For once I can agree with the neocon senators who say that US “aid” to Pakistan should be cut off. And so it should, to every foreign state. But implicit in such calls is the notion that the US is a charitable enterprise, dispensing aid to the deserving poor. And if those poor do not bend the knee, woe unto them. Worse, if they resent being run by rich, arrogant foreigners of an alien race, language, culture, and religion, they are terrorists. But in any case, we should never forget this: foreign aid is a means of imperial control. So it was in ancient Rome; so it is in modern DC. The US will never cut off “aid”—bribes—to the Pakistani government, for it would weaken US control. USAID is not an adjunct of the CIA for nothing.

UPDATE from Jimmy Stanfield:

I feel like the subject of foreign aid is maybe the most understated and least understood aspect among antiwar people in general and even more so among the American public. you’re right that it doesn’t go to help poor people, it was never intended to. it goes to prop up our satraps. Foreign aid is literally the lifeblood of the empire. It is the gas that run through the entire engine. But its more than that-at home Washington does the same thing with the states. “Lower your speed limits or we’ll withold highway funds!” Washington is an empire run on bribery. I do wish people would do more writing on the subject until everyone can see plainly the evil in the whole rotten system. 

The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.