THIS (http://ireport.cnn.com/blogs/ireport-blog/2010/08/19/why-arent-people-giving-to-pakistan?hpt=Mid)

Granted, the source is dubious and its opinion based even if not from a dubious source.

So one has to ask...why should we be giving is much more relevant. Much more so than the why are we not giving? I don't think any aid going to there can be undertaken without it being politicized. More of a "Lets win the hearts and minds" of a nation that hates our guts by giving a token gesture of humanitarian aid. Right.

You know, we did not even give all the great a showing in Haiti and that is right in our own back yard and now people are asking why are we not doing more? GTFO.

Oh and there is this Little footnote of story (http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/19/india.pakistan.fire/index.html?hpt=Sbin) where it would seem in spite of all the woes in their country, Pakistan still finds time to take potshots at the Indian military.

Shit happens. Thats life, but honestly are we always needing to be called to task every time something horrible happens to innocents? There are plenty of filthy rich muslim nations with sovriegns who treat themselves to their own plush, souped up Airbus A380 super jumbo airliners to act as their own personal magic flying carpet, half mile tall skyscrapers and fake islands shaped like palm trees filled with plenty of things that would make Allah and Muhammad shit their collective robes in shock. Or maybe the Chinese could help out their Asian neighbor with more than just military hardware to blow up Americans in Afghanistan and Indians in Kashmere?

I asked why should we help Haiti in their dire need when our own nation is strapped and people came up with some sounds reasons as to why. This time though.......

I think it ultimately comes down to, if we abandon (or appear to abandon) Pakistan in what looks to be their biggest time of humanitarian need in ages, we have no hope of gaining the public's trust and assistance in rooting out terrorism.

I am not saying that helping them out now WILL produce the desired effect, I'm just saying that not helping WILL hurt our image worse than it already is hurting in that neck of the world. We have to decide if the risk of aid not benefiting the proper people due to corruption outweighs the huge image hit we will take if we leave the Pakistanis high and dry (no pun intended to the current disaster) in this time of great need.

This is a lose/lose situation in which I think we MUST help them if we ever hope to get help from them to help us against the terrorists in their midst.

The thing to keep in mind about Haiti is that it's one of the great shitholes of the universe. The whole damn universe. It has shit for infrastructure. It has shit for natural resources. It's government wasn't much better than shit to begin with, and now there's not enough of it even to draw flies. There are some bright spots (http://www.pih.org/), but the country was a disaster before the earthquake. Helping these people is important, I think, but it's a long term project that politically I'm not sure anyone is up for.

It's natural to give Pakistan the middle finger. Hell, I'd be all for taking their whole damn intelligence service and dropping them into a lakeful of cholera. But we need to at least make a showing. Why, when there are rich Muslim nations around? The question answers itself. Also, over the long haul we can hope that these people see the American flag on bags of food rather than bullets, and this may produce better outcomes and attitudes in the future. And hell, we're the US of A, and this is the sort of thing we do. We're awesome that way.

It would be nice if we could somehow make a serious contribution in aid and at the same time contrast it to what Iran, Arabia, Dubai, Syria, etc. are contributing. These are still all basically tribes, and regardless of what is being done to build the varied countries up, they will continue to interact on a tribal level.

Then again, there is always the realtors' approach: "Hey, India, look at all this available space in Pakistan and Afghanistan that you could relocate many of your people to, if you could just put a weapon and ammo in the hands of 700 or 800 thousand of your folks and point them in the right direction."

Well, the thing is with Pakistan might very well be the same situation with Haiti. Ok, we pledged to help. Now what? Did we just take ownership of yet another part of the world where the people who live there can't quite figure out what to do with their own nation? Granted with Haiti the quake might have done them a huge favor. They now have a blank slate because other than the fact that their country is a vest cess pool they have no malice or broad international controversy to bog them down in addition to being dirt poor. They could end up in as good a shape as their much wealthier neighbor: The Dominican Republic, which banked on the resort culture inherent with being a Caribbean nation.

Pakistan...well, we all know the drill on that place. On the best of days nothing is straight forward. So we go there and win a few hearts and minds but what then? They hate us mostly because we are a foreign power meddling in their affairs and that our drones occasionally fly into their borders and accidentally kill the wrong people. It raises a question of their sovereignty and their leadership take offense as well as their people. We are going to blow money and time and still be hated. It just begs the question as to why we do it. We do all this work and the world still hates our guts. I think we need to learn how to be more greedy and selfish, just like the rest of the world which is so hell bent on eating us alive.

It's naive in the extreme to think that anything we do for Pakistan is going to make them like us any more than trying to be nice to occupied Afghanistan made them like us. They'll be indifferent to us at best, and care far more about their long term local problems than us, because they know one day we'll be gone and are just milking us for all the money they can in the meantime.

It's naive in the extreme to think that anything we do for Pakistan is going to make them like us any more than trying to be nice to occupied Afghanistan made them like us.
Different situations, for reason of the bolded word. I don't at all expect Pakistan as a nation to suddenly sing our praises. The best we can do is plant seeds, figuratively and literally.

I agree, Lummus, that with considerable aid Haiti may rise from tabula rasa to some matter of sustainable economy. It would be nice. I do hope it happens. But I don't see it happening any time soon for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, Haiti isn't even a whisper in the current dialogue.

Sometimes giving isn't about hoping to be liked in return.

It's just hoping those millions displaced will maybe, I don't know, get the medical vaccines they will need to survive this current disaster.

I think it's somewhat tragic to put disaster-relief through the lense of real politik.

Though it's hard not too when whatever response comes from the US and Americans will be put through that same lens by the rest of the world.

So you're putting yourself on the level of Iran and Pakistan?

So Iran and Pakistan are the only countries in the remainder of the world outside of the US?

Surely you don't think those are the only countries that are hyper-critical of the US. Whatever response is given by the US will surely be judged by those two countries, yes, but the US will be judged in it's response by it's allies as well. It will be judged by the population of basically any country with a news media.

No, I wasn't talking about just how we are viewed in countries in the Middle East and Asia. Our humanitarian response to any major crisis gets judged all over Europe by people that love to find fault in the US as well.