Opinion: Save Pakistan to Save Afghanistan

(Aug. 18) -- As the U.S. struggles to find its way in Afghanistan, a calamity of biblical proportions is unfolding in neighboring Pakistan -- monster rains that have submerged more than 20 percent of the land, including major growing areas, and threatened the lives of millions.

While the Obama administration has provided some assistance -- about $90 million worth -- more is needed to deal with the immediate emergency and the long-term crisis in a nuclear-armed nation plagued by poverty, religious extremism and fragile governance.

Here's one dramatic idea worth seriously considering: Suspend combat operations in southern Afghanistan for a month and shift those resources to saving the lives of Pakistanis -- many of them ethnic cousins of Afghan Pushtuns.

Such a gesture might do more to win the battle against Islamic extremism than all the U.S. drone attacks on Taliban and al-Qaida leaders, who are replaced as rapidly as they are eliminated.

There's a history of U.S. relief efforts blunting anti-Americanism among Muslim populations.

U.S. approval ratings rose rapidly in Indonesia -- the world's most populous Muslim nation -- after a massive humanitarian response to the devastating tsunami that struck South Asia on Dec. 26, 2004. The U.S. Navy led the way, providing emergency food and water. President George W. Bush went so far as to appoint his two predecessors -- Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush -- to lead efforts to encourage Americans to donate to the victims. Secretary of State Colin Powell visited the worst-affected areas, including Aceh, previously a hub of radical Islam.

The response to the calamity in Pakistan has been much more limited.

Partly, this has to do with timing: the Asian tsunami occurred at Christmas when Americans typically feel charitable -- and can benefit from tax deductions. The U.S. economy then was not in a Great Recession, which has depressed all charitable giving. And there wasn't the donor fatigue that occurred following this winter's earthquake in Haiti, a country much closer geographically and culturally to the United States.

There's also the problem of the ambivalent relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan. A close U.S. ally during the Cold War, Pakistan was largely abandoned after the defeat of the Soviet army in Afghanistan. Relations were patched together in 2001 because the United States needed Pakistan as a base from which to overthrow the Taliban.

In the past nine years, however, Pakistan has often seemed more "frenemy" than ally. Its powerful security services have retained ties to Islamic militants, and the Pakistani army turned its guns against local extremists only in 2009 when they had advanced to territory a few dozen miles from the capital, Islamabad. The civilian government is weak and afflicted by corruption.

A U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the topic, said the U.S. military -- which has already provided 18 small planes and helicopters and two C-130 aircraft -- is prepared to do more. But first Pakistan needs to ask.

"Everything we are doing is at the explicit request of the Pakistan government," the official said.

Pakistani journalist Raza Khan told me that areas such as the Swat Valley need more helicopters to save trapped people and need heavy machinery to rebuild bridges and other infrastructure. Had the Americans launched such operations, it would have had a huge impact and cultivated goodwill, he said.

Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani-American who directs the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council of the United States, also stressed the need for more heavy-lift capacity to move refugees and supplies. The focus now is on saving lives and preventing the spread of water-born diseases such as cholera, but Nawaz says "the big danger lies ahead."

Much of Pakistan's cotton crop has been destroyed, further depressing its main export industry -- textiles -- which had already been hobbled by power cuts. The world's ninth largest wheat producer before the flood, Pakistan may be unable to plant a new crop this fall on flood-devastated land. Already, food prices are rising in major cities such as Karachi. Nawaz suggests reprogramming some of the $7.5 billion in U.S. economic aid recently approved, to be disbursed over five years.

The women and children huddling in camps or still marooned on tiny patches of land amid the swollen waters of the Indus River bear no responsibility for the calamity that has befallen them or for their government's feckless ways. Relief that comes stamped with a U.S. label can have a lasting impact, changing their view of the United States far more than allowing a Muslim community center to be built near ground zero.

As Bill Clinton said in 2005 when he took on the task of mobilizing aid for tsunami victims, "The best way for us to help ourselves is to do what's right, without regard to how people feel for us. ... Just do it. And it will happen."

Ordinary Americans can show their concern by donating to charities that have long ties to Pakistan, including the International Rescue Committee and Relief International. The American Pakistan Foundation and Interaction -- a consortium of U.S. charities -- list other organizations that are providing help now on the ground. Even easier: texting the word "SWAT" to 50555 donates $10 to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Pakistan Flood Relief Effort.