Will Aid Effort After Asia Quake Help U.S. Image?
BALAKOT, Pakistan, Oct. 18, 2005 — -- With thousands of survivors of the Asia earthquake still in desperate need, the United States is keenly aware there is an opportunity not only to save lives, but also to refashion an image very much in need of repair.
Ten days after the quake struck in the disputed Kashmir region of India and Pakistan, the United Nations says that 500,000 survivors still have not received aid.
In recent polls, more than 50 percent of Pakistanis said they had a negative view of America because they see the country as an aggressor, a bully that invaded Iraq.
But the sight of U.S. troops helping Pakistani earthquake victims is starting to sway public opinion. The United States has made 38 relief flights into the earthquake zone, deployed 380 American troops to Pakistan, and today two Navy ships packed with supplies arrived in the city of Karachi.
"The Americans are really helping us a lot," one earthquake survivor, whose family was evacuated by U.S. troops, told ABC News. "A lot of people don't understand they are really not that bad."
In the past week, the United States has delivered more than 400,000 pounds of relief supplies -- more than any other country.
It isn't just a mission of mercy. It is also a concerted effort to win the hearts and minds of the Pakistanis and people across the Muslim world. Some wonder, however, if it will work.
An ABC News team traveled on a Chinook helicopter with American soldiers diverted from the war in Afghanistan, as they delivered tents and blankets to people trapped in the Himalayan Mountains.
"It's been great," said C.W.O. Scott Dillion. "I have actually shaken hands with more people in the last three days than I have in the last three years."
"The Chinook helicopters are usually used to bomb al Qaeda but now they are being used to save people's lives, so they have become birds of peace, and that is marvelous," said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a political commentator and professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. "It so changes the view of America in Pakistan."
Quake survivor Mohammed Shafiq and his mother were evacuated to Islamabad in a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter so she could be treated for a broken hip.
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