U.S. builds goodwill with quick assistance in Pakistani flooding

[impik]

In a country of 170 million people where anti-American sentiment burns brightly, the United States may have won 84 friends Wednesday by scooping them up in the belly of a Chinook helicopter and ferrying them away from this flooded mountain town.
The rescue effort represents the most visible element of a broader, $55 million U.S. assistance package following Pakistan's worst-ever natural disaster. While the ultimate impact on Pakistani public opinion is unknown, the United States has earned rare and almost universal praise here for acting quickly to speed aid to those hit hardest.

The Pakistanis rescued Wednesday were among more than 2,700 picked up over the past week by six U.S. choppers that have also delivered bags of flour and biscuits to stranded residents of the flood-ravaged Swat Valley, in the country's northwest. Nineteen larger helicopters will take over that effort, the U.S. Central Command announced Wednesday night.

"The American assistance has been considerable, it has been prompt, and it has been effective," said Tanvir Ahmad Khan, a former Pakistani foreign secretary and now chairman of the Islamabad-based Institute of Strategic Studies. "The sheer visibility of American personnel and helicopters working in the field gives a feeling of very welcome assistance from the United States."

Most analysts say that feeling is unlikely to translate into any immediate improvement in underlying Pakistani attitudes toward the United States. The two nations have been allies in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but the relationship is marked by deep mistrust and a widespread belief among Pakistanis that the United States has ulterior motives for its war in neighboring Afghanistan. The word "America" is often pronounced here as an epithet and accompanied by a litany of decades-old grievances. In a survey released by the Pew Research Center last month, nearly six in 10 Pakistanis described the United States as an enemy.

Still, the floods have presented U.S. policymakers with an unusual chance to generate goodwill while providing a much-needed humanitarian service. The floods have affected 14 million people across Pakistan, and the United Nations said Wednesday that nearly half a billion dollars is urgently needed to keep the death toll from soaring past the current 1,600. International aid has so far been inadequate, it said, at less than $100 million.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/11/AR2010081105602.html