BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: skarpi
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 03:41 AM

well Iceland is bankrupt...but still we are sending money and
I think food to Pakistan .....from Icelandic Red Cross
we also have about 22 people in Haiti doctors and nurses ....

there are lot of human beings there , who have no contact what so ever to taliban.....

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: bobad
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:50 AM

Pakistan celebrates its Independence Day today, but the nation is sinking in a flood of Biblical proportions, something this world has not seen before. 20 million people are affected, homeless, hungry and on the move. 40 degrees temperatures, cholera, snake and scorpion bites are taking a toll. Please help. The Canadian government has announced another 30 million dollars. What can you give? Please be generous. This is a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. Every dollar counts. Choose the red Cross or UNICEF, but the IDRF is a reputable Canadian agency with roots in Pakistan. Remember, if it does not hurt, you haven't given enough.

IDRF Web Site

IDRF Donation Form

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: Lox
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 06:21 AM

Refresh

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: bobad
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 06:45 AM

Pakistan floods: Senior UN figure criticises response

A senior United Nations official has called on the global community to urgently step up its response to the floods that have struck Pakistan.

Louis-George Arsenault, director of emergency operations for Unicef in New York, described the lack of support as "quite extraordinary".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11054958

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: bobad
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 08:34 AM

Pakistan's Plea

We started the show with a clip of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, speaking in Islamabad, Pakistan last week. He had just returned from some of the country's worst flood-affected zones, where millions have been displaced by the disaster - and tens of thousands of villages still remain underwater.

There is no question of the urgency of the situation and the urgency of the Secretary-General's call. Thus far, the UN has asked for $460 million dollars in donations - but the pledges have been slow to come and the cause has not caught fire with the public in the west. That's in stark contrast to immediate and plentiful assistance donated after the earthquake in Haiti and the Asian tsunami of 2004 but it's also much less than was raised in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistani Kashmir.

The slow response has been blamed on Pakistan's so-called "image problem" and that may be true, judging by the online comments of newspaper readers in this country who've directed more than their fair share of vitriol at the victims of the flooding. But on the other side of that coin, many observers have suggested that the disaster presents the west - particularly the U.S. - with the opportunity to make political gains in a strategically-important part of the world where the Americans themselves have the "image problem." On top of that, inside Pakistan, nearly every side of the fractured poltical and military power structure has an interest in appearing to be one delivering help - and in discrediting opponents.

Shuja Nawaz is an analyst and author and the Director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council of the United States. He was in our Washington studio. Tarek Fatah also joined us in Toronto. He's a writer, broadcaster and founder of Muslim Canadian Congress.

Listen to this informative discussion HERE, click on the player at the listen to hour one link.

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 05:15 PM

It may be that the corner has been turned in terms of quantity of donations - apparently a late spurt from the UK. The news is saying that the total donated is up to 70% of what is immediately needed (infrastructure and reform are a long way down the road) and the biggest problem is not now what canbe got, but how to get it where it is needed without something like 100% of the Ukraine's heavy lifting gear and 100% of the USA 's giant helicopters - and a problem about relative influence between the military and the government, which is tending to make UK NGOs do their own distribution in Pakistan. .

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 11:05 AM

Er - just who bombed Afghanistan back into the stone age? - Richard Bridge

Not the armed Forces of the United States of America, Richard, maybe you should check

The towns and major population centres in the North of the country - try Messers Haqqani when they were busily ethnically cleansing the Tajiks and Uzbeks for their Taleban masters

West of the country and Kabul that would be Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (Although in the case of Kabul he was assisted by Haqqani)

The South was down to the Soviets who when they were faced with a problem in Kandahar surrounded the city with artillery and armour, using those assets plus air power to pounded it and its population for a month

The East was down to Ahmed Rashid Dostum on behalf of the Najibullah Government and their Soviet bosses.

Now then Richard what is it you claim the US Military did, and when do you reckon they did it (Back to the "Stone-Age" you say?).

When the BBC's John Simpson entered Kabul he commented that this is what Berlin must have been like in May 1945. Please correct me if I am in error here but the USA lost interest in Afghanistan when the Soviets left, and did not show any sign of interest in the place until Clinton rather ineffectually fired six cruise-missiles at Al-Qaeda camps in 1998.

In response to 9/11 when GWB gave assistance to the Northern Alliance in their ongoing civil war with the Taleban, US air power was specifically targetted at command and control centres and frontline positions as requested by Northern Alliance Commanders.

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 10:06 AM

I have let Google translate an article by a German Muslim in a left-wing (green) newspaper (TAGESZEITUNG). I have amended only those blunders of the translation that have made the text unintelligible. In partiular, the order of words and phrases is still very German, but that should not prevent understanding.

Wolfgang

No heart for Mullah Omar

In Pakistan, millions of people struggling for survival - yet the willingness to donate here so far very limited. Why does this affect us so little? BY DENIZ YÜCEL

Pakistan has 14 million people in the water up to their necks, but donations are used only sparingly.

The Germans spend too little for Pakistan's flood victims, much less than after the earthquake in Haiti or after the tsunami. Says Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (FDP). Says Government spokesman Steffen Seibert. Says the diaconate. Says Caritas. Says pretty much everyone who is somehow involved.

This has, so we hear mundane reasons such as the holiday season, donor fatigue after the collections at the beginning of the year or the lack of shocking images. Above all, the lack of donations has something to do with the country itself. For example, believes the spokeswoman for the Alliance Action Germany Helps Birte Steigert: "Pakistan is perceived as a country with a difficult political situation. "

One can formulate it this way. But can express things also a bit more concrete. You may recall that in Pakistan, such as Amnesty International reported that "torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement and security agencies are on the agenda". That the Taliban have established a reign of terror in some regions. That the government forces in fighting insurgents as well proceed with excessive violence. The fact that the Pakistani intelligence supported the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan can afford nuclear weapons, but in international rankings, whether it be literacy or corruption, is reliably landing on the rear seats.

Not only the government and the militias are the problem. The problem is also the tribal structures which prevail especially in the flood hit northwest of the country. There, a group of elders may order a gang rape or settle a dispute between two families through the forced marriage of girls. The distinction between "state and militias evil, ordinary people good," works here even less than usually.

In any case the Pakistani government as well as the Pakistani society in the past few years have worked hard to get a bad image. ... Not only the image of Pakistan is shitty, Pakistan itself is a shitty state. No, not every opinion is a prejudice, and yes, it's stupid but true that many clichés are true unfortunately.

For instance, it happens somewhere in the world anything, by which the Muslims feel offended (and that is a lot), first thing in Islamabad, Karachi and Rawalpindi bearded men and women in burqa turn to the streets, burn flags and loudly wish somebody's death. The fact that they often wear on their feet a little more than a pair of sandals made of car tires, seems to bother these people less than the publication of some cartoons in a 5000 km distant country. Among the permanently taking offence soreheads, as which the Muslims like to present themselves, the Pakistanis are the ultras. But they are not hillbillies. In their way they take part in world events, for instance in June when they protested against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, because users of the site had called for a Muhammad cartoon contest.

"May God give it to you," is a Turkish proverb, with which one fobs off beggars, to whom one would give nothing. One is tempted to call out to the Pakistanis that phrase. (Likewise one is inclined to desire Mullah Omar and his men may perish in their sockets.) However, in Pakistan live people who defend themselves against intolerable conditions. There live children, who are guilty of nothing. They too now need international aid.

... Perhaps, however, particularly in the north of the country at the end of the day it is the Taliban who decide on the distribution and use of food and medicines and who benefit most of the international aid. In any case, it is not morally reprehensible to face such questions before we shall make the transfer. But it is a cheap argument to castigate the lack of willingness to donate without answering such questions.

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 11:54 AM

US threat to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age"

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 11:56 AM

Some history of US use of the phrase

Subject: RE: BS: So little empathy for Pakistan?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 12:31 PM

By the way, the idea that if I left out the word "again" it makes much difference is pretty feeble.