Spinning the choppers

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U.S. aid after the horrific quake in Pakistan (higher death toll than the Gujarat and Bam temblors) is already being spun by the politicos in Washington:

“Musharraf is a friend and hero in our eyes,” said one senior U.S. official… “There is a clear and unmistakable signal being sent that we help our friends.” [Link]

Who gets credit for eight U.S. helicopters and three field hospitals? Round and round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows:

A survey of 1,200 Indonesians one month after the tsunami… found that, for the first time, more Indonesians (40 percent) supported the U.S. terrorism fight than opposed it (36 percent). Sixty-five percent of those surveyed had a more favorable impression of the United States, with support strongest among those younger than 30, while support for Osama bin Laden dropped from 58 percent before the tsunami to 23 percent. Terror Free Tomorrow is a nonpartisan group that studies popular support for global terrorism. [Link]

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p>Indonesian support for bin Laden dropped from 58% before the tsunami to 23%after U.S. aidOne expert thinks the U.S. will reap the benefits, but Musharraf will not. The Pakistani government’s quake relief has seemingly been as ineffectual as the U.S. government’s Katrina response:

Husain Haqqani, director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University and an adviser to Terror Free Tomorrow, said the experience in Indonesia could easily be replicated in Pakistan… But Haqqani said the U.S. effort to prop up Musharraf with the relief effort is unlikely to succeed. He said hard questions are already being asked about the faltering response of the Pakistani military, which Musharraf controls. Moreover, he said, much of the $1 billion in annual U.S. aid that Pakistan receives is perceived as going toward buying F-16 fighter planes and toward supporting the state, not the common people. “The man in the street has not been the beneficiary of the U.S. aid” in the past, so credit for the disaster relief will flow to the United States, not to Musharraf… [Link]

19 thoughts on “Spinning the choppers”

  1. The irony is that because this disaster happened outside U.S borders, there was probably less red tape (and a political agenda to achieve) involved in getting U.S. military aid there as compared to New Orleans. Though I doubt it will change any local opinions about the U.S. Am surprised nobody in that area had not yet blamed some U.S secret weapon for causing the earthquake.

  2. I’m sure the day is not too far off when corporations like Coke and McDonalds or Pizza Hut will sponsor relief/aid flights. Let’s go shower the poor disaster victims with sugary sodas and french fries, on top of medicine, supplies, clothes, etc. The corporate sponsors will think, “these poor people will be so grateful to us and then we’ll have snagged their brand loyalty when we bulldoze their homes to build 3 new locations…”

  3. DD that is a fascinating point. A little satirical right now, but who knows what the future holds? If the CEOs of those corps are reading this right now…quick, patent your idea!

  4. I was listening to an interview with a Dawn columnist yesterday, who correctly pointed out that Musharraf is in fact using Katrina as an excuse for the lack of relief efforts. There was an audio clip of Musharraf explaining that “even the US” could not get relief to New Orleans in time, and so he couldn’t be blamed for the lack of effective relief work.

  5. I’m sure the day is not too far off when corporations like Coke and McDonalds or Pizza Hut will sponsor relief/aid flights. Let’s go shower the poor disaster victims with sugary sodas and french fries, on top of medicine, supplies, clothes, etc. The corporate sponsors will think, “these poor people will be so grateful to us and then we’ll have snagged their brand loyalty when we bulldoze their homes to build 3 new locations…”

    I’d say let them do it. These folks need all the carbs they can get. Besides, corps do not need the brand loyalty to bulldoze the houses of their patrons, they just have to pay chump-change to the local thug-leaders, which is cheap, quick and hassle free.

    This disaster is so heartbreaking. I saw the footage of a little boy who was trapped (eventually rescued). The quiet demeanor of this boy rattled me. It seemed to me that he had figured it all out. CanÂ’t get that out of head.

    HereÂ’s how it should happen. – Send the bloodsucking corporations first. – Then the gentle missionaries who would serve and then convert some of them. – Then send in the “re-converters” to re-convert the converted and to supply more stuff.

  6. Eight choppers isn’t all that exciting, considering we’re talking (conservatively) about 5 million homeless survivors dealing with the onset of winter in the Himalayas.

    U.S government officials think they’re rewarding Musharraf. But they may be rewarding a dead duck: if things stay as bad as they currently are, I don’t know if anything can save his government from angry, desperate survivors…

    Tariq Ali made a snide comment about it in the Guardian yesterday: there are dozens, if not hundreds of U.S. choppers within 500 miles of this earthquake (i.e., at the Pak/Afghanistan border) –where are they?

    Ali’s comment may be off the mark (I have my doubts about whether U.S. attack helicopters could be useful for delivering aid). But it’s worth considering, at least as a statement about the U.S.’s real priorities for Pakistan.

  8. I wonder why all the Middle Eastern countries aren’t helping out (especially the rich Gulf States), especially with regards to sending large numbers of on-the-ground manpower to assist disaster-recovery and survivor-rescue efforts.

  9. I wonder why all the Middle Eastern countries aren’t helping out (especially the rich Gulf States), especially with regards to sending large numbers of on-the-ground manpower to assist disaster-recovery and survivor-rescue efforts.

    Obviously charity doesn’t begin at home in the Middle East. On these occasions they do want Western involvement…

  10. Vikram,

    So much for the much-vaunted “global unity of the Ummah (especially against the ‘infidel’)”….

    I hope all those wannabe jihadists out there — especially those born and brought up in the West — are taking notice of the fact that the very people they despise are the ones who are a) sending on-the-ground manpower and b) in the cases of ordinary citizens, have volunteered/raised — and are continuing to raise — millions of pounds/dollars to help the victims of this disaster. Plus of course the larger sums donated by the various Western governments.

    If the fundies have any decency and integrity at all then they’ll do some serious thinking about all this.

  11. I hope all those wannabe jihadists out there — especially those born and brought up in the West — are taking notice of the fact that the very people they despise are the ones who are a) sending on-the-ground manpower and b) in the cases of ordinary citizens, have volunteered/raised — and are continuing to raise — millions of pounds/dollars to help the victims of this disaster.

    Highly doubtful that the wannabe Western jihadists will change their twisted thinking. This guy’s own mother was rescued from the WTC … you can see how it inspired him: Mohammed Junaid Babar .

  13. JaiSingh writes: >>If the fundies have any decency and integrity at all then they’ll do some serious thinking about all this

    One does not use the words “fundies” and “thinking” in the same sentence.

    M. Nam

  14. Pakistan in a state of complete distress… 🙁

    A few miles to the north of the disaster zone there is a large fleet of helicopters belonging to the Western armies occupying parts of Afghanistan. Why could the US, German and British commanders not dispatch these to save lives? Is the war so fierce that these were needed every single day? Five days after the earthquake, the US released 8 helicopters from war duty to help transport food and water to isolated villages. Too little, too late. The Pakistan Army has been put into action, but armies here and elsewhere, are not suited to relief effort. They are not trained to save lives and reports today that aid convoys are being attacked and seized by angry crowds long before they reach their destination is an indication of the chaos. Even in normal times the poor have limited access to doctors and nurses. The state-of-the-art hospitals in the big cities are exclusively for the wealthy. The shortage of medical staff has been a curse for the last fifty years.[Link]
  15. Indonesian support for bin Laden dropped from 58% before the tsunami to 23%after U.S. aid

    ah the joys of democracy and capitalism… we can just buy our support from others around the world. excellent, smithers.

    getting off the cynical bandwagon, i actually think this statistic is pretty impressive… it might be a sign of people buying into the benefits of political freedoms that will eventually motivate change in the country

  17. How about they hand over AQ Khan and we’ll build them a Levittown in the center of Muzzafarabad?

  18. Like I mentioned in my earlier post that there wouldn’t be any real gratefulness for American aid in the log term:

    Another volunteer, Irfan Haider, was more circumspect. “America always helps, like they did during the tsunami,” he said, referring to the assistance given by the U.S. military to areas of Indonesia, Thailand and other nations hit by the devastating waves that killed tens of thousands of people last December. “But I think the U.S. should not help Israel. America’s politics are still a problem,” Haider said.

    U.S. Choppers Ferry Injured From Pakistan

    Not surprising that there has been a somewhat underwhelming response in aid.

  19. getting off the cynical bandwagon, i actually think this statistic is pretty impressive… it might be a sign of people buying into the benefits of political freedoms that will eventually motivate change in the country

    Your corelation between political freedom and change is incorrect here. There was no real hatred for the US even when they did NOT have political freedom.Track back to the days of Suharto. They were more or less pro West. Its only around 2001 that anti US sentiments increased.