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- Oct 17, 2007
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Pakistan's closure of supply routes to the Afghan war is costing American taxpayers $100 million a month, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday, as he recommended possibly setting conditions on future U.S. aid to Islamabad.
Panetta's decision to disclose what had been a closely guarded figure at the Pentagon appeared to be another sign of frustration with Pakistan and will do little to generate sympathy for that country in Congress, which is wrestling with ways to scale back the U.S. budget deficit.
From Reuters:
Pakistan route cut-off costs U.S. $100 million a month | Reuters
IMO, the U.S. should deduct the monthly costs being imposed on it by Pakistan's conduct from its annual assistance to Pakistan. Currently, the U.S. provides $1.5 billion per year in assistance to Pakistan. Pakistan has become a generally unreliable and often openly hostile entity. Its cooperation in areas of interest to the U.S. has become minimal to the extent that, in my view, a fundamental reassessment of the bilateral relationship should be undertaken by the U.S. even beyond the issue of Pakistan's conduct vis-a-vis military supply lines.
If the most powerful military on the planet can not get beyond a statemate, against an enemy that has no air force, no navy and a "rag tag", at best army, in over a decade of "fighting", then we have a VERY bad battle plan. USA, USA, USA...
I don't believe the fundamental problem is so much a lack of strategic planning capacity in the US military as it is a dysfunctional political culture in the United States generally. No amount of planning by the military can compensate for the fact that it has now become entirely legitimate in America's political culture to use foreign military conflicts to achieve domestic partisan political advantage. This happened during the Second Iraq War. There's nothing the military can do about this state of affairs.
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