Dangerous Aid

Does paying countries to fight terrorism always backfire?

BY JOSHUA E. KEATING | SEPT/OCT 2011

Since 2001, the U.S. Congress has allocated more than $20 billion in aid and reimbursements to Pakistan in the name of fighting global terrorism. And yet, when asked not long ago to rate Pakistan's counterterrorism cooperation on a scale of 1 to 10, CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell gave it a 3. Until recently, the head of al Qaeda was living just a stone's throw from a Pakistani military installation, and elements of the country's security apparatus are widely suspected of aiding militant groups. So why doesn't the money produce results? And, more importantly, is it time to begin cutting off Pakistan, as Sen. Carl Levin and others have advocated?

Maybe so. Navin Bapat, a professor of international relations at the University of North Carolina, has used game theory to create models of state behavior that suggest counterterrorism aid acts as a perverse incentive. By his logic, a government receiving aid to fight terrorist groups is less likely ever to win that fight because the funds would dry up without terrorist groups. Bapat found empirical backing for his theory: Data on almost 200 terrorist groups worldwide between 1997 and 2006 show that U.S. military assistance correlates with a 67 percent increase in the duration of terrorist campaigns in the country receiving the aid.

Which is not to say that the money isn't worth it. Bapat's model also shows that, while governments receiving aid have little incentive to defeat terrorist groups, they're also less likely to negotiate with them. In other words, Afghan President Hamid Karzai needs a certain level of Taliban activity if he is to continue receiving U.S. cash, but he can't allow the militants to become so powerful that Washington cuts him off entirely. Bapat thinks there's probably no way to escape from this expensive and frustrating limbo, at least in the immediate future, given the risk of chaos in countries like Yemen and Pakistan. "I would argue that this is the best the U.S. can do," he says.

Hasham Ahmed/AFP/Getty Images

 SUBJECTS:
 

Joshua E. Keating is an associate editor at Foreign Policy.

VISIONTUNNEL

7:12 AM ET

August 15, 2011

Pakistan is a Unique Country

Whatever be the behavioral pattern of quoted 200 terrorist groups the issues in AfPak region are entirely different.

Pakistan is a unique country, where myopic rulers have mastered the art and craft of self destruction.

Instead of working for betterment of its people, the country is ruled in the name of Allah along with deep seated antagonism with India and stupid ideals of strategic depths in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

Every country has an army, but Pakistani army has a country to feed its avaricious greed for money and power.

Its Armani attired civilian rulers are pathetic cardboard cut outs to fool the foreigners, as foreign policy is made in army barracks, lorded over by trigger happy fat army Generals, who are increasing showing strains of Jihadi influences.

The world must brace itself and be ready for that feared imminent Jihadi triggered mushroom cloud somewhere in the world.

It is the horrendous reality world has to prepare itself. OBL was believed to be hidden somewhere near an army cantonment in Pakistan, but Americans were hoodwinked to go looking in the mountains.

One can only hope they will be able to stop a much gloated Islamic-Bomb, Pakistani Nuke going off some where in the world.

Its people and civilian leaders are helpless and powerless to stop the slide down hill.

 

NICOLAS19

7:13 AM ET

August 15, 2011

flawed logic indeed

The money is not given – nor used – to fight against actual terror cells. It is given to Pakistan/Yemen to let the US conduct military operation on their soil as well as transit right.

It is common knowledge that the ISI has close ties to the Taliban, they used, use them to keep their northern border in check, at least prevent the emergence of a centralized, assertive Afghanistan. The US understands that, because they just can’t force a country of 170,000,000 into obedience without another prolonged and catastrophic war. So they are just paying the toll of passage to Pakistan and call it counter-terrorism aid. They get their passage and Pakistan their money, everybody’s happy. It’s up to naive hatemongers to incite against Pakistan, but they are weightless.

As for Yemen, they don’t care for the terrorist or the US one bit. They are getting paid to do what they always do – nothing – and I bet they are happy to see the US purging their terrorists for them. Again, they aid is not given to Yemen to fight the terrorists, but to let the US fight there, and so it works.

 

MARTY MARTEL

2:17 PM ET

August 15, 2011

Pakistani State breeds terrorism

The reason that aiding Pakistan backfired is because while claiming to be a victim of terrorism, Pakistani State breeds terrorism as well.

Pakistan projects sympathetic image as a victim of terror (faux victim hood), even as it is, in fact, the creator of terrorism. Pakistan continues to shelter, nurture, support and protect innumerable terrorist outfits on its soil.

Nobody forced Pakistani government to facilitate relocation of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996. Democratic government of Pakistan chose to do so of its own free will.

Nobody forced Pakistani Army and Intelligence to create what ex-CIA official Bruce Reidel called ‘this jihadist Frankenstein’ monster in 1990s. Pakistani Army and Intelligence chose to do so with the full financing provided by Pakistan’s democratic governments at the time.

Pakistan boldly holds the Western world to ransom. It garners generous financial aid and military supplies from the US and has successfully projected itself as recourse of last resort in its geographical theatre. It runs circles around international sanctions and bans by nurturing a large number of home-grown terrorist outfits forever changing nomenclature. In addition, it maintains seemingly endless supply of freelance non-state actors that allow it the fig-leaf of plausible deniability.

And in a masterful demonstration of how to manage chaos, Pakistan keeps its domestic situation in destabilized ferment and flux by stoking sectarian, that is, Sunni versus Shiite violence, and religious tensions between Islamic progressives and fundamentalists.

For the further bamboozling of the West, Pakistan uses its blow-hot-blow-cold relationship with the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and its hosting of the Al Qaeda as adroit bargaining chips.

The malaise of Islamic radicalism runs deep across Pakistan’s entire establishment - civilian and military as well as society.

Lawyers showered the suspected killer of a prominent Pakistani governor with rose petals when he arrived at court and an influential Muslim scholars group praised the assassination of the governor who was recommending to reform Pakistan‘s sharia laws.

The Pakistani parliament’s joint session convened on 5/13/11 after Osama’s killing and ended after adopting a unanimous resolution condemning the American raid on the Abbottabad compound in which al Qaeda chief was killed.

Pakistani parliamentarians did not appear to be bothered about Osama living in Abbottabad for the past five years and perhaps in other parts of the country since 9/11.

Osama bin Laden was a hero in Pakistan even prior to his death and remains one now as well.

Following are verbatim quotes from what Gen (rtd) Jack Keane said at a discussion on Afghanistan organized by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think-tank on June 30, 2011:

1. "The truth is, the ISI aids and abets the sanctuaries in Pakistan that the Afghan (Taliban) operate out of. They (ISI) provide training for them, they provide resources for them and they provide intelligence for them. From those sanctuaries, every single day Afghan fighters come into Afghanistan and kill and maim us".

2. "There's a direct relationship of ISI's complicity and the deaths of American soldiers and the catastrophic wounding of those soldiers. The chief of staff of the Pakistani military is complicit. He used to be the director of ISI. He put the guy in there who is in charge now and he has full knowledge of what I'm just describing".

3. There are two ammonium nitrate factories in Pakistan. 80 per cent of the explosive devices that are used to kill our soldiers, kill Afghan security forces and kill Afghan people come from Pakistan."

4. "All of what I just said to you, when we confront them with this, they lie to us.

 

EGISTUBAGUS

10:00 AM ET

September 7, 2011

Karzai can't allow the militants to become so powerful

i agree Afghan President Hamid Karzai needs a certain level of Taliban activity if about he is to continue receiving U.S. cash, but he can't allow the militants to become so powerful that Washington cuts him off entirely. Bapat thinks there's probably no way to escape from this expensive and frustrating limbo, at least in the immediate future, given the risk of chaos in countries like Yemen and Pakistan.
bacterialvagisymptoms hemroidstreatment, coffeetableplans, prematureejaculationexercises, tinnitusremedies, windturbinesforthehome, woodworkingideas, coffeemakersratings/ fibroidsinuterussymptoms,