Public Opinion in Pakistan

In light of the recent Jamat Islami "Go America Go" movement, I thought it'd be interesting to see what the Pakistani populace thought of the current situation in their country.

Here's what I found:

According to a new poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org, it seems that the majority of Pakistanis now see the Pakistani Taliban as well as al Qaeda as a critical threat to the country--a major shift from 18 months ago.
What's so amazing about this, is that now the majority of Pakistanis support the government and army in their fight in the Swat Valley against the Pakistani Taliban. An overwhelming majority think that Taliban groups who seek to overthrow the Afghan government should not be allowed to have bases in Pakistan.

While these results may not seem surprising considering that the tactics and undemocratic bent of militant groups--in tribal areas as well as Swat--have brought widespread revulsion and turned Pakistanis against them.

The poll also found that Pakistanis, regardless of a change in administration, still resent the U.S. as much as before. A majority does not trust Obama to do the right thing. Overwhelming majorities believe the US wants to divide and weaken the Muslim world, and 82% reject Obama's predator drone strikes on Pakistani soil. Some 79% want the war in Afghanistan ended now.

The poll, which was conducted entirely in Urdu and interviewed 1,000 applicants face to face in 64 sampling areas seems fairly legitimate, and their methodology and report can be found on the website here.

While to many it may seem as though resentment towards the U.S. is unfounded, I found a recent interview in Guernica with Fatima Bhutto to be quite revealing of why the Obama Administration may not be viewed as favorably as people may think.

Here's what she had to say about it:

I think the problem that Obama has made in Pakistan is an enormous one. Empowering Pakistan’s military and empowering this incredibly criminal and corrupt government with drone access and all the rest of it, and with billions and billions of dollars of aid, he’s just repeating the cycle.

Fatima Bhutto on Pakistan's current President:

Before he became president, Zardari was standing trial in four murder cases; it’s eleven people, I believe, killed in these four cases. The man can barely string a sentence together in Urdu; forget about English. This is a man whose entire mandate rests on the fact that his dead wife named him heir apparent in a letter. He was elected by Parliament in the same way that General Pervez Musharraf was elected by Parliament. So it’s very difficult to say Musharraf was not democratically elected but Zardari was. Both of them were elected by their own parliaments. I think this is part of the great doublespeak you get when you talk about Pakistan. Zardari has not entered into a popular vote, and he’s got no mandate of the people. In my book, that’s not democratic. And I think that Obama has given the man a lifeline that he very desperately needed to stay in power.

That's all the food for thought I have.