The incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry, said on Monday he will push for tripling non-military US aid to Pakistan, putting that country and Afghanistan at the top of his panel's agenda in the new Congress."I think it is essential," Kerry said in the telephone interview with Reuters. "They (Pakistan) have a huge economic crisis. If anything winds up being one of the triggers for chaos in the country, it's going to be the economic implosion, as much as anything else."
| Jawn apparently doesn't understand how fungible money is in Pakistain, particularly with President Ten-Percent around ... |
The Pakistan aid bill Biden authored last year with Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar would have authorised a tripling of non-military aid to Islamabad, to $1.5 billion annually, for five years. The cash was to go to help improve schools, build clinics, drill wells and reform police in Pakistan. In his former post as a senator from Illinois, Obama also signed on as a co-sponsor.
| Improve schools that the girls can't attend and in which the main topic will be memorization of the Quran. Build clinics that women can't use and in which polio vaccines will be banned. Drill wells because Pakistain is brimming with oil. And reform police because the Pak police are so amenable to and eager for reform. |
The Biden-Lugar measure was passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July but never got a vote in the full Senate.
"Look, we can spend $12 billion a month in Iraq, or we can spend over a couple of years $1.5 billion to reduce the potential of terror in the very place where the top terrorists live," Kerry said. "It's not a very complicated equation as far as I'm concerned."
| That's because you're wrong ... |
Other items on the Foreign Relations Committee agenda will include the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Russia, China and nuclear non-proliferation, Kerry said. He hoped the panel could take up the CTBT "at the appropriate moment".
During the presidential campaign, Obama pledged to reach out to the Senate to secure the ratification of the CTBT at the "earliest practical date".