AAA wrote:
So does US aid to Pakistan make any sense?
Yes it does, it makes a lot of sense. We just have to switch off the "halo effect" for a moment and look at the US and its mechanisms for promoting national interest.
You'll find it an open secret that the ISI learned everything it knows from the CIA. Pakistan has been an ally of the US ever since it became a member of SEATO in 1955.
In those days the USA was a brand new superpower. It was guided by the British in developing policy towards all the former British-Empire territories and their surrounding regions. These regions included the Middle East and Central Asia... very crucial for their oil deposits and as a bulwark against the USSR.
The British did not trust newly-independent India because they thought Nehru was too leftist to faithfully do the Americans' bidding. So they fully backed Pakistan as their chosen agent of American policy in the region. Accordingly, the Americans started pumping aid into Pakistan at that time and have basically carried on doing so ever since.
Not only that, but Pakistan's army was seen as a key instrument in the hands of America to stop the USSR's Communist expansion, and to help control the Islamic Middle East. In order to perform these tasks, it was necessary that the Pakistan army should have a top-quality intelligence service. So the British, through an officer named Major General Cawthorne, gave birth to the ISI in 1948.
Just a few months before, in September 1947, the United States' National Security act established the American intelligence agency that we now know as the CIA. It was from the British that the fledgling CIA received its education in all aspects of intelligence operations and doctrine for former British-Empire territories and their neighbouring regions of influence.
Thus the CIA's Office of Near East and South Asia Analysis, and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, are in fact Siamese Twins. Siblings nurtured from birth by a common parent, the British SIS and Foreign Office, to perform complementary and mutually inter-dependent roles in the pursuit of what was then a common goal. To stop Russian Communism, and maintain Western influence over the crucial oilfields of the Middle East.
From then until now, the US' dealings with the Indian Subcontinent and Middle East have mainly focused on security interests. Thus, the CIA has been an extremely influential source of advice and its input has always been sought whenever the US Government needed to formulate policy towards these regions.
And of course, the CIA's office of Near East and South Asia Analysis has always been a true, loyal and devoted twin brother to its Pakistani counterpart, the ISI. They are bachpan se jigri dost. They are bhai-bhai to an extent, perhaps unmatched by any other pair of transnational organizations in the world. They have a relationship of interdependence and mutual loyalty to an extent that is actually hard to imagine.
Compared to such a relationship, incidents like 9-11 are nothing: the merest blink of an eye, a tiny aberration, a little misunderstanding between brothers. The CIA will always, always back the ISI's view on all matters regarding the Indian subcontinent, because of the mammoth institutional inertia imposed by the two agencies' fraternal ties.
So you can count on the fact that, any input towards US foreign policy from the CIA... whether it involves giving aid to Pakistan, or blaming India, or promoting Kashmiri secession... will invariably resonate with the interests of the ISI. And because Washington doesn't have any other organization in the region with anywhere close to the depth and breadth of experience as the CIA, the most influential voice in determining US foreign policy towards the region will continue to be the CIA. That is why the US aid to Pakistan makes sense, and will continue to make sense.
As we say "there is no such thing as a free lunch" so, I wonder what Pakistan is giving in return?
