Afghan military to get $4 bn a year subsidy: Karzai


AFP | 22nd March, 2012


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President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai attends a graduation ceremony at a military academy in Kabul on March 22, 2012.AFP Photo

KABUL: The international community will subsidise Afghan security forces by more than $4 billion a year for a decade after US-led combat forces leave Afghanistan in 2014, President Hamid Karzai said Thursday.

Western officials told AFP that no final agreement had been reached.

But Karzai told a graduation ceremony at a military academy in Kabul: Its set that post 2014, for the next 10 years until 2024 the international community, with the US in the lead and followed by Europe and other countries, will pay Afghanistan security forces $4.1 billion annually. It would cover both the army and other armed forces, he said, adding: We agree and thank them. Karzais Western allies in the war against Taliban insurgents want to avoid the country descending into civil war after they leave.

But the United States recently circulated a proposal to cut Afghan forces from a targeted 352,000 in 2014 to 230,000 after Nato combat troops leave, and the $4.1 billion figure is a fraction of current Western spending on the war.

Questions remain over the military funding deal, said Karzai, with Kabul wanting to be able to spend the money on requirements other than salaries, such as weapons purchases.

Afghanistan will be able to pay the salaries itself one day but Afghanistan needs radar, air defence systems, warplanes, transport planes, helicopters and other equipments that improve the defence system, he said.

If Nato or America will not give us planes, will they prevent us using this money to buy planes for our air force from other countries? If we were to buy planes from India or Russia or Iran or Pakistan or Ukraine, will our (forces) salaries still be paid from the Nato money? A Western official said that a final agreement on funding had yet to be reached, describing the $4.1 billion figure as an initial assessment by the international community and the Afghan government of the future requirement for the long-term funding of the Afghan National Security Force.

The discussions are taking place now, he said, adding that the target for agreement was the Nato summit on Afghanistans future in Chicago in May.

Another Western official said that some coalition members were as yet unwilling to pay their projected shares of the money.

Kabul and Washington have a frequently strained relationship, and are currently negotiating a separate strategic partnership agreement to establish the relationship between them after 2014.



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Fair and balanced · 6 hours ago


Radar and Air defense system against whom? Against Taliban Air force? Unfortunately, Afghanistan is going to stuck in the same vicious cycle of poverty and military dictatorships once they build a strong military, while millions of Afghans are living on less than dollar a day. Schools, roads and hospitals should be need at the moment.




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Pakistan Airforce: The largest distributor of Indian airforce parts in Asia



Pathankot Strike
8 F-86Fs of No 19 Squadron led by Squadron Leader Sajjad Haider struck Pathankot airfield. With carefully positioned dives and selecting each individual aircraft in their protected pens for their strafing attacks, the strike elements completed a textbook operation against Pathankot. Wing Commander M G Tawab, flying one of the two Sabres as tied escorts overhead, counted 14 wrecks burning on the airfield. Among the aircraft destroyed on the ground were nearly all of the IAFs Soviet-supplied Mig-21s till then received, none of which were seen again during the War.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFHlzP69n9c

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Sounds about as good as Pakistan's military budget.

Prado, as a personal favor to me, could you do some editing to take out the nonsense to make this article more readable?

Nemo me impune lacesset,

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"The chief aim of all government is to preserve the freedom of the citizen. His control over his person, his property, his movements, his business, his desires should be restrained only so far as the public welfare imperatively demands. The world is in more danger of being governed too much than too little. It is the teaching of all history that liberty can only be preserved in small areas. Local self-government is, therefore, indispensable to liberty. A centralized and distant bureaucracy is the worst of all tyranny. Taxation can justly be levied for no purpose other than to provide revenue for the support of the government. To tax one person, class or section to provide revenue for the benefit of another is none the less robbery because done under the form of law and called taxation." John W. Davis, Democratic Presidential Candidate, 1924. Davis was one of the greatest trial and appellate lawyers in US history. He also served as the US Ambassador to the UK.

Given the rampant corruption of the Karzai government, how much are you willing to bet the ANA will actually see of that 4 billion once the politicians are done dipping their hands into the honey pot?

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phuckistan military budget = $4 billion
afghanistan military budget = $4 billion.

Though afghanistan doesnt have nukes, ballistic missiles, a navy etc. If even half that amount is decently used that the afghans would have a reasonably efficient force.