Tom Carper

I think the key is not simply in making this a linear equation between opening up the dialogue between India and Pakistan and getting Pakistan to focus on militancy.

Notice I have not mentioned Kashmir at all.

My hope going forward is that the efforts that have been started before in the 1990s and even in this decade that they will not just begin anew, but will begin with our strongest support and encouragement.

The importance of reducing tensions between Pakistan and India

In this regard, Congress should move quickly to reconcile the two separate pieces of Pakistan legislation that have recently passed the House and the Senate to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to a long-term partnership.

It would be devastating if, just as the international community is getting its act together and implementing a winning strategy, the Afghan people lose faith in the democratic process because of a flawed election.

It is imperative that we minimize as greatly as we can any civilian casualties.

And I am not sure that other countries to whom we provide aid or assistance are all that interested in allowing us, through transparency, to actually know how the money is being spent.

What has been the level of cooperation between U.S. agencies and their counterparts in the Pakistani Government to ensure oversight and accountability over U.S. funds?

The last issue I want to discuss is, if you will, the safeguarding of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

What we need in Pakistan is not a Musharraf policy, we need a Pakistan policy.

To the extent that the Pakistani military has driven out the bad guys and gotten them on the run--we have a lot of people displaced.

There is a great opportunity for us to help relocate from the Swat Valley and other places where people have been displaced.

I think it was Einstein who said in adversity lies opportunity.

I think really a key to this is the legislation that we have discussed, the commitment of not just $1.5 billion per year, but over a 5-year period of assistance.

This was maybe a unique opportunity--hopefully not the only opportunity--for some kind of rapprochement between Pakistan and India

We are essentially competing with Islamist groups for the loyalty of these people, and we are losing.

I believe the President's combined civil-military strategies are our best hope to turn the tide in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

There is no better demonstration of this than the recently passed Kerry-Lugar bill.

The possibility that Islamic radicals could destabilize and undermine the Pakistani state has become, frankly, all too real.

We cannot allow extremists to destabilize this nuclear armed state that has the world's second largest Muslim population.

I came away believing we have a window of opportunity to arrest deteriorating security conditions in both countries.

Both India and Pakistan must leapfrog the hurdles of historical distrust and conflicts to fight the common enemies of poverty, terror, and religious extremism.

We do not have to throw up our hands and say, gee, we have to choose between having a quality of life that protects our kids, that protects our forests, or giving up coal.

We have the technology today to build a new coal plant that has minimal emissions of all of the conventional pollutants.