Only 15 pc Pakistanis support Kerry Lugar Bill: Gallup India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

While the United States is trying hard to allay anti-American feelings among the Pakistanis through the Kerry Lugar Bill which would offer Islamabad 7.5 billion dollars for development works, a recent opinion poll has revealed that only 15 percent of Pakistani civilians support their government's decision to accept the aid. According to a Gallup Pakistan survey, barely a quarter of the 2,500 Pakistanis, who took part in the poll, believe that the US assistance would improve the living conditions of ordinary people in the country. People say that the resentment over the bill is not only due to the 'humiliating' terms and conditions stringed with it, but it has largely to do with the overall hatred for America that an ordinary Pakistani has in his heart. "It's not only about the conditionalities (attached with the bill), but disenchantment with aid as an instrument of development," The Christian Science Monitor quoted Ijaz Shafi Gilani, one of the Gallup pollster, as saying. "After decades of American assistance, there's a growing perception that foreign assistance doesn't deliver development," he added. Experts however feel, that despite the Pakistan Army's objection and wide spread discontent over the bill by the Pakistani political parties, the army will accept the aid and 'work around' the provisions to keep the end use ambiguous. "The problem for Pakistan is that it knows the Kerry-Lugar restrictions represent legitimate US concerns ... not in the interests of the Pakistani Army and other elites," said Timothy Hoyt, a regional expert at the US Naval War College. "Rather than reject the remarkably generous provision of aid, Pakistan's military will seek a work-around in practice ... maintaining their questionable activities at a sufficiently ambiguous level," Hoyt added.