Hussein strongly believes that American dollars would accomplish far more by going directly to the "secular" political leadership that is pushing for education reform (teaching math, science, etc. instead of religion), jobs, and economic and infrastructure development - instead of filling the pockets of Musharraf and his replacement - which he said was most definitely going to happen - almost to the week it happened.

On occasion, Hussein would tell me of events and situations that he said were not common knowledge among Pakistanis but he felt that American agents had to most certainly be aware of. On several occasions when I mentioned to him about news reports that would come out about the Pakistani military attacking Taliban targets, he would frown and tell me it means nothing, "it's for the American's entertainment," the Pakistani military and the Taliban were in collusion - it's all about money - America's money, and corruption, and in many instances the Taliban and the military are one and the same. He told me that American money was never getting to the people where it could actually do some good by making the lives of Pakistanis living in the tribal areas better; as long as that was going on, the tribal leaders would take the money that they could get from "other" sources and do what they had to do to protect their own interests. According to Hussein, religious extremism and a hatred of everything not Islamic is prevalent among much - but by all means not all - of those living in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and this was never going to change as long as America continued to allow the Pakistani leadership to play their two-faced game, placating the Taliban by giving them support and dollars, and "entertaining" America with the charade of being America's ally.

So, getting to the point of my story, if Robert Spencer was aware of what was going on and Hussein was aware of what was going on - especially to the extent and detail of what he knew about, surely the American government had to know what was going on also. There's absolutely no way that so many people could be aware of Musharraf's ruse and our government be fully aware of his treachery. And in the case of Hussein being so aware of what was going on, often to the point of exactly what was going to happen - albeit never an exact date and often an event would be much delayed from the time frame he spoke of, our intelligence community had to know also. If this is the case, why have we continued to send billions of dollars to Pakistan? And this has been going on in spite of the fact that there has been massive corruption during the eight years of Musharraf-Shoukat power during the period from 1999 until 2007 if Musharraf's rule.

In one program alone, the privatization process, it's very clear and well known to all that rather than it be a key to economic development as was claimed by the government, it was instead a total disaster for the economy - because of corruption. From this program alone, the Musharaf Shaukat regime earned 2.5 billion Dollars during 2006-2007. So just think how much it took the American government for in military aid that was diverted to the pockets of Musharraf. As a matter of fact, the U.S. has dropped well over $12 billion, mostly in military aid, into Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf's lap -- much of it in cash.

Given our history of paying way to much money to Pakistani officials for little to nothing in return, and in most cases getting the opposite of what we paid for, isn't it time we set clear goals and tied them to the dollars we put out? And shouldn't we put our money where it will do the most good - with the people of Pakistan?

The blog "Thoughts on the World" has written about this very thing, doing exactly as Hussein as suggested to me time and time again:blockquote>We should never have relied so heavily on an ineffective dictatorship. This is the price we have to pay. Lesson learned: don't cozy up with dictatorships.

The good news is that this could be helpful in the long term. It could stop a lot of potential terrorists from becoming terrorists by (a) defusing anti-American sentiment and (b) having the potential terrorists feel like they have a say in their government. Alternatively, it could not. The brief spike in terrorist activity could outlast the long term effects mentioned above.

Non-military aid

So, what should U.S. policy be? No matter who is in power, there is one simple effective step that can be taken: reorganizing aid to Pakistan. Islamabad has squandered billions in military aid. Over $7 billion in aid has been ineffectively used in the fight against terrorists and the rest has been spent on buying next-gen fighter planes for use against India.

A better use for aid would be in infrastructure: building roads, schools, hospitals, electrical lines and water lines. Of course, military aid would still most definitely be necessary. However, American aid to Pakistan needs to be more for the people of Pakistan, rather than the Pakistani military.Fortunately, what Thoughts on the World writes of and what Hussein has said should be done, is now being attempted by the U.S. Hussein tells me that meetings have already occurred and that American officials are actively seeking to identify the political leadership most likely to use the money for the Pakistani people instead of filling their pockets. Based on what I'm told, we are talking to the right people, finally.

And our take home message here is that it looks like America is finally waking up to the fact that funding dictatorships is a very bad idea. However, problems still exist, Saudi extremists and Iranian dollars and agents are competing with each other and with America to influence Pakistanis - especially the those in the FATA. The Chinese are also doing their share of attempting to get their hooks into Pakistan, and in many cases are succeeding in doing so. Many in the Pakistani military and the ISI are not only pro-Taliban, they are one in the same. And the new government of Pakistan faces severe problems holding back the Taliban from taking over Pakistan. Yet as long as the U.S. can avoid putting money in the wrong hands and having it used against us, we at least have a "fighting chance" - and we do have to fight, in eventually ending the ability of the Taliban to use the Tribal areas as a sanctuary. That will be a very good first step in making real progress in Afghanistan and in combating al-Qaeda.

Related:
US offers Pakistan government $7bn in non-military aid to fight terrorism ("to fight terrorism"??? - lots a luck)