US involved in Pak politics to the hilt

[Energon]

Hey guys, I had written a long post up last night which did not load, so I'm posting it now. I will add more to this discussion later. Antiobl and dabong: you guys have raised some excellent points.

Look at this folks, US "co-operates" with China to fill the walmart stores while China gets to buy the latest US nuclear plants (each worth $2billions).

US "co-operates" with India to get its accounts in order and in turn India gets $billions.

and similarly Pakistan "co-operates" with US to keep its military power as one of the dominant forces in the regions, and in turn US gets to extend and protect her strategic interests.

China and India unlike Pakistan have never been rental states. China was initially allied with the communist bloc and India took the non-alignment route until 1970. As a result, both of them have been shunned by the US since the 1940s. The relationship with China started opening up in the 70s after Nixon's initiatives and progressively grew through the 80s and 90s. With India, the unfreezing process started in the mid-late 90s and the flood gates opened up in 2002. However since neither of then got into deep financial and strategic pacts with the USA as fledgeling countries, they are far more capable of holding off the US influence while still keeping the economy machine in high gear.
This however is not the case for Pakistan. Since the Baghdad Pact was signed in 1959, Pakistan has been one of the biggest recipients of US Aid in terms of monetary credits as well as military hardware (after Egypt and Israel). I don't think anybody even knows the amount of unappropriated funds that have been put into Pakistan, but last year the New York Times ran a great article about it. To this day, the USA is providing billions of dollars in assistance. Obviously the nature of this relationship is far different than with China or India.

Pakistani politicians have a long history with UK and US. It is pretty logical that they interact with the US officials, but so do Pak government officials.

I don't know much about the bilateral relationship between Pakistan and the UK, but with the USA I can assure you Pakistan has always been considered as a client state (as are all the other states on that monetary donation list). For some reason it seems to me that the UK has always had more of a bilateral relationship with India. At first India was almost exclusively using British military hardware and in recent times (especially since Gordon Brown has come to power, Britian has seemed to zero in on India for economic purposes (probably so as to not fall behind the USA in trade relationships with India). Nonetheless, the point is that diplomats having relationships isn't nearly as important as the nature of that relationship. Hence one cannot draw comparisions between Pakistan, China and India when it comes to their respective relations with say the USA or the UK.

 

[Energon]

Americans just honored Dalai Lama while China fumed. Moreover Americans regularly conduct "show of force" on Taiwan issue. Shall we say that Americans are involved in Chinese "foreign affairs" to the "hilt"?

American and Chinese economic stars are hitched to each other, but the fundamental differences still remain as does the strategic adversarial relation.

Now lets see how India gets rough shod treatment by Americans when it comes to protecting American interests. Remember the days when Indians amassed forces on our borders? One call by Gen. Powell and Indians ran back to the barracks.

Unlike China, the USA considered India an adversary until 2002 and then switched over to a strategic alliance overnight. The economic ties between the two aren't nearly as much as those shared with China, but its getting up there pretty fast.

The USA had far more military leverage over India up until the 80s. But in 2002, it wasn't General Powell who stopped the Indians from going all out on Pakistan, but General Electric. Tom Friedman has written some great essays about this as well as an in depth analysis of that crisis in his book "The world is Flat."

Not only that, Americans regularly wine and dine with Indian politicians. Shall we not say that Americans are "involved to the hilt" when it comes to India?

Off course not. Indians and Chinese are patriotic, and nationalists. They will turn every encounter with Americans as their personal i.e. Indian or Chinese achievement.

This has nothing to do with nationalism or wining and dining, but rather the nature of the relationship. The fact still remains that the USA has invested a lot of money into Pakistan over the years which unlike India or China cannot be repatriated on the economic front. Hence the USA can exert their desired influence on Pakistan while India still maintains the liberty to thumb the nuclear deal at the drop of a dhoti; while China goes one step ahead and becomes USA's biggest lender.

Only Pakistanis are so unpatriotic self-hating lot that they so freely spit venom at their own country. Poor things don't even realize that they are spitting on their ownsleves.

Sad! Utterly sad!

This has nothing to do with patriotism or bigotry mate, I'm just discussing the factual nature of the problem here.

 

[antiobl]

.....the USA considered India an adversary until 2002 and then switched over to a strategic alliance overnight. ....

Well Energon sahib, I understand your POV with due respect.

However I strongly suggest you brush up your knowledge about US-India relationship starting from PM Nehru's time.

p.s.

Our problem is that people pick up few newspapers and overnight become "experts" on history. That my friend leads to many bad conclusions even though intentions may be good.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

I'm not going to deny for a second that we have grossly mismanaged Pakistan. But on the other hand, I don't buy into all this anti-US rhetoric either because we have also paid our dues.

With respect to US economic assistance to Pakistan, I am having trouble differentiating between "assistance" and "goods and services" purchased at market value - not taking into account aid delivered during the Afghan conflicts (which essentially was/is the US paying for services rendered by Pakistan).

I would appreciate someone providing some accurate totals of actual "aid", not loans, equipment and services Pakistan paid market value for.