would not be excepting obama's views. i did a lot of work for polls with local magazines. i found that 40% of sindh were extremely in favor of obama. when you do these surveys, and i did a survey of 100,000 households, and if you are doing [unintelligible] they may tally them differently.

i am just reminding you about the problems in the field. do the survey of young people, 60% of the population is below age 30. there are more younger people in pakistan in ages 15-29 than in iraq and afghanistan. also, do the opinion poll of people who matter, educated people. they are the ones who write and build the opinion. the majority of the population, 60% cannot read and write. i don't know if they would know all the intricate questions you are asking. thank you very much. >> i just have one or two observations in a broadway about polling in -- in a broad way

about polling. something we have found is that our samples tend to be slightly more educatioed than the population as a whole. the issue we find challenging is not representing the lower income, less educated people, because we tend to find that it is easier to complete interviews on topics like this with better educated people. this issue of what do young people think in the islamic world comes up a lot. i am sure it varies from country to country, but generally we have not found that they are substantially or dramatically more positive to america or the west than the population as a whole. those are broad, generalized

statements, but i think that represents at least part experience, looking at the demographics of our samples in the muslim world and trying to understand how young people are approaching international issues. >> whenever i go to pakistan, i try to visit classrooms and talk to students there. i would get the opposite conclusion. the students i met are more anti-american. they seem to absorb more of the anti-american propaganda and internalize and then the rest of the population. >> i think that is reflected in these provincial distributions as well. that is one possible explanation for some of the things that chris was pointing out as puzzling. in questions that are just focused on the u.s., in the

provinces that are more urban and better educated, they are tended to be larger majorities giving anti-american answers than in those provinces that were less so. >> i have a couple of concerns. i take your point, and that is why i said this was not a sample that was selected to be provincially rep. that is why we are cautious on which ones we presented. we are born to be looking very closely at the issues that you noted. -- we are going to look closely at the issues you noted. the grid by which they select homes, we are asking to see household by household with the refusal rate to participate is, and what are the characteristics that or observable. you can observe if you are in a

lit street, an apartment building, or a rural or urban area. we have asked, and paid for, to get the information about those who participated in who did not, so we can look at that issue. we are very cognizant. in the 6000 person sample, we should have some generalized results. some of the issues that came here, we asked similar questions. i'd definitely take your point on the sampling issue. i think sindh has the lumpy soup problem that you have in baluchistan. on the age thing, this is why i am skeptical of tabulations. the only way you can look at the impact of urban-rural age, or other so's your graphic data is to do and ols.

the percentage of urban rural is different within the province. the only way you can do that is through a regression. when jacob and i have looked at anti-americanism, and i hope i am not distorting the results, but we have found similar things about youth being more -- they are certainly not more pro america. when we looked at this in a regression analysis, there were differences, but you can only do that by doing a regression analysis. >> i may foreign service officer -- i am a former foreign

service officer. i did a lot of work on research. i am skeptical of your pole dating. human beings are very complex, and it is difficult to come to conclusions based on a broad spectrum. i have two questions, if you do not mind. one is a speculation on what are the sources of these impressions that you have tested for. i wonder to what degree, since the two groups split between the border provinces with afghanistan and the rest of the country are pronounced, to what degree has the effect of pashtun felt in these statistics? it goes much deeper -- much deeper than islam. it is the traditional code of

ethics and conduct. for example, a general abhorrence of foreigners. osama bin laden is a foreigner, just like americans are. it affects the impressions of afghans of anybody who is a foreigner and does not belong there. they should leave. that is fairly standard, and our expected to be reflected in the pashtun part of the population. the second possible explaining factor that i did not hear very much of in the results was the impact of literacy and help people get their information which form these attitudes. most of the block of border peoples have a lower literacy rate. although it may be 60% in the big cities, when you get out near the border, it falls way down to like 12%, and women

particularly are not educated. i wonder on the causality -- a wonder if you might comment on that. >> i really unload this idea -- loathe this idea. when you look at the metrics through which it is ordinarily considered, it is changing. people have enriched themselves by taking money from hosting foreigners. the notion that americans like to resort to to explain all this behavior needs to be interrogated. in swat, americans love to talk

about [unintelligible] the idea obfuscates more than illuminates. there are enormous provincial differences between literacy rates overall and between male and female. the variation within provinces is much more significant than differences between provinces. if you look at the data, folks in belujistan are less likely to be literate compared to people in the nwfp. i encourage people to not just assume that because the border areas are of less literate and folks elsewhere. if you look at world bank data, you see families are making very different choices. they are investing in children in a very rational way. it is true that in the tribal areas women are less likely to be educated, this is not

necessarily -- you cannot assume that this is because of the pashtun. in parts of the country, people will send their daughters to school only if there is a school nearby. this is true across pakistan. this is as true and the punjab as it is in the nwfp and fought top. -- and fata. when pashtun is are behaving in other parts of pakistan, that behave like pakistan is elsewhere. that is not what is explaining it. >> let me add a reminder that we showed some provincial breakdowns because, for purposes of policy, it is really important to understand how attitudes might be distributed differently in places where there is a war than places where

there is not. just putting in very crudely, the great majority of findings overall in this study do not show these big differences. the other point i would like to make has to do with the idea of identity, that somehow if, in fact, across four provinces, everyone wants of were the majority agree and say the same thing, that that means that some kind identity of pakistan is is being manufactured here. since we polled internationally, we document many questions in which people on opposite sides of the world happen to have majorities that answered a question the same way. that does not mean they are sharing an identity. it certainly means they are sharing something, because they are in a areres publica.

they all have some impact from media which is worldwide. they are sharing the same universe. they do not have to share the same identity to do that. >> we have had a particularly lively discussion this morning. we have time for one more question or two. >> interesting to me is the variation across pakistan in their attitudes. this survey and others show that pakistan attitudes toward the u.s. are exceptionally negative. they usually wind up at the bottom of the heat.

-- bottom of the heap. obama, surprisingly, is 2-1-. if only we could present pakistan and the world a president obama that would help us -- id doesn't seem to have helped us. my question is, what might worke? what might turn pakistan attitudes in another direction? >> i am interested in what you said about the nwfp. i remember correctly, you said that the poll data showed that there was some inclination toward u.s. policies for joint attacks compared to other provinces, and maybe some sympathies or more of it --

optimism about obama in it nwfp. at the same time, there are some more sympathies toward al qaeda and its goals. do you think the shift in opinion presents an opportunity? >> i think i can go first. let me take the last question first. one hypothesis, and i am saying this as someone who is not and has never been a full-time student of pakistan, is that -- people who are farther away from what i will call the pakistan the metro polls have less or a different mix of education and

they are less ideologically formed. their views and not necessarily all lined up in a row properly, certainly less so than someone in an urban area. you could postulate a person who says americans should get off our land and out of our neighborhood. that obama does not look so bad. maybe it could be better. perhaps this all tumbles out in one breath for someone. that is a much looser-knit way of thinking relative to ideology. let me give you some time. >> what i have noticed over the years, americans have had a lot

of false by nares when doing pakistan. they assume that if you are anti militant, you must be pro- american. if you are a pro-musharraf, you must be pro-american. what i have seen in pakistan since 9/11 as well as looking at old data, this is a fake by mary. you can think al qaeda is great, and that is an correlated to your view of americans. -- is a fake by mary. dallas did an interesting study. -- gallup did an interesting study that found that it was not the belief -- it was their beliefs about america. only in these models do you find this kind of correlations. my experience has been that in terms of opinions about any particular question, they are

absolutely not connected. wendy chamberlain made an interesting remark about the cairo speech. she was right. he never mentioned kashmir. in the indian press, it was woohoo, we won. i think obama, for pakistan is, is a mixed bag. one other thing about obama that is really important, and i think this matters. in my last two trips, people were not happy about this. obama the candidates talked about kashmir being important. he talked about a regional approach. he talked about a special envoy. the original formulation of that, india was involved, there was an idea that you had to stabilize pakistan by getting india to be nice. when the special envoy came in,

the well heeled in the lobby threw up a storm of a word i will not say. the next thing you, in the and kashmir work renewed from the portfolio. that was a victory for the indians, but in the zero some game, it was seen as probative evidence of the indian influence. the fact that they could get out of holbrook's mandates was seen as very disappointing. it emphasized or reinforced the idea that the u.s. has a strong, long-term relationship with india and a very short term transactional focus on pakistan that is really about stabilizing our war effort in afghanistan. that is partly why you see these very strange figures about obama, relative to his standing

in other countries. >> just a final word. i think more that the problem is that the pakistan the identity -- they have not had much to boast about recently. their victory in the world cricket cup may do more than all the things we have been talking about to provide an identity about the future of pakistan, a positive, healthy future. i had a student who concluded that it was bollywood and sports together. pakistan is a film industry as well as a cricket team. >> how can pakistan any anti- americanism be improved? >> we may just have to get used

to the fact that we have a historical legacy, and we should be happy with that category where pakistan these projects militancy but still think we suck. >> i think cash rest to be in the discussion, and if it is -- kashmir has to be included in the discussion. if it was brought back in, it would be ostentatious, whether we like it not, but i think it would have some impact. >> we have to understand that in terms of the pakistan the self- image or identity, india may play a larger role than we do. the indians could do more to help or hurt pakistan and weekend, and we should stand back and let the indians work this out themselves with pakistan. >> thank you all very much for your attention and a lively discussion.

[applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

>> more about pakistan now with the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. he discusses that country's military that is currently fighting taliban insurgents in the swat valley. from the atlantic council in washington, this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. i am the director of the south asia centered in the atlantic council. on behalf of the president of the council, i would like to welcome all of you to our very special ambassadorial discussion today on the challenge of militant sikh for the pakistan army. we aren't -- militancy for the pakistan army.

we are delighted to have the former chief of army staff as well as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of the pakistan army. more interestingly, the former ambassador of pakistan to the united states, a man who straddles the world of diplomacy and the military with ease. i am glad to say he has now joined the ranks of think tankers because he now has his own research institute called spearhead research. just a few words about the general. he is a graduate of the pakistan military academy, but he also is a graduate of the command and staff college of pakistan, as well as the command and general staff college of fort leavenworth. he has held many key posts in the pakistan military apart

from his operational commands at all levels. he was director general of military operations and involved with a lot of very key issues dealing with india during his tenure. then he headed a corps and was promoted and brought to army headquarters as the chief of general staff, and then took over from the prior to general as chief of army staff. to his credit, he is the only army jeep in pakistan's history who actually resigned in june army chief who resigned on principle after having put forward his views on a number of issues which did not sit well with the prime minister of the time. rather than doing what other army chiefs have done in the past, which was to effect a

coup, he decided it was in the interests of the army and pakistan that he would resign. thereby, general musharraf was elected, and the rest, as you know, is history. today, because of his very special experience and because of his knowledge of u.s.- pakistan relations, as well as the fact that he has been based in pakistan and has been observing at close quarters exactly what is going on within the polity of pakistan as well as the pakistan military as it faces a huge insurgency inside its borders, we are very fortunate to have him talk to us about the kinds of changes that he sees within the policy as well as within the pakistan

army. so i would like to welcome the general. >> thank you for that very generous introduction. i am very glad to be here. i would like to start by thanking you for inviting me, and i am looking forward to our interaction today. really do not have a script, so i am just going to make a few opening remarks, speak for a few minutes, and then we can take the discussion where ever you wanted to go. there are so many things you may be interested in about pakistan or the region in general. with an audience like this which is so well informed on our

region and international affairs in general, i do not have to go into the details of what has brought us to where we are. so what i will do is just flat some events, just to give perspective and to highlight the evolutionary process which is brought us to the situation we are in today. you know about the kashmir problem with india. it has been there for 60 years, and its impact is really in the protracted nature of the situation that has gone on. the various phases it has passed through, conflict, war, and freedom struggle inside kashmir, support from outside kashmir of that freedom struggle, organizations coming up

specifically to support that struggle, and then pressures to sealed borders, and outside help, and so on. i just mention this because all this has an impact on what has come about now because of the kashmir problem and the fact that it has not been resolved. on our other border is afghanistan, which has been through a protracted period of ups and downs, and we need to just understand that when afghanistan was a soviet satellite, its close relationship with india, two or three intelligence agencies working together there, the problems with pakistan with the soviet invasion of afghanistan and what that set in motion, d