November 21, 2024

The President of the United States has publicly acknowledged what the whole of India (and maybe many others in the rest of the world) knew for years. That Pakistan was deceiving America was an open secret which previous US administrations either refused to acknowledge due to geo-political compulsions or just chose to ignore. But Donald Trump has not shirked from calling a spade a spade. In his first tweet of 2018, the US President has said that “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

Pakistan has been quick to respond and with appropriate indignation. Foreign minister Khawaja Asif said that "We have already told the US that we will not do more, so Trump's 'no more' does not hold any importance.” He added that "Pakistan is ready to publicly provide every detail of the US aid that it has received”. In a separate tweet, Pakistan’s defence minister’s twitter handle was even more acerbic in saying that “Pak as anti-terror ally has given free to US: land & air communication, military bases & intel cooperation that decimated Al-Qaeda over last 16yrs, but they have given us nothing but invective & mistrust. They overlook cross-border safe havens of terrorists who murder Pakistanis.”

While what transpires between the US and Pakistan should ideally be of concern to those two nations only but in this case India is definitely involved as despite Pakistan’s denials, it is no secret that a huge amount of anti-terror funding received from the US is in fact used by the Pakistani army and the ISI to fund terrorists in Pakistan and ultras in J & K. Hence, it is in Pakistan’s interests to play the role of the victim despite being an aggressor. While the world acknowledges that Pakistan western frontier with Afghanistan is a hotbed of terrorist activities, it fails to see that the Pakistanis train people to do in India exactly the things they claim to be facing at the Afghan border.

Hence, despite projecting itself as a victim of terrorism and getting billions of dollars in aid from the US and other Western nations, the Pakistanis have built terror factories in their country which target India. Trump’s recognition of deceit on Pakistan’s part and his decision to block $ 255 million in current aid is an indication of the toughening US stand. Of course this may be because of changing geo-political considerations as Pakistan is now seen to be cuddling up to China and Russia. But it is time the US realized that the Pakistanis have not used the funds they were given fully for the purpose they were given for. A huge portion of the funds were diverted for funding terrorist activities against India.