The US military said: "A United States Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter flying in the vicinity of Chakothi delivering relief aid to earthquake victims is believed to have been fired upon by a rocket-propelled grenade today." It said the helicopter returned safely to base at Chaklala at 1430 and an investigation was under way. ['BBC']But the Pakistani military authorities have their own explanation. It must have been the dynamite that's being used to clear landslides, they contend.
"Our investigation revealed that it was blasting on the roadside by engineers, under way exactly at that time when the helicopters was flying over the area," Maj Gen [Shaukat] Sultan said.['BBC']Gen Sultan would like us to believe that American military pilots are unable to distinguish between someone blasting rocks and someone shooting rocket-propelled grenades at them.
However, US Commander Nick Balice at the Disaster Assistance Centre public affairs office in Islamabad, said: "Our air crew is familiar with RPG fire,"Rear Adm Mike LeFever, commander at the Disaster Assistance Centre, said: "We are not going to diminish our helicopter support. This is long-term support. We are going to be standing by our friends, and we expect the other international communities to be able to do that."
His stance was reiterated by Commander Balice after the Chinook incident. He said it would not affect flights. ['BBC']
This incident proves that the jihadi response to the disaster has two elements: first, invest in humanitarian relief with a view to develop a 'positive' side to their image among the Kashmiri population, and second, step up attacks on Indian and American interests to deter and diminish their capacity to provide relief. In this, the jihadis have received covering fire from Pakistan's Islamist parties who have protested against the involvement of foreigners (a term restricted to mean NATO, United States, India and Israel) in relief work. The upsurge in attacks in Jammu & Kashmir, the bombings in New Delhi and now the attack on the American Chinook fit this pattern.
In response to a previous post on the involvement of jihadis in relief operations, one reader had supported the view that the jihadis deserve credit for the 'good' work they are doing. If the big picture were to be ignored, that certainly seems to be the case. Unfortunately, the activities of Pakistan's jihadi establishment has to be seen the context of their long and murderous past, their equally murderous present and their frighteningly murderous vision for the future. Those impressed by the 'good' work of the jihadis wilfully ignore the ideology that is packaged with it --- the earthquake, Daawah chief 'Prof' Hafiz Mohammed Saeed contends, is divine punishment for Pakistan's flawed 'foreign policy'.
As Dan Darling has advocated, the jihadis must be, and must seen to be outdone by the international community. The problem here, again, is Pakistan's military establishment. It will not end its relationship with the jihadi establishment. Nor can it be trusted to employ the funds its receives for aid and development for the purposes it receives them for.
But Hafiz Mohammed Saeed's explanation, way off the mark in seismological terms, does help explain why Pakistan's earthquake victims are rapidly falling into the world's humanitarian blind spot. If Pakistan is not receiving as much aid as it needs, its foreign policy (past and present) cannot escape blame.
We got shot at. Get over it. Keep deleivering the supplies. People may not acknowledge that they got help but they do not forget who gave it to them.
If we need protection bring in the Pakistani army for protection.
We have to win the war of positivity.
I agree with your comment and staying the course. Would you think the US would do anything but? Our military is used to this sort of thing but I think the point here is that the people shooting at US forces are loosely controlled proxies of parts of the Pakistani government.
We absolutely need to keep delivering supplies not only because it’s the right thing to do but because its one of the most effective ways to educate people in the area on the US and the western world. At the same time we need to pay attention that our opponents, state backed religious terrorists, are going to work hard to make the costs for helping their fellow people as high as possible. I think it’s a price that we must pay.
I just finished Charlie wilson's War. It is about the funding of the mujhadeen to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Multiple actors are members of ISI. I do not think we the USA will ever get a real handle on them without the leadership there cracking down. I doubt this will happen because they are still hand and glove with one another to keep political power. The best we may ever see is that they are reduced to mere criminal activity.