Monday, January 07, 2008

Pakistanis Fear US More than al-Qaeda, Taliban


A survey conducted by the quasi-governmental US Institute of Peace and designed by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, has found the Pakistani people overwhelmingly turning against the United States. From Asia Times Online:

"...a strong majority of Pakistanis consider the US military presence in Asia and neighboring Afghanistan a much more critical threat to their country than al-Qaeda or Pakistan's own Taliban movement in the tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan.

Only five 5% of respondents said the Pakistani government should permit US or other foreign troops to enter Pakistan to pursue or capture al-Qaeda fighters, compared to a whopping 80% who said such actions should not be permitted, according to the poll, which was based on in-depth interviews of more than 900 Pakistanis in 19 cities in mid-September.

...the underlying attitudes revealed in the poll, especially toward the US, can offer little very little comfort to the administration, which has become increasingly alarmed about recent events in Pakistan, particularly Bhutto's death, the Pakistani army's reluctance to take on the Taliban, and intelligence reports that al Qaeda and its local allies, including the Taliban, have intensified their efforts to destabilize the government.

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a front-page article regarding a White House meeting on Friday in which top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, reportedly debated pressing Musharraf and his new military leadership to permit the Central Intelligence Agency and US Special Operations Forces to carry out more aggressive covert operations against selected targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the quasi-autonomous tribal areas that have come become increasingly dominated by the Pakistani Taliban who have more recently extended their influence into the North-West Frontier Province. The US currently has about 50 soldiers in Pakistan acting primarily in an advisory and intelligence capacity.

...regional specialists both in and outside the administration have argued that such an intervention risked further destabilizing the country by triggering what the Times called "a tremendous backlash" against the US and any government that was seen as its accomplice.

While the survey found that a large majority of Pakistanis hold negative views of radical Islamists, including the Taliban and al-Qaeda and strongly reject its their use of violence against civilians, their views of the United States and its intentions toward Pakistan appear to be considerably more hostile and distrustful. A whopping 84% said the US military presence in the region was either a "critical" (72%) or an "important" (12%) threat to Pakistan's "vital interests".

By comparison, 53% of respondents said they believed tensions with India - with which Pakistan has fought several wars - constituted a "critical threat"; 41% named al-Qaeda as a "critical threat"; 34% put "activities of Islamist militants and local Taliban" in the same category."

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