The War on Terror, Hearts, and Minds

Today's callous hotel bombings in Jordan, one apparently targeting a wedding party, deserve the world's scorn. The tactic (should this turn out to be the work of al Qaeda or one of its sympathizers) of going after US allies, with the goal of causing isolation in the war on terror, continues. A similar type of plot was thwarted in Australia just a couple days ago, showing the importance of vigilant law enforcement in this struggle. Of course, John Kerry was widely derided last year for daring to suggest that law enforcement should play a role in combating terrorism.

Another widely misunderstood aspect of winning the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims, in whose hands this global struggle remains, is outreach and relief. We did an excellent job of this during the devastating tsunami last year, which hit the predominantly Muslim country of Indonesia. However, the recent earthquake in Pakistan, which was nearly as devastating to the region, has been meet with prehcious little help from the Western world. Tristero over at Digby's blog has been making this point almost as soon as the earthquake struck, and he's dead-on correct. It may seem burdensome, we may have budget difficulties at home; but as a world superpower involved in an ideological battle with fundamentalist, radical Islam, our efforts to reach out to Muslims have a major impact on keeping the Muslim world on our side. We've lost lots of ground in the PR battle with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and now this latest story about chemical weapons in Iraq. We cannot cede more ground here. It's a national security issue as much as a humanitarian one.

Tristero links to an Asia Times article that shows how poor we have performed in response to the earthquake, and who's stepping into the breach to fill the role.

The poor response of the international community to the greatest human tragedy in Pakistan's history is quite apparent. What is even more tragic is the tepid response of the Middle Eastern oil monarchies, whose treasuries are brimming. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait offered $100 million each, while Saudi Arabia offered $133 million. Kuwait went to the extent of publicizing its $500 million aid to Hurricane Katrina victims in the US, but comes up with a relatively measly $100 million for the victims of Kashmir.

The poor response of the international community to the victims of Kashmir was underscored by the United Nations saying that it had received only 27% of the $312 million of its flash appeal for quake relief - compared with 80% pledged within 10 days of a similar appeal to international donors after the tsunami of December 26.

What about the Islamist organizations of Pakistan; how did they respond? The same Kashmir leader told Reuters, "The jihadi groups are more sincerely taking part in relief operations. Those groups, which were branded bad by the government, are no doubt doing well and will influence people's sympathy in the future."

A number of earthquake victims attested to this reality by stating that the only prompt help they have gotten has been from Islamist groups. Even Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf agreed with the performance of the Islamist groups related to post-earthquake assistance.

We're getting schooled at the relief game, something civilized democracies all over the Western world have been doing for centuries, by al-Qaeda. I think part of it is "disaster fatigue" in the wake of all the hurricanes at home. I also think that central Pakistan doesn't have nice beaches that cater to Western tourists like Indonesia and Sri Lanka and Thailand.

But here's the upshot:

Al-Qaeda is having a field day watching the community of nations perform so deplorably in regard to the human tragedy in Pakistan. It can, quite effectively, underscore three perspectives. First, that the illegitimacy of current Muslim governments in the wake of their failure to come to the rescue of a Muslim tragedy of epic proportions does not require any further debate, from the perspectives of al-Qaeda.

Second, the seeming lack of Western concern only underscores al-Qaeda's claim that the West does not really care about what happens to Muslims, as long as the compliant and sycophant Muslim regimes continue to preside over the political status that ensures the dominance of the West. Third, given the preceding two reasons, al-Qaeda's own unrelenting insistence on the violent overthrow of all extant Muslim regimes is further established, at least in the minds of everyone who is mildly sympathetic to that organization's criticisms.

I should mention that the above-mentioned "poorly performing" Muslim monarchies, all besotted with oil profits, are all our allies as well. And a Pakistan in turmoil, a country that has nuclear weapons in danger of falling prey to al-Qaeda's ministrations, is unconscionably dangerous.

This is a scary article, and we have the power to change it by delivering more aid, and arm-twisting Western democracies and Muslim allies to do the same. We have to lead the world on this; it comes with the job of being a superpower. Turkey has offered more aid than we have. It's criminal. What's more, it's a loss on the battlefield.