Why the Pakistan Earthquake Doesn't Move Us

President Musharraf is reported in the Statesman to be ready to slow down the purchase of F-16 fighters from the U.S. in order to handle relief and reconstruction after the earthquake. He had been planning to buy 75 planes for $3 billion, which works out to $40 million each. Our government says this is OK, because Pakistan is our ally in the war on terror.

F-16's in the war on terror? What exactly does that mean? The only possible threat for which such aircraft would be appropriate would be India. China at the outside. Certainly not Osama bin Laden.

But leaving aside the question of how Pakistan spends its own meager resources, it does appear that the world is not rushing to send aid. I can think of many reasons. One is that the Indonesian tsunami victims included Westerners. No doubt about it. We are more sympathetic when our fellow countrymen are involved. Call it racist or whatever, but it's a fact of human nature.

But I think there are two other factors in play. One is the sense from westerners that maybe the Arabs should take care of this one. The amount by which the price of oil exceeds the prices which OPEC says it would like to see (although that itself seems to be climbing upwards) is at least $20/barrel. Nearly the entire amount that the UN is trying to obtain could be provided by OPEC with the excess earnings it receives in one day.

But the other is that Pakistan simply doesn't present a sympathetic picture. George Bush may regard Pakistan as an ally, but ordinary people watching TV aren't going to see that. Osama is still probably hiding out in Pakistan. The country doesn't protect its own women from gang rapes "for honor." Its Shiites and Sunnis attack one another in their mosques. In the midst all this, Pakistan-based terrorists killed dozens of innocent civilians in Delhi.

I think I reflect the views of a lot of people when I say I just don't especially like these people. Anyone with a hundred million odd citizens must be dealt with, but except by the most cynical calculations, Pakistan is not an ally of Western nations, the ones who have kept their wallets largely shut after this disaster.

Having said that, cynical calculations are appropriate for foreign policy decisions and one should be made here. We are flushing billions through Iraq as we try to win their hearts and minds. For a few hundred million, we could ensure that the Pakistani countryside is littered with cartons reading, "aid provided by the American people," for years to come. The illusion that American care about the sufferings of ordinary Pakistanis, even if untrue, would bring our country more lasting benefit than blasting flat a dozen intransigent Fallujahs. Cheaper, too.