What could the Pentagon be thinking (or is it smoking)?

The NY Times is reporting that the Pentagon is proposing that Americans cough up another $3 billion for Pakistan, as if they have been helpful in stabilizing Afghanistan and countering militancy at home.

As the Times notes:

The United States has [already] provided Pakistan with more than $12 billion in military and economic assistance since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including about $1 billion a year to reimburse Pakistan for fielding 100,000 forces along its border with Afghanistan. American lawmakers have complained that much of that money has disappeared into Pakistani government coffers with scant accountability and little progress to show.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged Thursday that the United States had not imposed sufficient accountability measures on the money. “There hasn’t been an audit trail, and there haven’t been accountability measures put in place, and there needs to be for all the funds,” Admiral Mullen said in an interview with the editorial board of The New York Times. “So we’re going to do that. For this counterinsurgency money, which is important, it is critical that it goes for exactly that and nowhere else.”

...Insurgents and terrorists operating in Pakistani safe havens are plotting attacks against targets in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the admiral said. “The Taliban, in particular, are going both ways now,” he explained. “They are coming toward Islamabad and they are actually going toward Kabul."

As unbelievable as this may seem, Admiral Mullen still apparently hopes that he can count on support from Islamabad. As he told the Times reporter, "I’m completely convinced that the vast majority of the leaders in Pakistan understand the seriousness of the threat.”

Really. Is he smoking opium or what?