Winning Hearts and Minds with Disaster Relief

The site of American helicopters and Marines is an image of fear in many backward Islamic areas of the world. Moslem's who preach hate for the United States and the West are only too willing to pray on the ignorance of their followers through the use of such images. Well now, tsunami victims in some of the most backward and radical areas of the Moslem world are seeing things differently. Helicopters and U.S. troops delivering food and medical aide with U.S. warships standing offshore to supply the needs of victims.

We're doing the right thing, offering help to those who need it. Help to those whose ignorance of our true intentions may be lessened or wiped away as quickly as the wave which devasted their lives.


CNN.com - Experts: Tsunami disaster might ease terrorism - Jan 4, 2005: "Terrorism has been no stranger to the region. Gunaratna became an expert on suicide bombings many years ago because the Tamil Tigers in his homeland began using such attacks as early as 1987.
Several hundred people were killed this past year in southern Thailand in the festering insurgency between Islamic separatists and the Thai military. And Aceh, the hardest hit area in Indonesia, is the home of GAM, a separatist group that has been waging a sporadic conflict with the Jakarta government.
It was precisely in these areas that the devastation was worst. Some of it, says Gunaratna, took a toll on the terrorist and insurgent movements, who lost both fighters and infrastructure when the waves crashed on shore.
'This is a golden opportunity for the United States,' says Gunaratna. The refrain that the United States and the West are losing the war of ideas, especially in the Muslim world, was the main topic at a recent conference about al Qaeda
But counter that with images of U.S. helicopters bringing aid to places like Aceh, delivering something that insurgents can't, and Gunaratna thinks that devastation can unwittingly bring some good. That it might overwhelm the message from bin Laden, at least in Indonesia, which is after all the most populous Islamic country in the world."