Iraq Redux? Obama Seeks Funds for Pakistan Super-Embassy

[Orwellian_Ghost]

ISLAMABAD — The U.S. is embarking on a $1 billion crash program to expand its diplomatic presence in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, another sign that the Obama administration is making a costly, long-term commitment to war-torn South Asia, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The White House has asked Congress for — and seems likely to receive — $736 million to build a new U.S. embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for U.S. government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.

The scale of the projects rivals the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million.

Senior State Department officials said the expanded diplomatic presence is needed to replace overcrowded, dilapidated and unsafe facilities and to support a "surge" of civilian officials into Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Other major projects are planned for Kabul, Afghanistan; and for the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar. In Peshawar, the U.S. government is negotiating the purchase of a five-star hotel that would house a new U.S. consulate.



Any wonders what Iran might be thinking about?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/68952.html

[frog92969]

1. I assume KBR will build the showers

and Xe will guard the nearest intersection.
WTF is wrong with us?

[Mari333]

2. wow, he never ceases to DISAPPOINT

DOES HE.

fuck.
edit to add: let HIM pay for it.

[slipslidingaway]

3. Funds already approved in the war supplemental bills...

"...Funds for the projects are included in a 2009 supplemental spending bill that the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed in slightly different forms.

Obama has repeatedly stated that stabilizing Pakistan and Afghanistan, the countries from which al Qaida and the Taliban operate, is vital to U.S. national security. He's ordered thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan and is proposing substantially increased aid to both countries.

In Pakistan, however, large parts of the population are hostile to the U.S. presence in the region — despite receiving billions of dollars in aid from Washington since 2001 — and anti-American groups and politicians are likely to seize on the expanded diplomatic presence in Islamabad as evidence of American "imperial designs."


...A senior Pakistani official said the expansion has been under discussion for three years. "Pakistanis understand the need for having diplomatic missions expanding and the Americans always have had an enclave in Islamabad," said the official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly. "Will some people exploit it? They will."

In Kabul, the U.S. government is negotiating an $87 million purchase of a 30- to 40-acre parcel of land to expand the embassy. The Senate version of the appropriations bill omits all but $10 million of those funds."

[leftstreet]

4. What exactly is this "surge of civilian officials into Afghanistan and Pakistan"

:shrug:

I've seen references to this before.

[SpartanDem]

6. The other main component

of his plan for Afghanistan is a "surge" of diplomats, agricultural experts etc, people necessary actually rebuild the country

[leftstreet]

7. Hmm, why not pull the 'agricultural experts' from Afghanistan's Ag Universities?

:shrug:

[Chulanowa]

8. Because there's probably not that many, if any

There is one big drawback to bringing modern education to the third world and war-ravaged nations. The men and women so educated almost always ditch their home country and move to whatever nation sponsored the school they went to. The rate of retention is frankly pathetic. Odds are any pre-war experts are either dead, or have also fled the nation.

Thus the need for imports.

Plus bear in mind that Afghanistan has been a war zone for thirty years. That's a whole generation of people who have know nothing else, thirty years of a lot of people living off the aid of other nations, thirty years of fields being mined and burned to uselessness by bombs, thirty years of capable hands being killed or crippled.

We can't get Afghanistan back on its feet until we make some new feet for it.

[ColbertWatcher]

10. Only thirty years? I thought it was longer than that. n/t

[Chulanowa]

11. You're right, actually

Thirty-one years. The civil war started in 1978. I was counting from the Russian invasion. My mistake.

[ColbertWatcher]

12. LOL! I meant that I thought it was A LOT more than that!

I guess they've been poor for so long that it only seems like they're always in some kind of skirmish or another for generations.

[Chulanowa]

13. Actually Afghanistan was doing pretty well until the Civil War started

It was a social democracy, a prime tourist spot, and had enough agriculture to sustain itself. It wasn't exactly Massachusetts or anything but for Central Asia, they were doing alright.

Then the military threw a coup, the government called in the Soviets to help, and the whole place went to hell. Hell of the thing is there's persistant rumors that the coup was a CIA plot in order to topple the Soviet-friendly government.

'Course, I don't think either we or the Russians - or even a lot of Afghans - considered the fact that Afghanistan is the most ass-kickingest place on the planet. Don' go to a fight in Afghanistan, you'll just get showed up. Those folks eat rocks and piss bullets.

[ColbertWatcher]

15. Thank you. n/t

[Vidar]

5. Awww, trying to catch up with Bush. Isn't that cure?

[cherokeeprogressive]

9. KN1-KB3

Who are we to question a move like that? It's safe, and risks losing no pieces whatsoever...

[bvar22]

14. Does the term "Crusader Castles"....

...mean anything to you?