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Pakistan Dispatch: Hearts and Minds
Posting will be sparse over the next few days as Londonstani is playing host to the potential future Mrs. Londonstani (who is presently just known as Ms. Henley-on-Thames).
So, while Londonstani tries to figure out a security-conscious tourist itinerary, say hello to Mr Todd Shea, a remarkable American who Londonstani had the pleasure of meeting a few days ago. Todd is a one-man reconstruction team in his efforts to build and operate a hospital in a remote and largely forgotten area of Pakistan. He has also done more to challenge the abysmal image of America amongst Pakistanis than countless costly outreach programmes. And he's done it with pretty much just energy, enthusiasm and force of personality.
If that wasn't difficult enough, he's also trying against the odds to open up country and western music to a new (and as yet unappreciative) audience.
Seriously, watching him sing "Dil Dil Pakistan", a famous patriotic song, to a collection of bemused and delighted villagers is the funniest and most heart warming thing Londonstani has seen for ages.
Alhamdulillah :)
Alhamdulillah :)
Hearts and Minds and
Hearts and Minds and Stomachs - that's the problem, they always leave out the stomach....
Economic shocks in Pakistan can send millions below the poverty line, 18 Oct 2009
ISLAMABAD: Almost 75 per cent of the poor in Pakistan are clustered around the poverty line. A slight increase in income can drive a large number of people above it, while one crop failure or economic shock can send millions below the red line, according to a finance ministry survey... recent estimates showed that nearly a quarter of the country’s population remained poor, with a significant number barely clinging to the poverty line.
Pakistan's economic prospects are obviously tied to those of its neighbors - Iran, Afghanistan, India - but if its central role in international trade remains as a natural gas and heroin trans-shipment point, than the future is bleak indeed. It's obviously a situation that calls for aid - but here we run into the same old problem - contracts granted by USAID and similar agencies have been either giant giveaways to multinational engineering firms (i.e. Louis Berger water system contracts in Afghanistan) or have been ineffective Potemkin village approaches used as sources of "feel-good news."
The Taliban seem to have an urgent desire to remove all development projects from the country, so that they can portray themselves as the rescuers of an occupied people. The villagers, I suspect, want nothing to do with either the Taliban or the British and American troops, but would probably like some water pumps, some irrigation piping and glue, some digging tools, some fertilizer (I'd recommend against supplying ammonium nitrate & fuel oil, though - another benefit of solar panels and electric pumps), some seeds - I mean, if you need a list, go find some dirt-poor farming community in Utah or on the Navajo lands and ask them what kind of equipment they need most.
Then, supply it covertly to the villagers via Pakistani or other channels, so that the Taliban don't come and behead everyone for consorting with the enemy. Don't turn it into some media event for the folks back to home, to show them what great humanitarians we are...
The point of aid can be to win hearts and minds (propaganda), to pry open a developing economy and allow corporations access to their resources (Iraqi oil deals, $50B Shell-Exxon) or to provide a certain level of economic/ecological progress (food, energy, health, education). The latter is actually the rarest - most aid goes to the first two agendas, as anyone who pays attention knows, and if the third goal is met, that's just a matter of chance.
However, if in Afghanistan/Pakistan the third goal is NOT met than the whole thing will crumble. Thus, your counterinsurgency program requires not just a military rethinking, but also a complete reorganization of the civilian aid system - and the big engineering firms don't want to lose USAID pork, do they?
If there's a world record for serial subcontracting on government contracts, it's probably related to Iraq or Afghanistan - put a million dollars in at one end, and after it runs through the filters, you end up with a couple of South Asian slave laborers digging a trench with rusty shovels. No one might notice this in the U.S. (thanks to the press filters), but the locals usually figure out what's going on.
Graffiti is never okay...
Graffiti is never okay... unless its directly on suburban housing.
Thank you. Exactly what I
Thank you. Exactly what I had in mind, when I asked for few positive posts.
Let it burn.
Let it burn.
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