Floods in Pakistan Impact American Afghanistan War Effort

Carlotta Gall of the New York Times has been one of the few reporters in American mainstream media to report on how the horrific floods in Pakistan could well further destabilize Pakistan and have a direct impact on the American Afghanistan war effort.

As Carlotta reports management of the disaster has added to the distrust that many Pakistanis already feel for their civilian political leaders, while the armed forces have burnished their image performing rescue and relief missions along the length of the flooded areas.

There have been angry accusations from politicians and flood victims that officials have guided relief to their own party supporters, and serious allegations that powerful landlords and politicians diverted surging floodwaters to protect their own lands at the expense of others.

The floods have been and are a continuing disaster of unprecedented proportions. Approximately 20% of Pakistan is under water and out of a population of 170 million people approximately 20,000,000 are directly effected by the flooding. The vast majority of these people are poor agricultural sharecroppers and small landowners and shopkeepers who have had everything carried away by the flood waters. An entire string of cities, roughly the size of New Orleans, have been destroyed by the floods. Crops have been destroyed, millions of people have lost their homes, roads and bridges are completely washed away, food and clean drinking water are almost nonexistent, and the flooding continues.

The humanitarian crises is just beginning. Water borne diseases are already sweeping through the population of the flood areas, especially effecting the young and elderly. Many poor people who somehow escape disease will likely die or suffer greatly from starvation or malnutrition. The scale of the disaster has thus far overwhelmed the efforts of relief organizations to care for the population in the flood zones.

President Obama’s war in Afghanistan will certainly be impacted as a high percentage of the supplies supporting American troops in Afghanistan are routed through Pakistan by truck convoys. With many roads and bridges completely destroyed in areas of Pakistan that border Afghanistan these truck convoys will have great difficulty in delivering supplies required for the recently increased war effort.

It is surprising that American media coverage has been so sparse on the Pakistan flood disaster in general, and especially how that disaster may impact our effort in the Afghanistan war. However, given the present turmoil in American politics leading up to the midterm elections, the poor state of the American economy, and American weariness with the entire story of the Af/Pak war theater, perhaps apathy with events, as terrible as they may be, half a world away should not be totally surprising.

However, the Obama administration and our high-ranking military leaders must be deeply concerned about how the catastrophic floods in Pakistan will likely further destabilize a shaky Pakistani government. Certainly, American war leaders must have concerns about being able to adequately supply our troops with war materials over the months, perhaps years, that it will take to repair washed out roads and bridges.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari was already held in contempt by many Pakistanis for his corruption and apparent inability to effectively govern so his government’s efforts to alleviate the damage and suffering caused by the floods will be closely watched and measured as to their effectiveness. So far, the results are not very encouraging.

Murphy’s Law is alive and very well in the Af/Pak theater.