JAKARTA, Jan 23 (AFP) - With US helicopters dropping noodles instead of bombs and soldiers carrying rice rather than guns, the United States was confident its enormous efforts to help Asian tsunami victims would boost its tattered image in the Muslim world.
But nearly a month into the campaign, US President George W. Bush's bold predictions of a post-tsunami detente with disaffected Muslims appear as likely as immediate peace in Iraq or a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"In general, many people here still maintain suspicions about America," Din Syamsuddin, the secretary general of the Indonesian Council of Ulemas, the nation's highest Islamic authority, told AFP.
"Muslims here are not stupid and I don't think they will immediately change their perception just because the US is providing millions of dollars in aid for Aceh."
A great deal of the US military's aid efforts have focused on Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation and the worst hit by the December 26 tsunamis with more than 166,000 deaths in Aceh province.
Seahawk and Chinook helicopters have saved many lives by delivering water and other emergency relief supplies to isolated communities along Aceh's west coast and bringing injured survivors back for medical treatment.
The helicopter missions have been the most high-profile components of the US operations, with television footage of desperate survivors gratefully accepting the aid being broadcast around the world.
With 90 aircraft, 18 ships and almost 13,000 military personnel deployed to help tsunami-affected nations, the operation has been one of the United States' biggest military forays into Asia since the Vietnam War.
Alongside a financial pledge of 350 million dollars, Bush said many Muslims had gained an understanding that the world's only superpower had a caring side.
"In ... responding to the tsunami many in the Muslim world have seen a great compassion in the American people. Our troops are providing incredibly good service," Bush said on January 13.
"We are saving lives, and flying supplies ... people are seeing the concrete actions of a compassionate country."
US Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed similar sentiments a week earlier while in Indonesia as part of a tour of tsunami-hit countries.
"I think it does give to the Muslim world and the rest of the world an opportunity to see American generosity, American values in action," he said.
But Syamsuddin and other Muslim religious leaders, politicians, analysts and ordinary people interviewed by AFP said matters such as the US invasion of Iraq and its pro-Israel policies still far outweighed its tsunami-relief efforts.
"The cruelty of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is still strongly etched in the minds of Muslims here," Syamsuddin said.
"In fact, their quick response is seen here by many of us as a camouflage for their past abuses toward Muslims across the world."
Najum Mushtaq, an Islamabad-based analyst working for the International Crisis Group, said it would be naive to assume the United States' image had improved because of its tsunami relief work.
"The image of America in Muslim communities has become inseparably associated with Bush's team of neoconservatives and his post-9/11 ideological policies," Mushtaq said.
"The other, compassionate face of America has been completely overshadowed by the right-wing administration over the last four years."
In Bangladesh, Muhiuddin Ahmed, a commentator and former diplomat, said the United States' "serious image problem" remained.
"Bangladeshis are seeing the United States helping the tsunami-affected people but at the same time they see America as a country that has killed many thousands of their Muslim brothers in Iraq," he said.
"They will want to see more consistency in America's actions before they change views that are so deeply felt."
P. Ramasamy, a political scientist at the National University of Malaysia, said he remained sceptical about the US relief operations.
"I don't think it will change fundamentally how we view them, especially as they continue to massacre Iraqis and there is no sign of a Palestinian state," Ramasamy said.
But Nugroho, 27, a security guard for an office building in central Jakarta, offered a glimpse of hope for US spin doctors.
"After seeing how American soldiers are actually helping the Acehnese people, my attitude has changed. I used to really hate America but now I don't see all Americans as bad people," he said.
01/23/2005 13:27 GMT - AFP