Thursday, May 24, 2012

U.S. Senate Punishes Pakistan With 1.48 % Cut In Aid

To be precise, it was 1.48141498 percent. How do you like that, Pakistan? Payback's a bitch.

Senate panel cuts Pakistan's aid in response to doctor's conviction:

Senate appropriators unanimously voted Thursday to cut Pakistani aid by $33 million, or $1 million for every year a Pakistani doctor will spend in prison for helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden.

While the cut represents a small fraction of U.S. aid to Pakistan, the 30-0 vote in favor of the amendment from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) highlights the tension between the two countries sparked by Wednesday's sentencing in Pakistan of Shakil Afridi on treason charges by a tribal court.

-- snip --

The cut represents about 4 percent of the $800 million set aside for Pakistan next fiscal year, including $250 million in foreign military aid and another $50 million for Pakistan's counterinsurgency efforts. The original $800 million was already far below the $2.3 billion the Obama administration is requesting for Pakistan.

The $800 million referred to in the article is evidently the Overseas Contingency Operations portion of the total foreign assistance request for Pakistan. Another $1.5 billion or so in annual nonmilitary aid regularly goes to Pakistan under the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009.

See this Congressional Research Service report for lots and lots of details.

So, how much assistance are we giving to Pakistan this year? According to ForeignAssistance.gov, the FY-13 request is $2,227,600,000 in total. Minus that big 33 mil, of course.

Divide the Senate's $33 million penalty by the total of 2 billion 227 million the administration is requesting, and you get 1.48 percent. Or, approximately, a senator's lunch money. If the Pakistani big-shots even notice that bite, I'd be surprised.

Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back, Lindsey.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lindsey is a brilliant politician TSB: He was the 1st freshman Republican Senator from SC since reconstruction besides being the 1st in his family to ever go to college. He's a hard worker and one of the best sales men for almost anything (esp. war and and curbing of civil rights, gay rights, detainee rights)
Since it's SCarolina and he might well be gay I think the guy is amazing! I predict he will serve forever! gwb

Anonymous said...

http://yosoy132.mx/groups

TSB: Great website created by the student revolution in Mexico to change government and the media there. Tonite at 6pm will be the first huge demonstration covered by the Intl media. We joined this because so far nobody in Texas has caught on with it. Maybe we can get other Latin countries to support?
gwb

TSB said...

GWB: I don't know about Lindsey, he always seems so squishy. He and his buddies Lieberman and McCain ("the three amigos") have been controlling our Af-Pak strategy for years and years, and what do we have to show for that? He says he wants to get Pakistan's attention, but I think he isn't really trying if a symbolic $33 million is as far as he'll go.

Anonymous said...

I'm agreeing with you. Squishy is how you play to win in SC. gwb
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175546/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_road_to_amnesia/

This is what counts. Happy Memorial Day Weekend!
It’s the saddest reading around: the little announcements that dribble out of the Pentagon every day or two -- those terse, relatively uninformative death notices: rank; name; age; small town, suburb, or second-level city of origin; means of death (“small arms fire,” etc. etc. etc.)

Anonymous said...

Though it hardly affects the point your are trying to make, the actual figure is 1.48 percent not 0.0148 percent.

Anonymous said...

Is she a good egg TSB or is this just an election year stunt? I think giving 18yrs to implement standards like not starving hens is,well, no standards = lousy eggs gwb

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/229533-senators-propose-federal-standards-for-egg-laying-hens

TSB said...

Anonymous,

Thanks for the correction - 1.48%. That's what happens when I do stuff too late at night.

TSB said...

GWB: So Senator Di-Fi is promoting the welfare of both the chickens *and* the egg producers? I wonder which came first?

I guess California has regulated itself into higher food prices by restricting its imports, and, instead of paying for that choice, Di naturally wants to impose the same regulations on all other states. That annoys me worse than whatever it is commercial egg producers do to chickens.

Anonymous said...

That was good TSB: It looks like Maureen Dowd is cueing on your posts about the Secret Service scandal! Of course she actually interviewed the Senator from Maine, which added some good quotes. I think it is great that you are giving good ideas to Pulitzer Prize winners! gwb

TSB said...

Thanks, but I sure Maureen comes up with her own ideas (although I don't read her much since the NYT put up that pay wall). Collins had a good point about the obviousness unconcern of the agents about Service oversight. I think the guys who are fighting to be reinstated have a case there; the rules (unwritten but nevertheless real) were changed on them after the Service was embarrassed over Cartagena.

Anonymous said...

https://www.startpage.com/eng/
TSB: The above seems to be the primary "innovation" of Wazzub. It is a home page anyone can use on any browser to read the nyt "ad infinitum" and untracked. Those "rich chicks" seem indeed to have engineered higher food prices. We have seen them crossing the road around here but they look like they're "duck" lings. gwb

Anonymous said...

Off Subject TSB but the Indy500 is about to start and in the middle of the 2nd row is a guy named Will Power! If he wins Obama should offer him the Secy of Energy job and demand immediate confirmation!

gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB: Bob Dylan succumbs to "The Masters Of War" for a "scarp of tin and ribbon". I had lunch today with a 78 yr old Korean War Vet. I asked him if he thought we did anything wrong in Korea? He said: "Yeah! Fairy Tale boots and the wrong clothes!" He served 11mos and 21 days. gwb
http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2012/06/01/dylan-should-have-said-no-now-give-it-back/

TSB said...

GWB: Dylan is kind of a strange animal, but he never called himself a war protestor, even back in the 1960s. Other people called him that, but he called himself a folk singer. Fair enough.

The Korean War vet is so very right about the unsuitable boots and clothes. Hard as it is to believe today, the U.S. military was once poor. The best book I've read about that part of 'the forgotten war' is This Kind Of War (T. R. Fehrenbach). Our unpreparedness for the communist invasion was incredible.

Anonymous said...

I will check that one out TSB gwb

Anonymous said...

This Kind of War is really great (in Kindle Sample) I think they have it down at the library. All that Korean-Japanese-Manchurian history is really interesting towards understanding today's situation. Thanks TSB! gwb

TSB said...

Glad you like it. It's maybe the best military history of the Korean War.