Charity and Militant Islam

After the floods in Pakistan, militant Islamic groups demonstrate once again that they can deliver charity better than the government or anyone else around:

In just two districts in this part of the northwest, three Islamic charities have provided shelter to thousands, collected tens of thousands in donations and served about 25,000 hot meals a day a since last Saturday — six full days before the government delivered cooked food.

Among the most active groups is Falah-e-Insaniyat, "the charity wing and the latest front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India."

Charity is a religious duty in Islam, one of the five pillars of the faith, so it is no surprise that Islamic fundamentalists take charity seriously. Yet there is something jarring to me about the combination of violent hatred and effective help for the poor you see in groups like Lashkar and Hamas. I suppose this is partly a matter of the way such groups are organized; after all, the US Army has at times been an effective aid distributor. But I think the paradox is rooted in the distinction between us and them, between those inside and those outside; for these people, love and care for everyone within the fold goes hand in hand with violence toward everyone outside, or at least with an eagerness to fight on behalf of one's own people wherever they seem to be threatened. Fanaticism is a powerful motivator of effort. So the fanatics of Islam are often in the field, helping Muslims and doing battle with Unbelievers.

Something that occurs to me is, why can't the US government deliver aid directly to flood victims instead of propping up the useless Pakistani army? I suppose the immediate answer is that the prideful Pakistani government won't let us, but perhaps it is something we should insist on as a price for the billions in aid we give them. It might help us more than trying to insist that they pretend to fight rebels in Waziristan.