Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) chastised the Obama administration on the Senate floor today for sending Pakistan more money despite its closure of a NATO supply route (only re-opened with a U.S. apology) and the 33-year prison sentence for an informant who helped in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
“President Obama sent them another billion dollars last week,” he said. “We already send Pakistan $2 billion and they disrespect us, so what did we do? We send them another billion dollars. People around this town are bemoaning there’s not enough money for our military yet we took a billion dollars out of the Defense Department and – an extra billion and sent it to Pakistan last week.”
Paul reiterated that he has gathered the signatures to force a vote on his bill to freeze aid to Pakistan unless Dr. Shakil Afridi is released.
“The leadership doesn’t want to allow a vote on this, but I will one way or another get a vote on ending aid to Pakistan if they continue to imprison this doctor,” Paul said. “He has an appeal that will be heard this Thursday. If he’s not successful in his appeal, if he is still in prison for life, we will have a vote in the Senate on ending all aid to Pakistan. Not a small portion of their aid. Every penny of their aid, including the billion they got last week.”
The State Department responded shortly afterward to the question of how much U.S. assistance has been provided to Pakistan since the re-opening of the supply route with vagueness.
“While figures for this fiscal year are not yet available, since the passage of the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation in October 2009, the U.S. Government has disbursed $2.8 billion in civilian assistance, including approximately $1 billion in emergency humanitarian assistance,” said the press office in a statement. “Our non-humanitarian civilian assistance funds are spent in five priority sectors: energy, economic growth, stabilization of vulnerable areas, education, and health. Notably, in 2011 the people of the United States supported the construction of 210 kilometers of road in FATA and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, funded the world’s largest Fulbright exchange program, and sponsored initiatives promoting private sector growth and civil society development in Pakistan. With regard to Coalition Support Funds, we refer you to the Department of Defense.”
Paul said he wants his bill to make sure representatives “will be recorded on whether or not they want to continue to send your money to Pakistan while Pakistan imprisons this doctor who helped us get bin Laden.”
Every time Barack Obama or some Democratic shill talks about “helping those who need it”, I like to think of the true injustices they blithely ignore because they are inconvenient to either the narrative or to some group those in power have decided to yield to–in this case, Muslims. I find it galling. Especially considering the blatant effort the President has made to obtain electoral profit off of this man’s (and others) work. Gutsy call, indeed.
Such is the way of the world. The strong get reelected as they will, the weak get imprisoned as they must.
Bring all of our people home now, cut off ANY AND ALL aid to ‘pock-ee-stan’, douchebagistan, shitheadistan and every other ‘stan’. Let the corrupt tribal leaders and tall-ee-ban terrorists go back to killing each other for $10 and set a no fly zone over the whole region. Spray agent orange on their opium fields and blow any plane coming out of the region out of the sky. We have lost too many loved ones in that armpit just to set up a continuous thieving government stealing our money. Let’s don’t forget that fat bastard Abbas either with $13 MILLION and counting of our taxpayer dollars…I hope his nose catches the first Israeli smart bomb to fall after our first Palestinian President is removed and Israel takes care of business.
This would be relevant if Paul’s own views on foreign and defense policy weren’t identical to a clown show (http://paul.senate.gov/?p=issue&id=14, for example no attempt to identify key allies, adversaries or geographic areas of interest) from a third rate 2AM talk show offering “work from home” six figure incomes. At least he didn’t mention the black helicopters.
It’s amazing how wanting to mind our own business is a “clown show”
But hey, go ahead and start more wars we won’t win and can’t pay for.