Is Pakistan on the verge of imploding? An already fractured country is under immense stress as a result of the flooding. The pain is only just beginning too: the flooding has destroyed the next season’s crops.
Also, why the general antipathy toward the floods? After the Tsunami, everybody was talking about the disaster. We still have regular news stories, but there’s nobody talking about the flooding. Further, the Tsunami saw everybody’s navy being mobilised trying to fly in aid and food. Why the lack of response? (Perhaps it’s just my experience: the response to the disaster seems to have been a lot more muted than the response to the Tsunami.)
Possibly because it’s something that has been getting worse over a period rather than being a big ‘headline’ event like a tsunami or earthquake.
If you consider the plight of children in Africa dying from not having clean water available, the number of deaths over the course of a year is almost invariably greater than deaths from all the headline ‘natural disasters’ put together but it’s something that barely impinges on most people’s consciousness (or conscience).
Pakistan won’t implode it’s to important to fail. Now where did we hear that before
Seriously at worst, you would see sections of Pakistan seceding from it or establishing defacto independence. We’ve pretty much seen this already in a few of the outlying areas anyway.
It’s going to be ugly no matter how it plays out. Even with the massive amount of Aid being given, it’s going to be very rough. It’s not helping that the Taliban are threatening to (and in some cases) killing aid workers.
For whatever reason, this hasn’t turned into a media event such as the Tsunami did. The ways of media are a mystery to me, but I suspect that it has something to do with the location of both events.
The International response, especially from the UK and the UK have been pretty vigorous. The last I checked the US had given or pledge more than any other two countries in aid, and the UK was the second largest contributor (this may have changed as I haven’t followed the story lately).
The problem is that it’s going to take take to get aid there, the crisis is ongoing (last I heard they were bracing for even more rains), and the Taliban are being total dicks and threatening to attack logistics and supply shipments as well as aide workers.
All of this makes the disaster unfolding in Pakistan a lot different and more complex and complicated than what happened during the Tsunami.
Pakistan is always on the verge of imploding, but never does (well, except for the 1971 war, of course). It will continue tottering on the brink of implosion for another 50 years.
Perhaps because the flooding coincided with yet another report that affirmed that official Pakistani institutions have been aiding the Taliban? Some people may find it easier to feel sympathy for Thai flood victims which they know from their summer vacations, than for a nation, which is aiding some of the worst, murders on the planet, and aiding the very people that are daily trying to kill our brothers and sons in Afghanistan.
Perhaps because the Pakistani flood coincided with yet another poll that affirms the USA is the number one hated nation of the average Pakistani? Perhaps it is difficult for the average American to muster sympathy for people who’d rather see him was dead? For people that hate him so much, that the aid he gives to him has to be repacked to disguise its origin.
Perhaps because that during the Asian flooding the economy was booming, now perhaps many people in the West feel that it may be past time that some of the ridiculously rich nations in the Middle East start to take some responsibility? How is it going with the Saudi contributions?
Well, that’s true of the “federally administered” tribal territories (in quotes because the “administration” bit is more notional than real), but there is a point at which the dissolution of Pakistan becomes a matter of genuine global concern. Actually, there are three points:
1.) The government of Pakistan weakens such that India or the US feel a need to intervene to protect their own interests;
2.) The government of Pakistan weakens such that it loses even its current, very limited, ability and willingness to constrain rogue actors such as the Taliban; and
3.) The government of Pakistan weakens such that it cannot reliably control its nuclear stockpile.
Obviously, there’s a lot of overlap in these three cases. The problem with these floods is that they isolate large swathes of the country, de-legitimize the government (as it fails to control the crisis), and create lots of desperate people. This is the equivalent of dealing the government a good, hard kick to the groin.
IMHO, anyway. Isn’t AK84 a lawyer in Pakistan? Someone light the AK84 signal!
Sadly, this is one of those posts that I cannot respond to in full without employing language inappropriate for the more civilized fora on this Board. Suffice to say that the vast majority of Pakistan’s millions are innocent people who’ve never done anything that comes even remotely close to deserving a tiny fraction of the badness these floods are bringing down on them. I would also question the extent to which Pakistani women and children are attacking American forces in Afghanistan.
Finally, I would note that saying “some people” might think such-and-such is rather a coy rhetorical technique for what is, after all, an anonymous message-board. Your convictions may be disagreeable, but you may as well stand by them.
Eh, there was plenty of reporting from Tamil parts of Sri Lanka during the tsunami, and the Tamil Tigers had at least as good a claim to “worst murders on the planet” as the Taliban. Plus the press seems to like opportunities to report on American largess in cases where our “enemies” are hit by natural disasters, rather then avoiding it. The Iranian earthquake a few years back, for example.
Hating us as a country doesn’t necessarily mean they wish us dead. But in anycase, we’re the most hated country in a lot of places. Plus I can’t find any mention of the poll your discussing on google, so I don’t think enough people are aware of it to be influencing how much sympathy they feel for Pakistan one way or another.
The wikipedia page on the floods said say Saudi Arabia has donated 112 million to Pakistan, in comparison to the US’s 160 million. Given the relative sizes of the economies if the two countries, I’d say the Saudi contribution is fairly generous.
But they are not my opinions, and especially not in the corrupted way you present them, and since I am not American I have no particular interest in weather the average Pakistani hates your guts or not. However if I had been American and given that there is an infinite number of causes and a limited amount of resources, I would most likely have found another cause to be more worthy of my limited resources. And in fact, at the time of the last Pakistani disaster, the earthquakes, Denmark’s substantial aid was derailed when Pakistanis would go around the aid camps and ask the western looking aid workers in a menacing manner weather they were from Denmark (this was during the Muhammed Cartoon Crisis), resulting in that Denmark withdrawing its aid, which was rerouted to Africa instead. Given a choice of aiding a person who hates me, or a person who doesn’t particular hate me, I’d go for the latter. But we have gone once again into the breach, so that Denmark is today only bested by Norway as the most generous donator to Pakistan. Lets see if we will have to reroute it once again.
Some people might say that determining foreign aid allocations based on how the locals feel about you is really stupid. Not to mention missing the point.
In the specific case of Pakistanis actively refusing aid from Denmark, of course, that’s different.
By what measure? In terms of percentage of GDP, using the numbers I mentioned above, I get Saudi Arabia as being several times more generous then Denmark. Saudi Arabia donated something between three and four times more then Denmark, and its economy is only ~25% bigger.
Eh? the spreadsheet on that link has Saudi Arabia as the second largest donor after the US (which I expect makes it the largest in terms of %GDP). Denmark is thirteenth, Norway eighth (granted some of the entities above them aren’t countries). I don’t see the ranking you gave anywhere in the link you provided.
Committed funding in $ per head of pop
Norway : 3.051
Saudi : 2.837
Denmark: 2.142
The rest below 2 (USA: 0.491)
although a more reasonable measure would probably be compared to GNP and including private donations.
I am comparing the Saudi and other wealthy nations in the region, reaction to the tsunami. Which, as far as I remember, was minimal until international criticised then reluctantly upped.
I thought US aid was over $200 million now (in direct aid…not counting indirect aid from using US air craft, ships, and personnel to help logistically), and still climbing. I don’t remember where I read it, but they were saying that the total US aid just for the flood (an not counting all the other aid, or that indirect aid) was going to be in the neighborhood of $500 million when all was said and done.
Granted, the US is a rich country, but that’s still quite a bit for us to commit to, especially considering the current state of the economy.
