reported on a press conference conducted by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a Saudi-based charity supervised by the government. The group’s secretary-general, Maneh al-Johani, praised the role played by Saudi Arabia in providing assistance to Muslims around the world, especially in Kashmir. Johani equated the Kashmir issue with the situation in Kosovo and Palestine, and called on Muslims to help the Kashmiri people.”
This kind of blind sponsorship of Pakistan makes US a terror sponsor and dangerous to the safety of its own citizens, India, Afganistan, and numerous places around the world.
The war on terror to me is frankly incomprehensible, because its main impact on terrorists seems to have been to strengthen them further and not only through fate, but through actual support that will percolate to them.
Frankly, in India, few believe that the US has any intentions of stopping terror, because the alternative is that the most powerful nation in the world is brain dead to comprehend the basic maths of this war. That belief was born when right into the beginning of the war, a terrorist sponsor was chosen as an ally and it only strengthens since then as an unending flood of evidence keeps pointing to two simple facts – US aid strengthens terrorist establishments and that the US knows and apparently feels a compulsive need to keep pouring money into Pakistan.
How much can one country micro-manage another? At what points do two countries have to deal with each other as soverign and accept consequences of actions from their soil?
Or does this macabre dance go on forever, with the US half way across the world, and Pakistan fortifying itself with a carrot and stick approach to the apparently never ending well of money. This fortification in turn gives it better leverage to get countries to bend to its will.
In the meanwhile, a nuclear bomb would possibly cause less damage than what this systematic decimation of law and order at the hands of the government itself manages to achieve. One point will come when the West gets bored of its war project and India and Afganistan will be left footing the security bill.
Is Pakistan the only country in the world to have nuclear arms? Is ensuring the phenomenal success of that threat going to make it go away?