Double crossing friends.

2018 began with a tweet by President Donald Trump promising to cut US aid to Pakistan. "They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more," he wrote. "The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools." He was thanked for speaking the truth about Pakistan by former Senator, Larry Pressler who wrote in his book, "Pakistan should be treated like North Korea -- like a rogue state." However, he cautioned that Pakistani generals have several lobbying firms in Washington on permanent retainers. Use US aid money to pay lobbyists to circumvent US law. Pakistanis are clever. On the one hand, Pakistan protects the Taliban and, on the other, it allows the US to kill them with the use of drones. It is not just passive protection within its borders, Pakistan actively helps the Taliban, according to a NATO report in 2012. Of course, trying to be too clever can backfire badly, as when the Taliban attacked a school for children of army officers in Peshawar in 2014, killing 132 children. The Ministry of External Affairs in India was quick to point to a link between Pakistan and the hijackers of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Former British Minister, M Meacher also wrote of a connection between Pakistan and 9/11, but there was no reaction from the US government, which may have thought that it could not defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan without Pakistan's help. The CIA has maintained a close relationship with Pakistan's army and its intelligence agency, the ISI, wrote N Schmidle. Pakistan was using US drone attacks to eliminate Al Qaeda and other groups it considers dangerous to its own safety while protecting the Taliban, the Haqqani network and the Laskar e Taiba. On the US side, the elimination of Al Qaeda, the defeat of ISIS and its protection of the Taliban has decreased Pakistan's importance in the fight to protect Afghanistan. Even today there is strong support for Pakistan within the US, especially in the left wing media. Prof M Haider wrote that US aid is actually a disservice to the Pakistani people because it strengthens the army and weakens its economy. Pakistan army collaborated in the killing of Osama bin Laden by switching off radars on its border with Afghanistan and by cordoning off the area to prevent interference by the police. US aid is legal bribery to Pakistani generals, claims a new book. Or a sign of friendship.