[Peace-discuss] People under attack often understand the situation

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Poll: Six in 10 Pakistanis View US as the Enemy
	State Dept Concedes 'Deficit of Trust'
	by Jason Ditz, July 29, 2010

A new poll from the Pew Research Center shows a massive opposition among 
Pakistani voters to US foreign policy in the region, with some six in 10 
identifying the United States as “the enemy” compared to only one in 10 
identifying them as a partner.

Other key figures in the poll showed nearly two thirds of the Pakistani 
population want the US to ends its occupation of neighboring Afghanistan. Only 
8% of Pakistanis have any confidence that President Obama will make good 
decisions on foreign policy. Trust and support for the US was down virtually 
across the board from previous polls, while the number who saw the Taliban as a 
threat dropped.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley conceded that there still exists a 
“deficit of trust” with the Pakistani public, but it seems that the really issue 
is that, while the US is attempting to buy the public’s support with massive 
aid, they continue to demand ever more aggressive offensives against Pakistan’s 
tribal areas.

Pakistanis seem to have noticed that while these offensives rarely net any 
terror leaders of note, they have provoked an increasing number of attacks 
against cities across the rest of Pakistan. The poll also suggests that despite 
these attacks, people aren’t growing any more afraid of the Taliban so much as 
more afraid that US foreign policy will provoke them further.

[In a related development, a communique unearthed from the archives was issued 
on this date in 1941 by the German Foreign Ministry, which conceded that there 
still exists a "deficit of trust" with the Russian public.]

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/07/29/poll-six-in-10-pakistanis-view-us-as-the-enemy/