Thirty-five million Americans as homeless refugees: That would be a disaster proportionate to the horrific — and worsening — situation in Pakistan.
This time, that forlorn country isn’t threatened by Islamist terror, but by Mother Nature. Two weeks of flooding, with more rain on the way, have made refugees of 20 million Pakistanis.
Try to grasp that number. Twenty million people, overwhelmingly poor, have lost their homes, their slight “wealth” and their livelihoods. Thousands have died.
And international aid groups estimate that 3.5 million children are at mortal risk from diseases spread by polluted water and poor sanitation. Think cholera, typhoid, dysentery and common diarrhea — the latter a killer among children in the developing world.
The Pakistani government has been mum about cholera cases, but aid workers report scattered deaths. That’s how it starts.
The deluge has inundated about 100,000 square miles — leaving thousands of hamlets, villages and towns underwater or swept away entirely. It’s the worst flooding in the region in at least 80 years.
This makes Hurricane Katrina look like a thunderstorm.
But Pakistan has less ability to aid its citizens and recover. As costly as Katrina was, our country could absorb it. The Bush administration took its licks, but there was no question of our government falling.
Pakistan’s different. Its ruling elite has looted the country since its founding 63 years ago. Hillsides once rich with trees were stripped bare for profit, while common shrubbery went for the cooking fires of the poor. Money allocated to build institutions vanished into the pockets of the powerful.
Now the single organization in Pakistan that has some capability — the military — is overwhelmed. No disaster since the secession of Bangladesh has so bluntly revealed the army’s shortcomings. The generals are doing their best — but it isn’t remotely enough.
Major bridges are gone, roads and railways washed away. Even the key air base outside Jacobabad is besieged by rising waters. These problems affect our troops, since the flooding has interdicted major supply routes into Afghanistan — and that air base has been used in support of our operations.
The Pakistani military and government face existential challenges ahead. The country’s institutions will have to answer to rising popular anger over the inadequacy of their response.
This, too, matters to us. The Pakistani Taliban, al Qaeda and other extremists will do their best to exploit popular rage.
The Taliban made a false first step, insisting that the country shouldn’t accept Western aid, that good Muslims would provide all that was needed. The rising water swept such notions away: During his weekend visit, the UN secretary-general stressed that almost a half-billion dollars in aid is needed — just for a start.
Meanwhile, the United States is behaving humanely by sending in dozens of aircraft, especially vital helicopters, to aid relief efforts. The problem is that our government expects gratitude.
A few years back, our military provided extensive aid in the wake of a severe earthquake in northern Pakistan. We got positive coverage in the Pakistani media for the first time in living memory. But it stopped as soon as we left; no one in Pakistan remembers that aid now.
The point is to have realistic expectations.
For their part, Islamist extremists will attempt to capitalize on the disaster by 1) providing local aid to the poor; 2) blaming the government for not helping sufficiently; 3) claiming that the deluge was a judgment from Allah for Pakistan’s cooperation with the West and for not supporting jihad, and 4) spreading rumors that the US masterminded the flooding to take control of Pakistan and punish Muslims.
Sound incredible? Look at some of the things educated Americans believe. Then try to imagine the worldview of an illiterate, impoverished Pakistani subsistence farmer with dying children.
The truth is irrelevant. People believe what comforts them and what feeds their rage. And they believe their own kind, not us.
Meanwhile, these devastating floods have spread from the northwest — Taliban country — into the populous “civilized” provinces of Punjab and Sindh, as well as into restive Baluchistan. Poorly constructed dams in Pakistan’s “breadbasket” are endangered. A grim situation could become much worse.
In the best of times, Pakistan is an unstable nuclear power; now a fifth of it lies under water. When the soil drains, the real struggle will begin.