Where does US military aid go after it enters Pakistan? That’s the $6.6 billion question.
According to top generals, of the $6.6 billion in American military aid to the nation between 2002 and 2008, only about $500 million of it actually ended up in the hands of the military.
Exactly where the rest of that money went is unclear, but officials say much of it went to then-President Pervez Musharraf’s various subsidy programs to try to bolster his sagging domestic image.
Even for the money that did get to Pakistan’s military, much of it was spent on equipment to fight India as opposed to fighting the assorted insurgencies the US was hoping to target. As one Pentagon spokesman put it “we don’t have a mechanism for tracking the money after we have given it to them.”
The lack of accountability is bound to raise concerns, particularly with the Senate having approved a bill to triple non-military aid to Pakistan late last month. The same bill also authorized military aid to whatever level necessary to defeat al-Qaeda: which could potentially be an enormous black hole from which US aid pours, never to be seen again.
Obviously this is just a distraction from the real issue- ACORN- and their 53 million dollars in federal aid over 15 years. I'm sure the base of the GOP – you know- those "small government conservatives"- will be demanding an investigation of this waste and theft and abuse. After all, Pakistanis are sort of black.
Our country has grown more and more insane over the past fifty years. The average citizen has been comfortably dumbed-down to the point they don't know where Pakistan is, what our history of support for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban are, and how corruption like this is sucking our Treasury dry. It's really a shame we let demagogues run the country who are mainly adept at selling war to a simple-minded people. "Give us your sons, daughters, husbands, and wives, and we'll give them a decent burial or a place in one of our fine VA hospitals." It's our new Obamajobs program, you know…
This is the CHANGE people voted for?! It looks like more of the same, to me. More unwinnable wars, more draining of the US Treasury. Didn't Vietnam teach us anything? Evidently not.