Scream

Vereesh #: Are you hoping that this earthquake will lead to the break up of Pakistan? Is that all that you can see in this tragedy?

I hope other Indians can see more than that. I think this earthquake has had exactly the opposite affect. I think people across the length and breadth of Pakistan have assisted and the Kashmiris will greatly appreciate that.

Hardly anyone from India has assisted. Most have caused more problems, and have tried to take cheap shots, like yourself. While many of Pakistan Muslim friends have helped greatly, like Turkey, UAE and Saudi Arabia. Without taking any cheap shots...........

ironically, one of the things to keep the earthquake news in media is the controversial relationship with india and the aid from across the border. and al-zawahiris new tape requesting aid.

Re: # 31/Mantolives, no not just because Veeresh says so, but because the world media parked on the Indian side of the LOC also says so. And because the flow of refugee camp material as well as field hospitals from all parts of India towards POK is already ongoing as well as documented. And because this happens to be disrupting the ongoing Diwali/Eid festival season movements, which is also documented.

As far as we in India can see, we are readying for a fairly large refugee influx. I am not saying why this is happening.

And this ``like East pakistan/Bangladesh`` murmur is also not just because Veeresh says so, but because the world media says so.

I do agree, however, that it is difficult to make a person listen, who does not wish to hear.

And if shooting the messenger comes easily to you, well, so be it. Problem with that, Manto, is that I can see further from Jammu and Srinagar and Rajouri and Poonch and Uri and Baramulla than you can from cosy Lahore. I mean, you couldn`t even see the terrible mess on the Lahore-Wagah railway line, you couldn`t spot the jihad boxes at Lahore Railway Station and now what else is new, you can`t spot the refugees flowing in the natural direction for help.

I guess the POK refugees know that if they tried landing up at, say, `Pindi or Lahore or Multan, there would be people who would deny that there was a refugee problem.

Right, Yasser? What refugee problem in POK, no?

... yes now they are flowing into India... because Veeresh said so...

Re: # 34

Manto, if you are looking for a job, I have a job open in media relations for you. You remind me of Saeed Al-Sharraf (Saddam Hussein`s Minister of Information) who made desperate statements during the war in Iraq to rally the regime`s followers (or to save his ass). My favorite was his claim that the U.S. bomb attacks in Baghdad were Hollywood trickery.

Manto, you really make me laugh.

Veeresh`s World... where Kulharee is king:

World Media: Indian Media

Re: # 36

Manto, have you heard the news in camp Delta that there were 3 huge bomb explosions in Baghdad this morning near the hotels where reporters are staying? Manto, only idiots will be worried about the Unity of Pakistan at this time, Victims of this tragedy in Kashmir could give a fk about the “Unity” of Pakistan. They need tents and medical attention. Take my word for it. What the hell does Unity of Pakistan has to do with the tragedy of Kashmir? Are you for real?

Veeresh and Kulharee... you remind me of the former Iraqi Information Minister... he was quite given to making such outrageous statements as you chaps make... There has been so such report in the International media.. but then again just like the Iraqi information minister... you guys have a twisted sense of reality...

All because... Veeresh has taken his sorry behind- allegedly- to Kashmir now... and in wake of helping out the earthquake victims- has time to write long-winded ``dispassionate`` analyses of how Pakistan will now break up...


Yes... and American stomachs were supposed to be roasted as well... in Iraq...

Re: # 56 godot

Fine, whatever.... go bomb western capitals because they didn`t give you help .....

Bullsh!t is bullsh!t no matter who spews it.....

Re: # 54

Mohar

````I don`t who this guy who wrote the article``

I figured you and your cohorts wouldn`t know. This analysis is not meant for the consumption of your type and level.

Re: # 37
//.....in western capitals that will become even more attractive targets for terrorists who believe Kashmiri Muslims were failed in their hour of need by a wealthy and heartless west....//

Let`a get this straight - ``West didn`t help kashmiris[not true]... so let`s go bomb their capital``....

I don`t who this guy who wrote the article, but this kind of articles should be considered an insult to the victims and people who are helping them..... according to reports there have been UK/French search and rescue teams that have pulled people from rubble, with their high-tec equipment which were not available in pakistan...

Umair, excellent writing. The following analysis appeared in the Financial Times.

Political progress shaken by Pakistan`s earthquake
By Jo Johnson

That the west is failing earthquake-stricken Pakistan - and will pay a heavy price for doing so - there can be little doubt. The relentlessly mounting official death toll stood at 48,000 in Pakistan alone on Friday, with Jan Egeland, United Nations emergency relief co-ordinator, predicting the final figure could be twice as high. Many more are severely wounded:officially 67,000, but Mr Egeland sees up to three times that number. Some 3m people - six times the New Orleans population - are homeless and 500,000 have yet to receive any aid at all.

Within 48 hours of the earthquake it was clear that such a disaster would be beyond the capacity of any one country to handle. The international community`s response, however, has been glaringly deficient. The UN`s flash appeal for $312m (€261m) to fund its emergency operations has received barely a quarter of that amount. A similar appeal at the time of the Asian tsunamis, which killed more people but left many fewer injured and homeless, was fully funded within days. Some aid agencies were so deluged by donations that they turned money away.

With the Himalayan winter days off, resentment is mounting in Pakistan at the disparity in the west`s reaction to the two events. Two weeks on, aid has still not reached a fifth of villages and is inadequate in areas where it has. The UN, hindered by logistical challenges, on Thursday called for a second ``Berlin airlift``, saying it had distributed only 30,000 tents, less than 10 per cent of those needed, and that its warehouses were empty. Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, said the spread of disease and gangrene makes a second wave of deaths more likely by the day.

Anyone who believes that this is just another earthquake in an earthquake zone, essentially the type of humanitarian tragedy that strikes vulnerable parts of the world from time to time, is mistaken. This has all the makings of a political disaster whose repercussions will be felt - not just in Kashmir and the two countries that vie for control over it - but also, in all likelihood, in western capitals that will become even more attractive targets for terrorists who believe Kashmiri Muslims were failed in their hour of need by a wealthy and heartless west.

That the peace process will end up a collateral victim of the earthquake when it could have received an important boost from it is one of the most unfortunate consequences of the inadequate relief effort. New Delhi and Islamabad have agreed small measures, such as the re-establishment of telephone links across the Line of Control and the sending over of food, blankets and medical equipment in an Indian military cargo aircraft, and more may follow. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan`s president, has floated the idea of temporarily opening the de facto border to allow Kashmiris to visit relatives.

But on the most substantive question, that of Indian helicopter assistance, the two countries have butted heads and provided an object lesson in how to miss the bigger picture. With only 40 helicopters in theatre in the vital first week that followed the earthquake - there are now 60, with 19 more on the way - Pakistan lacked the airlift to reach millions in remote areas. Gen Musharraf at first flatly rejected the Indian offer, citing ``sensitivities``. After much criticism he said this week that he would accept them after all, but only without Indian pilots, a proposal New Delhi scotched.

The jihadi groups that oppose the peace process have taken advantage of the administrative vacuum in parts of Pakistani Kashmir, stepping into provide medical supplies, clean water and food to some of the hardest hit areas. If this, as seems plausible, generates more support for the separatist cause among Kashmiris, militants will continue to infiltrate into India and find easy refuge among the families and friends of those they have been helping the other side of the Line of Control. India will find itself unable to scale down its unpopular and intrusive military presence.

Pakistan`s military establishment has therefore abetted the jihadi groups who feared the earthquake would be a political godsend for the Indian army by allowing it to reinvent its relations with a Kashmiri population used to seeing it as an occupying force with a deplorable human rights record. The thing jihadis in Azad (Free) Kashmir, as Pakistanis call their half of the territory, feared most was to see Indian pilots dropping manna from the skies like angels of mercy and undermining deep-held prejudices about the nature of ``Hindu India``. As a result, we are all victims of 8/10.

Re: # 39, Ijaz, the disaster is, and no pun intended, about a Pakistan being broken.

The essay talks about screaming to bring a specific disaster to the notice of the world. Fair enough.

But should the world, which includes India, then ignore the other more pressing reasons for screaming in POK/Azad Kashmir? I mean, what were these ``screamers`` doing when the complete female gender, full civilisations and a variety of cultures were being wiped out under the earthquakes of fundamentalism and jihad camps?

Yes, there is a disaster currently causing grief in POK/Azad Kashmir. But it is not only the earthquake.

Someone has cleverly detracked the discussion from disaster to a hypotheses of breaking Pakistan. Its better we get back to the subject. The hypotheses can be deliberated in a seperate essay if the author wishes to publish it.

Ijaz Gul that someone : Veeresh/Kulharee

Thought I`d name them... they want to score their brownie points at the expense of poor earthquake victims.

ENOUGH of this BEGGING mentality!

Pakistan should spend money on disaster preparations than millitary. Break the vaults of millions of faujis and feudals to get the black money to pay for the relief.

The west shouldn`t give a penny to any of the beggar nations.

Most of the aid ends up in the wrong hands anyways.