U.S. cuts aid to Pakistan

There is no way the relationship could continue as it did in recent years. The blank check had to stop. Now if only the blank check to the US military can be stopped.

Al Jazeera:

The US is withholding some $800 million in aid to Pakistan, almost a third of the $2.7bn in security assistance it provides each year to the South Asian nation, Barack Obama's chief of staff has confirmed.

Relations between the key allies, always tricky, have drastically deteriorated since US commandos shot and killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on May 2 in a Pakistani garrison town, sowing distrust on both sides.

Last month, Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, warned that the US would slow down military aid to Pakistan unless it took unspecified steps to help the US.

Now, it appears, it has, as William Daley, the president's chief of staff, confirmed a New York Times report that the administration was suspending and, in certain cases, cancelling some $800m of military aid.