Washington’s freshness

Washington’s freshness

Dr. Jassim Taqui

According to the Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, the United States has pledged to release $1.6 billion from the Coalition Support Fund (CSF). Based on the US promise, Dar included Rs. 170 billion in the 2016-2017 budget under non-tax revenue. In fact  $1.6 billion is supposed to cover the expenses of deploying about 140,000 troops along Pak-Afghanistan border. But Dar has another ideas.

Dar also disclosed that the government is negotiating with Washington a new " permanent arrangement” of CSF. However, he refused to give any details about the new arrangement. It is, however, clear that the government is converting anti-terrorism reimbursements for the cost of war against terrorism into the budget instead of passing the money to the army.

Ostensibly, Washington is desperate to support the PML-N even as Panama Leaks proved its massive corruption.

Such policy has never been followed by erstwhile administrations. The previous  US administrations never tolerated corruption.  Ambassador of the US to Pakistan  Thomas Simons(1995-1998)  had to visit the office of the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to complain from the massive corruption of her spouse Asif Ali Zardari.

 Simons was so harsh with Bhutto that she snubbed him and asked her advisors to send a letter of protest to the then President Jimmy Carter complaining that the American Ambassador had no right “to treat Pakistan’s prime minister that way.” Carter had to intervene and ask Simons to apologize to the prime minister, pre-empting a possible move to declare Simons persona non-grata.

Simons was lobbying for Unocal gas pipeline. He made arrangements with Taliban to protect the pipeline but Zardari wouldn’t agree without having his “ 10 percent” share of the project. It turned to be that Benazir Bhutto was the real brain behind the pipeline while Zardari was the front man.

Now, however, the US administration is not only ready to work with corrupt regimes but also to liberally  finance them . Hence, one can say, change has come. Values have  disappeared and “freshness” has become the order of the day.