Resolved: The United States should suspend all assistance to Pakistan

Contention 1 – Huge costs being wasted Subpoint A - Corruption During the 1990s, the World Bank and several donor partners provided a surge in external aid to support Pakistan's social sectors. Despite millions of dollars of outside aid to support antipoverty programs, poverty was higher in Pakistan in 2004 than it was a decade earlier when the program began according to the Center for Global Development. The GAO finds that over half of US assistance pledged for Pakistan is spent on administrative costs, including paying foreign experts, while only 10% has gone to development. Professors Flores and Smith of Political Science at NYU estimate of the $6.6 billion in military aid the United States gave Pakistan between 2002 and 2008, only $500 million ever made it to the military. The Belfer Center of International Affairs also estimates that 70 percent of the funds have been spent illegitimately in that timeframe. When the money becomes the property of Pakistani government, the United States has no say in where the money goes. The Government Accountability Office said that only $179.5 million of the first $1.5 billion of the five-year program established early in 2009 for Pakistani aid had been disbursed by last December, around 10%. Subpoint B - Aid is poorly structured/organized The Belfer Center finds our aid to Pakistan lacks concrete benchmarks, and is "too vague to be effective". The Center for American Progress, argues that "there is little coordination among the various agencies of the U.S. Government which disperse aid to Pakistan. [They] are each responsible for only one aspect of the total program in Pakistan and oversee fragmented pieces of the overall assistance picture." The mismanagement of assistance essentialy makes it worthless. Contention 2 – Pakistan helps insurgents who attack our troops in Afghanistan and other areas Documents, made available by WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders. The Center for Strategic and International Studies says "Pakistan pursues its own agenda in Afghanistan in ways that provide the equivalent of cross border sanctuary for Taliban and Haqqani militants, and that prolong the fighting and cause serious US, ISAF, and Afghan casualties." However, the most alarming news is found in testimony by Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs Admiral Mike Mullen. Through surveillance and data collection, Mullen found that the Haqqani, an Al-Qaeda ally responsible for many attacks on U.S troops, "acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency." This is the same agency receiving and giving out U.S aid. Mullen specifically tied the ISI to bombing on the U.S Embassy as well as an air strike on a NATO base. According to The Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Hafez Saed, mastermind of the Mumbai massacre, lives and preaches openly in Lahore. Fazul Rahman Khalil, head of the group which hijacked an Indian airliner in 1999, lives in an Islamabad suburb. Dawood Ibrahim who killed hundreds on Mumbai's metro in 1993 lives in Karachi. Contention 3 - India Pakistan is not using the money to counter terrorism, but instead to fight India, which is an extremely important country to the U.S. The Congressional Research Service finds that in late 2008 that Pakistan diverted much of the funds toward a military buildup focused on India. Instead of using our funding to invest in helicopter gunships and the other battle systems they need to combat terrorism in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas. Pakistan uses our aid to invest in battle systems which are targeted at India—like fighter aircraft. If Pakistan continues to buy weaponry targeted at India with our funds there are two huge impacts; first, our relationship with India could be hurt if they feel we are funding Pakistani battle systems which threaten them. Second, we could help fuel an arms race between the rival nuclear powers. Neither scenario is in the U.S.'s national interest. We actually recently saw an example, when India's government rejected a Boeing bid to sell an older version of its F-16s to that fast-growing economy. It would have been the largest U.S. foreign jet sale in nearly two decades. "We weren't able to offer our most advanced fighters to India because of our relationship with Pakistan," says The National Security Network, a Washington-based think tank. "We told them we wouldn't sell them anything more advanced than what we sell the Pakistanis." Because of this assistance, we are inclined more to ally with Pakistan, although India is a far more valuable ally. Pakistan is an unstable, economically weak country, whereas India's economy is actually growing at a huge rate. India also has money, and deals like Boeing that fell through could be huge boosts to the weak economy. Extra aid is not a right to Pakistan, as they have done nothing to deserve the billions of dollars they are recieving. Which sector the funding is going makes no difference, because after the money goes to Pakistan, the U.S has no say in where it goes. As a result, 80% of the money is being funneled into the military, which is working a) against India and b) with the terrorists. Therefore, we must suspend all assistance until Pakistan until Pakistan is able to at least meet the constraints of our agreement. All aid must be suspended, otherwise Pakistan will continue to put the remaining aid into the military. Vote PRO!!