Posted on 09/14/2008 12:13:15 PM PDT by MyTwoCopperCoins
WASHINGTON: The United States is suddenly faced with the uncomfortable scenario of confronting the very same weapons and military hardware, including F-16 fighter jets, it has armed Pakistan with for decades.
The unsavoury prospect of having to take a crack at the its one-time ally has surfaced most starkly in the skies over the Afghan-Pakistan border this weekend after the Pakistan Air Force deployed its US-supplied F-16s to challenge the violation of its airspace by US drones, and in one case, an airborne assault that landed US Navy Seals inside Pakistani territory.
The turnaround of Pakistan from an ally to a potential enemy has alarmed lawmakers, some of whom are now questioning the continued supply of arms to Islamabad. On Tuesday, a Democrat-controlled House Foreign Relations panel has scheduled a hearing whose snarky title -- ''Defeating al-Qaida's Air Force: Pakistan's F-16 Program in the Fight Against Terrorism'' == betrays the unease over the Bush Administration’s relentless arming of Pakistan. Al-Qaida has no known air force.
Some lawmakers and analysts have long questioned the need for Washington to arm Pakistan with sophisticated fighter jets to counter Al-Qaida’s and Taliban’s diffused militants, many of whom are in Pakistan’s towns and cities and are patronised by Islamabad’s intelligence agencies. ''The panel will look at how the F-16 program fits into the broader US strategy in the fight against terrorism as well as into the overall US relationship with Pakistan,'' a notification from the sub-committee read.
The House sub-committee is lead by Gary Ackerman, a known critic of the administration’s relentless pandering of Pakistan with military supplies. He and other lawmakers have questioned the administration’s recent decisions to provide funding for mid-life upgrades to F-16s, especially after government audits said Pakistan has been using US military aid to bulk up its forces against India rather than use it for counterterrorism.
In July, the Bush administration sought to shift $226.5 million in US counterterrorism aid for the F-16 upgrades. Ackerman said the subcommittee will seek witness testimony about the ''complete scope of the F-16 program with Pakistan including the number of planes, updates made to existing planes, proposed armaments, schedule of delivery and source of payment.''
In addition, because Congress has previously provided Pakistan with significant amounts of Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for counterterrorism and law enforcement activities against al-Qaida and the Taliban, the subcommittee will seek testimony on how these planes contribute to Pakistan’s efforts in the fight against terrorism and extremism, and how the use of additional FMF to pay for mid-life updates to Pakistan’s existing F-16 fleet enhances those efforts. The subcommittee is also expected to examine what counterterrorism equipment or programs were foregone as a result of the July 16, 2008, reprogramming request.
Fearful of a Congressional squeeze on further F-16 supplies and upgrades, an unnamed senior Pakistani official in Washington briefed US and Pakistani journalists on Friday on the central role the jets were playing in the war on terror. Pakistan, he said, has flown nearly 100 missions during three weeks in August that produced some 500-550 Taliban casualties. But the PAF needed night-flying capability because the militants were regrouping in the night.
There is a great deal of skepticism about Pakistan using F-16s against militants, and the body count it keeps producing. Several accounts from the region describe friendly, fraternal ties between the Pakistani military and Taliban fighters.
On Sunday, the Pakistani media reported tribal sources as saying a PAF jets were seen patrolling the skies on the country’s western borders with Afghanistan in the afternoon, soon after a US predator was seen flying in the area. ''Neither the CIA-operated Predator nor the Pakistani jet fighter took any offensive action as the two planes didn’t encounter each other,'' a report in the Pakistani newspaper The News, said.
Pakistan’s army chief Pervez Kiyani has vowed to defend the country against US incursions ''at all costs.''
I think that if our pilots and aviators are unable to fight some export-grade F-16’s, then we have a larger problem.
Planes yes, pilots no. Plus the avionics on export fighters isn’t as good as ours.
There are only two kinds of airplanes. Fighters and targets.
Not exactly true - As we fly a Block version greatly enhanced - Not to mention pilot skills and AWACS factors which further make any comparisons foolishness -
You have to look at history. We allied ourselves with Pakistan as, to speak frankly, second best, after Indira Ghandi and India decided to ally with the Soviet Union.
India worked closely with the USSR for decades, and led the movement to bring “Third World” nations closer to the Soviet Union and against the US.
The situation has gradually changed since 9/11. But Bush’s first reaction was to try to work with Musharref. I don’t know that that can be faulted.
So, maybe we will see India and the U.S. allied against Pakistan in the future, if the Pakis decide they want it that way. But there’s no need to get snarky about it. India chose sides during the Cold War—and it was mostly the other side.
Granted, but why should they have to? Pakistan is turning into a real problem child.
In an ideal world, they shouldn’t have to . . . but when selling arms to foreign countries, one balances the potential cost of blowback with the potential benefit of keeping the assembly-line running.
I’d bet that there’s a “backdoor” into the exported planes software.
is there a way we could keep a back door key for them to shut them off or mess them up ?
I suggest you ask if the folks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki would agree on those two B-29 targets that flew over their cities in August of 1945?
Or Saddam's military on those F-117 targets that flew over Baghdad in 1991?
While your brag may boost your ego, the truth goes a lot further than fighter jock slogans in meeting and defeating any enemy.
Yes, it’s called F-15 and F-22.
Do you know what the kill ratio of Raptors against Falcons has been in air to air training here in the US? Or against Eagles, for that matter?
Put one of our pilots and their pilots in identical planes against each other and you’ll see what better training and more flight time logged is all about.
We also have a couple little non-disclosed secrets of sales of US made fighters to supposed allies. Not easy for those exports to fly against us....for some reason, they’ll the avionics will go haywire if they target our planes
When we “The USA” sell ANY military equipment to ANY country...
We should equip ANY military hardware with a couple ounces of
tamper-proof C-4 situationed in the “control” hardware...
or load poisoned software we can wipe out at will...
well, let me say I would say “NEVER SELL IT TO ANYONE ELSE!!!”
without this sort of “insurance policy”.
Seeing how we sold steel to Japan that ended up being used against us
in WWII.
When we dropped lots of “Liberator” .45 cal pistols during WWII...
we obviously weren’t concerned that those guns (and the ones picked
off of Axis troops by using The Liberator Pistol) would be used to
kill Allied troops.
Today things are much more sophisticated.
And we should be as well when helping out “allies”.
Especially as they can do a quick “about-face” and become lethal enemies.
Actually, some of the exports have better avionics than ours. For example, some of the exports (including Pakistan) have upgraded EW suites our F-16s don’t get. The UAE has some very sweet F-16s!
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