{"id":3606,"date":"2010-12-12T15:23:59","date_gmt":"2010-12-12T23:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3606"},"modified":"2010-12-12T15:23:59","modified_gmt":"2010-12-12T23:23:59","slug":"republicans-damage-foreign-policy-for-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/12\/12\/republicans-damage-foreign-policy-for-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans Damage Foreign Policy for Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few places on earth create more foreign policy challenges for the than Pakistan.  It is a nuclear state with an unstable government, a history of aiding nuclear proliferation, intense hostility with India, an ally, national interests over Afghanistan that differ from ours, a history of support for Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and more.   With all that, the last thing we need is an embarrassing incident.  Nevertheless, Republicans ignored all this when they duped Pakistan\u2019s Ambassador to the US into hosting a fund-raiser without telling him that\u2019s what it was.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"12Pakistan_Embassy\"At Foreign Policy\u2019s Middle East Channel, Ali Gharib reports, \u201c<\/font><\/font>The Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. hosted a fundraiser<\/font><\/a><\/font> at his residence for a neoconservative D.C. think-tank, which solicited donations of $5,000 for invitations to the event\u201d: <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

But the think-tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), didn\u2019t bother to tell the Pakistani embassy that the event was a fundraiser<\/strong><\/span> or that it was sandwiched in the middle of a two-and-a-half day conference on \u201cCountering the Iranian Threat\u201d put on by the group.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know at all that they have done this fundraising<\/strong><\/span>,\u201d Imran Gardezi, a spokesperson for the Pakistani embassy, told the Middle East Channel. \u201cAnd neither did they share with us that they would be doing this conference. Very frankly, we didn\u2019t know about this conference.\u201d <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

FDD\u2019s president Cliff May \u2014 who, like his FDD colleague <\/font><\/font>Reuel Marc Gerecht<\/font><\/a><\/font>, is a strident advocate of aggressive action [propaganda sheet delinked] against Iran \u2014 denied that the event was a fundraiser, telling Gharib that \u201cfriends and supporters\u201d were invited, and that there was no \u201cquid-pro-quo\u201d between the $5,000 donation and invitation to the dinner<\/font><\/strong>. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cI invited FDD donors at or above the $5,000 level to the event,\u201d May wrote in a follow-up interview by e-mail. \u201cOthers friends of FDD were invited \u2014 at my discretion. Several FDD staff members were invited as well.\u201d<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

The conference\u2019s schedule reads [Neocons delinked]:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

7:00 pm<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Dinner at the residence of one<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

of Washington\u2019s noteworthy Ambassadors<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

(Closed to Media)<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

(Minimum $5,000 gift required<\/strong><\/font>. Contribute here [Neocons delinked], or for more information on becoming a donor, please contact [e-mail of FDD staffer removed]) <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em><\/span>][emphasis added<\/font><\/em>]<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

The Republican did what Republicans do when they open their mouths.  He lied.  This stunt was particularly devious and harmful to ongoing relations with Pakistan.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Few places on earth create more foreign policy challenges for the than Pakistan.  It is a nuclear state with an unstable government, a history of aiding nuclear proliferation, intense hostility with India, an ally, national interests over Afghanistan that differ from ours, a history of support for Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and more.   With […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}