Why The U.S. Is Not Winning "Hearts And Minds" In Pakistan
31 October 2010By Deena Guzder
As the media coverage of more recent world events
overshadows that of Pakistan's unprecedented flooding
in August 2010, the crisis is far from over. An
estimated 1.4 million internally displaced people
remain in refugee camps and informal settlements. The
UN World Health Organization reports that acute
respiratory infections are on the upswing in northern
Pakistan, while concerns persist over malaria and
cholera near the Indus Valley. Relief workers are
working tirelessly to provide food, medicine, and
potable water but funds are drying up quickly. The
Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) recently
called for a generous and swift international response
to the $2 billion appeal for aid for Pakistan flood
victims, which was just 34 percent funded. Besides
tending to the immediate needs of displaced people,
Pakistan is also struggling to rebuild its
infrastructure. The floods damaged an estimated 5
million homes, submerged 5,000 miles of roads, and
washed away 7,000 schools and 400 health facilities
that will take years to rebuild. The World Bank and
Asian Development Bank recently announced that the
floods caused an estimated $9.7 billion in damage
across the country.
As Pakistan struggles to remain afloat, American
foreign policy certainly isn't helping. Traveling from
the southern tip of Karachi to the northern tip of
Kohistan, I recently spoke with countless internally
displaced Pakistanis about the epic floods, their
government's response to the tragedy, and America's
involvement in their country. Pakistanis consistently
told me the U.S. cannot win their "hearts and minds"
through a schizophrenic policy of distributing food
with one hand, and arming drones with the other. Many
said they are infuriated that CIA drones carried out
21 strikes in September — the highest number since the
clandestine operation began six years ago — just a
month after their country experienced the worst
natural disaster in its recent history. "In the U.S.,
almost ten years ago, you experienced 9/11 but, here
in Pakistan, almost every day we are experiencing
9/11," said Hassan Ali Khan who works with a local
grassroots nonprofit, Omar Asghar Khan Development
Foundation (OAKDF). Pakistanis such as Khan told me
the drones are not only seen as unjust, but also as an
act of American cowardliness (the pilotless planes are
maneuvered with a joystick thousands of miles away)
and imperial arrogance (nobody provides any
justification, recourse, or reparations to the victims
of the drone attacks). A recent public opinion poll
sponsored by the New America Foundation and conducted
in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal areas in July
confirms that U.S. drone strikes are deeply unpopular
and likely to become even more unpopular.
True, the U.S. military is also trying to show its
softer side by spending an estimated $216.5 million on
flood aid and dispatching some 26 helicopters to
evacuate trapped villagers throughout the rugged
mountains and the Indus valley. From a strategic
standpoint, the Americans hope their humanitarian
cargo will change what another recent poll revealed:
about 60 percent of Pakistanis view Americans as the
enemy. However, America's decision to drop food
parcels from helicopters is not likely to wash away
its history of propping up Pakistan's dictators and
deploying unmanned drones. Over and over again,
Pakistanis told me that America's foreign policy
breeds resentment, fails to address the causes of
extremism, and simply creates more anti-American
militants. Mumtaz Tanoli of OAKDF says terrorism is
rooted in the growing divide between the haves and
have-nots. "The people are impatient with
unemployment, poverty, injustice, and inequality," he
says. "The growing disparities, poverty and
desperation are the roots of terrorism . . . Here, the
opportunities are only for those with money or inroads
in society and the rest feel poor and frustrated."
Tanoli left his job as a translator for USAID to work
with OAKDF — a decision that cost him the coveted
opportunity to obtain a U.S. green card and also
slashed his salary by 90 percent. He says his decision
was partly based on the sadness and uneasiness he felt
while watching his USAID colleagues live opulently and
wastefully. "The Americans were buying fancy
waterbeds, but the locals had nothing," he said. "How
can you win people to your side that way?" Tanoli adds
that the drones are only heightening sympathy for
groups that fashion themselves as righteous underdogs
standing up to American imperialism.
In a story that has received almost no attention in
the United States, the U.S. military has infuriated
the Pakistani public by allegedly breaching the Indus
River and flooding a Pakistani village in order to
protect a strategic airstrip used to launch unmanned
drone attacks. Two prominent Pakistanis, Feryal Ali
Gauhar — a human rights activist — and Ali Sethi — an
author — have independently drawn attention to such
reports. Pakistan's former Prime Minister Mir
Zafarullah Khan Jamali similarly alleged that the
Indus river embankments in upper Sindh was covertly
breached to save the US-run Shahbaz Airbase at the
expense of heavily populated Jaffarabad and adjoining
districts. "I believe there was American pressure on
the authorities to safeguard the Shahbaz airbase," he
told Pakistan's Dawn newspaper. Many Pakistanis also
believe that U.S. forces supervising an airbase in the
Jacobabad district of Sindh province denied permission
for the airstrip to be used to deliver much-needed
relief to submerged areas where 700,000 people were
trapped. And according to the Guardian, U.S. soldiers
in Chinook helicopters are generating additional
ill-will during relief missions by donning helmets
with patches that commemorate their fellow soldiers
killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that are regarded
as morally offensive in Pakistan as in much of the
world.
Overall, the U.S. quest for the "hearts and minds" of
Pakistanis seems like a dismal failure. Pakistan's own
government hasn't fared much better; recent polls show
that Pakistanis' disapproval of President Zardari is
at an all time high given his abysmally slow response
in the days following the torrential rains. Some
pundits have referred to the Great Flood of 2010 as
"Zardari's Hurricane Katrina," especially after he was
photographed lounging at his 16th century Norman
chateau as 20% of his country was sinking. As the
Pakistani commentator Tariq Ali notes, Pakistan's
ruling elite have failed to construct a social
infrastructure for its people over the last 60 years
and this failure has fostered widespread frustration.
According to the UN Development Program's 2009 Human
Development Index, over a third of Pakistanis live in
poverty, a situation comparable to Rwanda.
The hard hit northern regions of Pakistan are likely
to provide fertile ground for rogue groups eager to
exploit the flood tragedy to gain new sympathizers.
These groups will probably make considerable inroads
into society since the Pakistani government is seen as
a lame duck and the U.S. is regarded as a foreign
aggressor. However, as Rashida Dohad of OAKDF notes,
rural Pakistanis are rational actors, not marionettes
of extremist groups. "The people are vulnerable and
desperate but they realize that [extremists] who help
them still have an agenda," she says. Instead of
forcing rural Pakistanis to choose between lives of
poverty or allegiances with intolerant groups, OAKDF
offers an avenue for reengaging in the political
process and demanding that their government meets
people's basic human rights. The organization is
asking the tough but important questions in wake of
the flood: Will the Pakistani government subsidize
food now that prices have skyrocketed? Will political
leaders vote to levy a flood-relief tax on the wealthy
to help rebuild the demolished homes of the poor? Will
Pakistanis insist their government stops marching in
step with the neoliberal dictates of the IMF and
incurring more debilitating debt? Will political
leaders actually invest in Pakistan's infrastructure
and reject bribes to rebuild bridges with sand rather
than cement? Will the international community drop
Pakistan's debt, especially in light of Oxfam's recent
observation that the country is spending twice as much
paying off debt than it receives in flood aid? Will
the U.S. reevaluate its foreign policy and follow
China's example of investing in the country's
infrastructure? Will ordinary Pakistani and American
citizens collaborate to build a robust peace movement
that addresses questions of both economic and
political justice – a movement that will force their
governments to invest less in militaries and more in
people?
Deena Guzder is an independent journalist who has
covered human rights issues across the world. She
recently reported throughout flood-ravaged Pakistan on
a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
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