BBC NEWS World South Asia US to sell fighters to Pakistan
Of course, the US is not really selling them to Pakistan, it is buying them from the arms industry for Pakistan. The US is providing over $3bn dollars in aid to this dictatorship which has already wriggled out of blame for its top scientist providing nuclear technology to Iran.
In many ways it has echos with Iraq and Iran and how they were played by the US. Saddam was considered and ally and helped militarily. Then he turned bad. Admittedly, India is far from an enemy from the US but clearly has little respect from Bush, otherwise this decision may, at the very least, have been arrived at in consultation with them. Musharaf is a dictator, an ally and is recieving more in military aid than some countries' entire GDP.
I hope that this repetition of such a risky and purely pragmatic strategy does not end up in yet more blowback for the US and the world.
Like all dictatorships, we see plenty of this - for more detail you should click here.
Still, as with Saudi, Kuwait, Panama (in the 80s) and Uzbekistan, the US says good words but you can always tell a lot about someone by who their friends are. And what they do with people in Guantanamo Bay, of course.
No comments:
Post a Comment