Direct From the Border
I just got back from a trip to the border region of Pakistan. We badly need to inject money directly into hands of tribals for projects they identify. In a meeting with 23 Maliks in North Waziristan they asked for help with irrigation, education, and health care. Basic needs. No leakage of aid en route to Beltway Bandits and their local ilk.
Also we need to moderate tribesmen now organizing their own forces to evict militants and "foreigners" (al qaeda) along the lines of the Iraqi Awakening movement.
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We badly need to inject money directly into the hands of the American people.
September 23, 2008 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The unfortunate bottom line is that the folks in North Waziristan and even Pakistan will always have a bias to tolerate the Taliban and hate the United States. The Taliban are locals and we are not.
We should pull out our military, stop killing people, and stick with a long term policy of containment of radical Islam that does not include 'war' or military action.
September 23, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's been my understanding ("I only know what I read in the papers") that since 2006 the Taliban (neo-Taliban?) have been building their presence in the Tribal Areas and now, are pretty much in control. Thus, I'd like to hear more about Shuja's experience which contradicts that understanding.
Maybe he could start by telling us how many maliks have been killed over the last 12 months and how far any of their writs, now, run.
My sense is that if one wanted to get money into the hands of the Taliban, handing it over to the maliks would be an excellent way to do it.
September 23, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oy. Good luck with that. I think that you'd get some serious value for relatively little money, but only if you could actually get it to them. And that just isn't happening.
Was in Lahore a little while back and a friend of a friend arranged to have a driver for me while I was there. Turned out to be some guy with a van that was bought with earthquake relief funds. It had never left Lahore, of course. Just a small example of a biiig problem.
September 23, 2008 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't want my tax dollars to be injected passed off to Pakistani tribal leaders who are accountable to no one. This is pure nonsense. People's homes are being foreclosed on and you want to give money to random unelected tribalists in Pakistan?
September 23, 2008 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps the tribalists would like to go into banking.
September 23, 2008 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then give them overvalued real estate backed liabilities! Why are we taking these debts on with our own treasury when we can simply transfer them to Pakistani tribal leaders? Naturally I'm joking but this call to send money over there is just that ridiculous.
September 23, 2008 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I support this. We can buy some real good will and effective local action for a relatively small amount of money. And we can easily pay for it if we take just a small amount of money away from the graft-ridden and bloated system of global imperial boondoggles, military base projects and unnecessary weapons systems. And we can bring a bunch of guys home from Iraq and slash that budget too. Just like the British following WWII, it's time to face up to the new global realities, contract the outdated and extravagant US global imperium, and re-order our priorities.
But haven't you heard Mr. Hawaz? We're "liberals". That means we're beyond practicality and realism. It means we want Pakistanis to irrigate their fields with ideals, buy their school supplies with hope and inoculate their children with democracillin.
September 23, 2008 9:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
We should have been doing exactly this for the past 6 years. We should have been installing solar panels and making small loans to start local cottage industries and improving roads and sending in soil agronomists.
Why did it take 6 years to come to grips with the obvious. People from the CIA have been shaking this policy tree for years.
September 23, 2008 11:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right, we should have been doing those things. In the U.S.
September 24, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, Mr. Shuja Nawaz failed to mention his links with the Pakistan army. His deceased brother was the Chief of the Army Staff when the Pakistan army was supporting the Taliban in FATA and Afghanistan in the mid nineties.
He is very kind to mention the ‘Beltway Bandits and their local ilk’ but neglects to tell us the ‘local ilk’ for the seven years were the Pakistani army Generals including General Musharraf. One should really see the pictures of the palace Gen. Musharraf has built in the most expensive neighborhood in Islamabad. Now I am told that the army security agencies and the Military Police would not allow photographers near his palace to take more pictures.
I think this is just another scheme to ensure that the US ponies up some more money for the Generals. As soon as the money gets there, the army generals would find a way to take control of it.
Working with Musharraf was one big mistake the US made. He and his fellow generals conned both the US and the people of Pakistan.
September 24, 2008 3:09 AM | Reply | Permalink