My point is, after the 2002 standoff between India and Pakistan due to the attack on Indian Parliament, Pakistan was asked to ban groups like LeT and JeM and people related to it. But Pakistani govt. never fully followed this directive from UN and US.

After few months the people who are chief or who have the responsibility created another organization and continued with the same acts as earlier.

If Pakistani govt. is not following the directives of UN to fight against terror, then why should US pay? Also when chief of a terror organization is arrested he should be put in prison and not in house arrest. This completely defies logic. If Pakistan is an ally of countries fighting the war against terror, then it should act with responsibility.

Also now after the recent Mumbai incident, when India has provided proof, US FBI has given evidence, parents of the captured terrorist are accepting him as his son, reporters from Pakistan and other part of world have found his nationality, still there is continuous denial by the Pakistani govt. does show that they are not ready to own responsibility.

Also now after the Lakhvi guy has given confession to Pakistani authority that his organisation was involved and planed the whole act, the demand for proof and denial of information provided by other countries and India, shows a wrong picture.

Dan, please correct me if I am wrong or if I am reading too much out of what is written, the point made in the first line of your last para, makes me think that US is worrying about Pakistan only because of the nuclear weapons that it posses and nothing else. The only fear that US has is that these weapons should not fall in the hands of terrorist, which they can use against US or any other country in the world.

Is this the reason why Pakistan is always so high on foreign policy of any US President?

As I said earlier I might be reading to much from what is written above.

Your views appreciated.

I’m not sure I understand your question about saving US taxpayer costs by no longer funding Pakistan’s fight against terrorism? If the money is being mis-spent, so that it is not in fact helping to combat terrorism, then, OK, we should have a discussion specifically about how and why you believe that it fails to help, and how the money might be better spent to do more good per dollar spent. If it is being spent to combat terrorism, but the way terrorism is being fought harms more innocent persons than the terrorists would, or at least more innocent persons than necessary, we should discuss how terrorism might be fought without doing more harm than good. If, on the other hand, it actually helps, and saves lives and suffering, then isn’t it a good thing to spend this money, and if not, why not?

(I do not doubt, by the way, that the money *can* be better spent, and that the fight against terrorism *can* be done in such a way as to harm far fewer innocents, and I have high hopes that the US will do a better (though never perfect - human beings are involved, after all!) job of this under Obama! I would still be happy to see your specific thoughts how we might do better, though.)

The tone of your note sounds like you are simply saying that Pakistan’s internal terrorism just isn’t the US’s problem, but I would strongly disagree - for the reasons I already outlined, *anything* that hurts Pakistan has enormous potential to lead to very serious difficulties to the US, even if we were so uncaring as to be blind to foreign suffering as something to prevent for its own sake, regardless of whether it harms the US.

People in Pakistan, as per the information that I am getting from this blogspot, are still not opening their eyes to what their army and govt. is doing. They are still being ruled by the people who like to break them rule them on basis of their state or province.

India has many states than Pakistan, but still barring a few, progress that is made has impacted life of all the people in India, directly or indirectly.

Doc, I am not much aware about what is the state of people in Pakistan, in political terms as I have started taking interest in these thing recently. I don’t have political ambitions but surely will support people who will like to take both the neighbors on the path of progress and peace.

I am from India, people in India do think that the problem of terrorism that we are facing have roots in Pakistan and there have been in video footage from news reporters from various channels.

The hate or sympathy feeling, am not sure which one is more right, for Pakistan is only for the fact that even thought the govt. in have for some time now changed its stance towards from hate to friendship. Examples of these are the bus service, train service, trade in the Kashmir valley, talks with the diplomats on resolving of the issues between the two countries, but there are some characters in Pakistan, who don’t like this progress and change in position from India.

But the question still remains, Why US has to pay to Pakistan to fight war against terror? The money US is paying to Pakistan is also a burden to tax payers in US, why should they bear that burden?

-How much good or harm can this country do the US, depending on its actions, and
-How much attention and action from the US is needed to *affect* the actions that this other nation will do to the US?

I submit that a nation that can have a big effect on the US, where serious US attention is required to cost-effectively influence that big effect for the better, is judged “important to the US.” Canada, as a very big trade partner and a country with a long shared border, has a very big effect on the US, but it does not get much attention from the US government because our relationship with Canada is very stable, and Canada, itself, is very stable, so it requires very little attention to maintain the current, positive relationship. The “unimportance” of Canada to the US is not a moral judgement, or a reflection of Americans’ feelings toward Canada (which are certainly positive), just a practical estimate of how much US government attention Canada needs to preserve US interests.

The American economy depends on ready access to foreign oil (something Obama will work very hard to change, but this change will take at least a decade!). This makes all nations, especially Islamic nations, around the Middle East “important,” for their potential impact on American access to that oil. This isn’t a moral judgement, just practical self-interest.

Rightly or wrongly Americans as a whole see a large potential that terrorists can do them personal harm - Americans are afraid of losing their economic well-being and even their lives through the effects of terrorism. (If we could be certain that future terrorist attacks were never worse than 9/11, and that they remained as infrequent as they have been so far, you could argue that our response to our fear is out of proportion to the size of the actual danger, but there is no assurance that future terrorist attacks could not harm far more than the attack of 9/11, and could not become much more frequent, utterly disrupting the US way of life and placing all Americans in serious personal danger, so the fear is understandable, I think, even while I regret the fear because I know that the fear is exactly what the terrorists desire.) This fear makes nations that might house terrorists “important” to the US. This fear makes any nation that might potentially supply nuclear materials or expertise to terrorists “important” to the US. (This is true even if the *government* of that nation is entirely friendly to the US, if individuals within that nation might act against government wishes, or if that government might lose control in a future civil war or a coup.)

Apart from risks connected with terrorism (and much more importantly, I personally think), nuclear arms in a nation that may find itself at war with a nuclear neighbor are an enormous risk to the entire world, as a local nuclear war might spread to a global nuclear war, and even a localized nuclear conflict would not only kill millions, tragically, within those nations, but it could cause havoc (called “nuclear autumn” by the scientists) to the global environment, affecting *all* nations, potentially leading to the starvation of billions around the globe.

All the above argues for a large potential effect from Pakistan on the US (and the world), but I should also address my statement that Pakistan is on a razor’s edge - that with just a little help it might go in a very postive direction or (with the wrong kind of “help”) in a very negative direction: From my personal interractions with Pakistanis, and from my interractions through Pakspectator, I have a personal impression that the intelligentsia (at the very least) in Pakistan is very open-minded and curious, and eager to move in a very positive direction of increased freedom, stable democracy, and broad education. I also read of great internal conflict that makes it very difficult for that intellientsia to achieve its goals and puts the future of Pakistan at risk, conflicts that the US (among others!) has sometimes foolishly added fuel to, unfortunately, rather than helping as it should. It is really just a personal judgement (though one shared by many in the US press) that relatively little effort (*well chosen* effort!) from the US could help Pakistan advance enormously, and that in helping Pakistan fulfill its own best interests, the same interests shared by most of the readers of Pakspectator, I believe, the US could do *itself* enormous good, as well. (In business, this is called a “win-win” - an easy-to-sell idea that benefits both sides, if only both sides can be made to understand the mutual benefit promised.)