(Host)
Commentator and UVM Professor Saleem Ali has been thinking about why so
many Pakistanis don’t trust the United States, despite well established
efforts to provide financial aid.
(Ali)
Last week, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California announced his
desire to nominate Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, for the
Congressional Gold Medal – the highest civilian honor bestowed by that
august body. The deed which merits this accolade is his supposed
assistance to the CIA in finding Osama Bin Laden in Abbotabad last year.
Dr. Afridi is now languishing in a Pakistani prison under indefinite
detention for treason by the country’s intelligence agencies.
However,
what is missing from this narrative is the method that was used by the
CIA to glean the information about Bin Laden’s whereabouts. As
acknowledged by US reports, a fake hepatitis vaccination campaign was
carried out by Dr. Afridi at the behest of the CIA, to go door-to-door
and ascertain who was residing in particular homes.
US officials
can claim that they pursued this strategy to ensure they hit the
correct target and to minimize collateral damage. Yet, most accounts of
the Bin Laden raid suggest that the decision to attack was largely based
on tracking Bin Laden’s courier rather than on any biological proof of
his family’s residence there.
So consider the episode from the
perspective of a Pakistani. The trust that the public usually gives
medical professionals on public health campaigns was used as a
subterfuge to gather biological intelligence. There was apparently no
consideration given to the negative impact this action would have on the
perception of future health campaigns in a country which is already
paranoid about conspiracy theories regarding vaccination. Polio and
other rare and nearly eradicated infectious diseases are making a rude
comeback there because of such fears of vaccination.
According
to the World Health Organization in 2011, Pakistan led the world’s tally
in polio cases. 80% of the children diagnosed had vaccination offered
to them but their parents refused due to conspiratorial fears. When
actions like the CIA ‘s campaign reinforce conspiratorial beliefs, one
begins to see why even educated Pakistanis have begun to deeply distrust
the United States .
There are further revelations of US
complicity in coopting humanitarian goals in Pakistan for "security
objectives" in a recently published book by esteemed journalist Marc
Ambinder. During the devastating Kashmir earthquake of 2005 in which
90,000 people were killed, Ambinder notes that: "Using valid U.S.
passports and posing as construction and aid workers, dozens of CIA
operatives and contractors flooded the country."
Assistance in
times of need forms the very basis of trust between nations. When this
trust is violated during times of humanitarian urgency, a great
disservice is done to the principles and ideals that we Americans so
proudly preach to the world. Our collective security depends on whether
Americans and Pakistanis alike can feel that their lives are equally
precious.