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Pakistani-Afghan trade deal announced during Clinton visit

MaggieD

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From the Washington Post...

Excerpt:

ISLAMABAD -- Like an anxious matchmaker nudging a nervous couple together, the Obama administration has persuaded Afghanistan and Pakistan to take their first tangible step toward bilateral cooperation -- a trade agreement that will facilitate the ground shipment of goods between and through the two countries.

The accord has been under negotiation for years; Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari promised President Obama more than a year ago that it would be completed by the end of 2009. During marathon talks between the two sides that began last week, U.S. officials helped forge a deal in time to announce it Sunday night, just hours after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived for a two-day visit....

Here's the part I love . . .

On Monday, Clinton and the Pakistanis will unveil their own bilateral agreement to spend an initial $500 million in new U.S. economic assistance to Pakistan. Primarily for water and energy projects, the aid is part of a $7.5 billion, five-year development package approved by Congress last fall.

Obama gets the credit and taxpayers get the shaft. $7.5 BILLION??? This is just insane.
 
Please post a link so we can read the real story instead of your edited partisianship.

Nevermind, I'll do it for you, along with the part of the story you LEFT OUT.

The trade and aid agreements are part of the administration's ongoing efforts to facilitate President Obama's struggling Afghanistan war strategy. It hopes that a long-term investment here, along with repeated visits from senior officials, will convince Pakistan to more solidly align its own interests with those of the United States.

Most immediately, it would like the Pakistani military to take more aggressive action against Taliban groups that use Pakistan as their headquarters and base of operations for attacks into Afghanistan. The groups, including the Haqqani network based in the Pakistani tribal areas along the Afghan border, and the Quetta Shura based in the southern province of Baluchistan, have historically close ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/18/AR2010071800605.html

I would also like to point out that President Bush also spent BILLIONS for similar nation building tactics in Iraq just like this and I didn't hear a ****ING PEEP out of you guys so don't start now.
 
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@ The Dane -- Well, aren't you on the attack? I forgot to post the link. "Mea culpa ten thousand times," as she bows in your presence. And it wasn't a partisan post. It was the part of the story I was interested in. The part that fried me.

What is your point? Our country is bleeding red ink and we're bribing -- make no mistake, that's what it is -- Pakistan in an attempt to secure their cooperation. THAT was my point.

I am also sick and tired of the posters on the internet who do nothing but run everything back to, "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. Your guy did it, too." It's such a pp argument.
 
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Please post a link so we can read the real story instead of your edited partisianship.

Nevermind, I'll do it for you, along with the part of the story you LEFT OUT.



washingtonpost.com

I would also like to point out that President Bush also spent BILLIONS for similar nation building tactics in Iraq just like this and I didn't hear a ****ING PEEP out of you guys so don't start now.

Yes we get it. Bush was a bad president that does not give the right for Obama to be a bad president as well.
 
@ The Dane -- Well, aren't you on the attack? I forgot to post the link. "Mea culpa ten thousand times," as she bows in your presence. And it wasn't a partisan post. It was the part of the story I was interested in. The part that fried me.

What is your point? Our country is bleeding red ink and we're bribing -- make no mistake, that's what it is -- Pakistan in an attempt to secure their cooperation. THAT was my point.

I am also sick and tired of the posters on the internet who do nothing but run everything back to, "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. Your guy did it, too." It's such a pp argument.

The point is that the money spent to influence them is much cheaper than the money it would cost if we have to take military action there, and the possibility is real.
 
@ The Dane -- Well, aren't you on the attack? I forgot to post the link. "Mea culpa ten thousand times," as she bows in your presence. And it wasn't a partisan post. It was the part of the story I was interested in. The part that fried me.

What is your point? Our country is bleeding red ink and we're bribing -- make no mistake, that's what it is -- Pakistan in an attempt to secure their cooperation. THAT was my point.

I am also sick and tired of the posters on the internet who do nothing but run everything back to, "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. Your guy did it, too." It's such a pp argument.

Typically if you want some country to do something they feel is not in their best interests, you have to give them something in return as compensation for the negative aspects of what you are asking them to do
 
@ The Dane -- Well, aren't you on the attack? I forgot to post the link. "Mea culpa ten thousand times," as she bows in your presence. And it wasn't a partisan post. It was the part of the story I was interested in. The part that fried me.

What is your point? Our country is bleeding red ink and we're bribing -- make no mistake, that's what it is -- Pakistan in an attempt to secure their cooperation. THAT was my point.

I am also sick and tired of the posters on the internet who do nothing but run everything back to, "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. Your guy did it, too." It's such a pp argument.

Haha, I posted this BEFORE our great compromise on immigration. Sorry for being rough around the edges.
 
@ The Dane -- Well, I feel much better now! I thought, "What the heck??!!"

@ Lord Tammerlain -- I hear you. We ought to find better ways to compromise -- or forget compromise all together and use other methods. Reminds me of The Little Mouse That Roared.
 
@ The Dane -- Well, I feel much better now! I thought, "What the heck??!!"

@ Lord Tammerlain -- I hear you. We ought to find better ways to compromise -- or forget compromise all together and use other methods. Reminds me of The Little Mouse That Roared.

Without compromise nothing would ever get done except at the barrel of a gun (or equivalent)
 
@ Lord Tammerlai -- I think I have to give you this one, LT. ;-) Any argument I'd make from here on would just look foolish. Ha! "See, aren't I EZ, she says while folding like a cheap suit.
 
American forces cannot enter Pakistan. However, if serious trade develops between Pakistan and Afghanistan and those trade routes and Afghanistan civilians are compromised then military forces suddely have a very good excuse to commit military forces in the border regions which can either be IN Pakistan, or IN Afghanistan. Which just also happens to be where most of the militant forces are hiding.
 
American forces cannot enter Pakistan. However, if serious trade develops between Pakistan and Afghanistan and those trade routes and Afghanistan civilians are compromised then military forces suddely have a very good excuse to commit military forces in the border regions which can either be IN Pakistan, or IN Afghanistan. Which just also happens to be where most of the militant forces are hiding.

US forces are in Pakistan, and have made plenty of attacks within Pakistan with drone strikes. What the US cant do without serious consequences is put large number of forces in pakistan for any length of time
 
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