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Hillary Clinton: USA’s Pakistan Policy “Incoherent”

Posted by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist in At TMV.
May 21st, 2009 | Comments

Hillary Clinton

Who is responsible for the mess in Pakistan? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trashed USA’s policy towards Pakistan over the last 30 years calling it “incoherent”, reports The Hindu. “She also acknowledged the U.S. shared the blame for the current mess in Pakistan.” More here…

The world had known this fact for decades, except perhaps the mandarins in Washington. Now the question is how would the Obama administration make amends for the omissions and commissions of the previous US administrations?

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton is likely to visit India in July, reports The Times of India. “New Delhi would be utilizing the visit to impress upon Washington the need to ensure that Pakistan takes credible and transparent action against terrorist groups, like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, which pose direct threat to India.

“New Delhi is opposed to any financial aid to Islamabad, saying it amounts to giving ‘liquor to an alcoholic’.” More here…

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GreenDreams

Finally, someone gets it that hostile, non-state actors are making inroads because of our inability to meet the needs of local peoples. After the Israeli attacks on S. Lebanon, the Lebanese government responded in a very Katrina-like way. They told their displaced citizens, "wait while we meet to discuss how to begin developing a plan to figure out how to eventually help you." Hezbollah meanwhile, was there the next morning with bulldozers, carpenters and electricians, repairing the damage and winning hearts and minds.

It appears that Clinton gets it. The emergency relief funding to the areas with battle damage might convince locals that it is we, not the Taliban, who stand to help them live better lives.

Silhouette

We were the world babysitters for a long time. Now the parents are broke and the kids have to learn to play nice on their own.

Why are we ignoring the obvious: that Britain is who wants us meddling alongside them in India [and therefore Pakistan and Afghanistan] to keep the region unofficially under their control?

No more babysitting, no more favors for the Crown. We're broke and we're done.. Thank Tony Blair and Cheney for their plan-gone-awry. We have no obligations to honor an illegal and immoral [and unaffordable] plot one single day further..

GreenDreams

Sil, during the Cold War it was in OUR strategic interest, not just Britain's, to be a better ally to India than Russia, which also courted them. The same is true today. China and India are poised to be the next economic powerhouses. India is the democratic one, and it is clearly in our best interest to maintain a strong relationship with them.

Additionally, we have an interest in working to improve the standard of living of all those in poverty. For one thing, the desperately poor are prime targets for militant recruiting. For another, we'd like them to be able to buy American goods.

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