Missing the Boat in the Big Flood

Pakistan is awash in growing anti-American fundamentalism. Our purported Pakistani allies provide infinitely more support to our enemies than they provide anything resembling assistance to our battles against the Taliban, al Qaeda and other Muslim extremists. Recently Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed to provide more people-friendly aid to Pakistan in an effort that is unlikely to have much impact in a nation that is so profoundly anti-American… with a fairly corrupt and inefficient government that needs to have backdoor relationships with these self-same anti-American fundamentalists just to cling to the last vestiges of feudal power left to these “elected” scions of family wealth and power. The hearts and minds of Pakistani are anything but open to most gestures from a perceived “evil” America. It wouldn’t be so horrible if Pakistan weren’t a nuclear power that hadn’t already spread the secrets of making nuclear weapons to both North Korea and Iran.

As our government searches for ways to make the locals hate us less, the extremists are taking advantage of a natural disaster: “In Pakistan, authorities are struggling to cope with the country's worst floods in 80 years, which have killed 1,600 people, destroyed or damaged more than 600,000 homes and left 12 million people -- almost 10 percent of the population -- in need of humanitarian assistance.” AOLNews.com (August 9^th). The central government has initiated ineffective programs, leaving massive pain and suffering, while their President is off attending to official meetings in Europe: “President Asif Ali Zardari, already deeply unpopular, has come in for stinging criticism for leaving in the middle of the crisis to visit France and Britain as Pakistan grappled with floods that one provincial minister said would set the country back 50 years… ‘I don’t care if Zardari is in Europe,’ Main Gul, 50, a laborer who lost his home and two cows, said in an interview. ‘His government is in Pakistan, but where are they?’” New York Times (August 7^th). Zardari is in the U.K. trying to placate the Brits over the seemingly lackadaisical Pakistani approach to an unpopular “anti-terrorism” campaign.

So in step the fundamentalists to aid the abandoned and suffering flood victims: “The floods have opened a fresh opportunity for the Islamic charities to demonstrate that they can provide what the government cannot, much as the Islamists [a word that means militant Islamic political groups] did during the earthquake in Kashmir in 2005, which helped them lure new recruits to banned militant groups through the charity wings that front for them… In just two districts in this part of the northwest, three Islamic charities [visibly sponsored by extremists for the most part] have provided shelter to thousands, collected tens of thousands in donations and served about 25,000 hot meals a day a since last Saturday — six full days before the government delivered cooked food… ‘The West says we are terrorists and intolerant, but in time of need, we’re the ones serving the people,’ said Maulana Yousaf Shah, the provincial leader of one of the groups, Jamiat-ulema-e-Islam...

“Mian Adil, the vice chairman of another group, Falah-e-Insaniyat, said the aid he distributed at a center in one of the districts, Nowshera, came with a message attached — ‘not to trust the government’ and its Western allies… Falah-e-Insaniyat is the charity wing and the latest front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India… Jamaat-ud-Dawa is the political arm of Lashkar, which the United Nations has listed as a terrorist group.” The Times. Any significant and visible relief supplies or efforts from the U.S.? Guess.

With an ineffective government failing to come to the aid of its citizenry in dire need, the minority of extremists in the country – powerful because they are extremely active and opportunistic as most locals simply have given up trying – are increasing their power and local support as the U.S. has missed yet another opportunity to help their own cause: “Some experts predicted that the public resentment of the government generated by the floods could erode support from the military’s campaign against the militants, and give a boost to Pakistan’s Islamic parties, which remain small but influential…

“A 30-year-old tobacco dealer, Gohar Aman, said he got a taste of the nearly complete absence of the government’s response when he got in his car on Thursday to search for a relief post he could entrust with an $80 donation… For 25 miles all he could find were centers run by hard-line Islamic groups, an unsettling option for a man whose brothers are elected leaders of the governing secular party… Finally, he settled on the Haqqania Madrasa — a fundamentalist boarding school whose alumni include Jalaluddin Haqqani, who runs the militant network that recruits suicide b ombers to strike at coalition forces in Afghanistan from his redoubt inside Pakistan.” The Times. We say we want to neutralize terrorism and wrest power from the Taliban and other al Qaeda sympathizers in the region, but we always seem to prefer the bullet to being a benefactor. Guess which path costs more.

I’m Peter Dekom, and our failures are mounting in Central Asia.