US aid helping Pak army not people: report

Faulting the United States policies with regard to Pakistan, a leading newspaper in the US has said that education is the best means to uproot feudalism and fundamentalism in the Islamic country.

A recent New York Times column called for retirement of Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf and broad effort to uproot feudal lords who dominate rural areas to establish 'real democracy' in Pakistan.

The article said that promoting education is the best way to combat both feudalism and fundamentalism.

'Instead, we have been focusing on selling arms and excusing General Musharraf's one-man rule,' it noted, adding that the big beneficiary of US military aid has not been the Pakistani people, but the Pakistani Army.

Lamenting that the United States is not insisting for establishment of democracy in Pakistan, the columnist said that any American official who praises Pakistan's democracy might want to visit the 'bullet-scarred' village in Punjab.     

The article narrated incidents of attacks on innocent people by feudal lords in Drummerwala, near Islamabad. In Pakistan, many rural areas remain under the thumb of feudal lords who use the government control to keep themselves rich and everyone else impoverished, it stated.

The column further quoted Asma Jahangir, a prominent lawyer in Lahore, as saying, 'Until now, Pakistanis have hated the American government but not the American people. But I am afraid that may change. Unless the US distances itself from Musharraf, the way things are going Pakistanis will come to hate the American people as well.'