Pakistan appears on the verge of civil breakdown.  Slightly more progressive forces may have won the day in the elections that ended the Presidency of Musharraf but are failing badly.

In the US, unless you go to sites like Antiwar dot com or Information Clearing House you don't hear all that much about Pakistan.  

Let's jump.

Having read a pox on Mr. Armstrong's Wonderful World, I figured that this needed a detailed rebuttal.

Obviously the misquote was a givaway, but what can you do. But first, I'm going to give you a very old piece I wrote about Kashmir just after I went there seventeen years ago, and in part two, I'll go over the sorry history of Pakistani agression  over the last sixty years.

These are various newspaper articles taken from various countries here in Asia. They cover a wide range of topics. From World WarII to the Olympics in China

Nearly 80,000 people have died as a result of the October 8, 2005 earthquake outside of Islamabad. Millions have been displaced, and with hundreds of thousands left without shelter and adequate food, it is likely that many more will perish at the hands of the brutal Himalayan winter.

"Eighty per cent of the aid pledged for the tsunami (more than $4-billion) was given with two weeks," according to an article first published in mid-November in the Globe and Mail titled "If we don't help Pakistan, al-Qaeda's friends will."

Its estimated that the UN has received less than a third of the $312 million in aid it called for in mid-October.

Wow.  

I just saw an extremely powerful story on 60 Minutes regarding the aftermath of the Pakistan earthquake.  Seems as though conditions have gotten much worse over the past few weeks and the death toll is now at 90,000.

It discusses the destruction that is continuing but presents a story of 13 New York City paramedics who have volunteered to come to a deserted and dangerous region in order to provide medical assistance to thousands of homeless and helpless Pakistanis.

What a powerful statement about how America and Americans can win the hearts and minds of the Muslim community.

Amazing story below:

I am talking about the post-earthquake horror in Pakistan.

I can't say which is worse: embarrassment and shame that I haven't blogged this yet? Or embarrassment and shame that virtually nobody in the blogosphere has written a single thing about this.

But worse than embarrassment or shame is the horrible situation in Pakistan, where tens of thousands have died, and tens of thousands more, including children, still have not received any aid.

Let's look at the facts:

50,000 dead, maybe more, many of whom were children, who were in school at the moment the quake hit.

10,000 more children are facing imminent death due to injury, infection, disease, starvation, dehydration, exposure to the sub-zero temperatures at night. 120,000 children are at risk.

I don't understand this. Maybe someone can explain it to me. NATO is refusing to take part in a massive airlift to rescue the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the earthquake in Pakistan, Kashmir, and India. This is their reasoning:

But [NATO] rebuffed a U.N. call for a massive airlift to rescue stranded survivors on the scale of the 1948-49 Berlin airlift to the beleaguered people of Soviet-blockaded West Berlin.

"There is no question of the alliance doing that. That was Berlin after World War Two and this is Pakistan now -- there is absolutely no comparison," said one NATO source.

So, what, because Pakistan isn't blockaded, they don't deserve our help? It's not as if NATO refused because it was logistically impossible, the resources simply weren't avaiable, or whatever. It just looks like a big "fuck you" to Pakistan. Am I wrong?

This article was originally published in the Oct. 14 edition of The Moscow Times. You can find annotations and links here.

Humankind received yet another harsh message from its  landlord last week. In the agony of Kashmir, in the laments of  Guatemala, the planet once again laid down the hard truths of its  brutal gospel: The earth doesn't love you. The earth doesn't need you.  The earth doesn't know you are here.

Is anyone in our outstanding media going to ask that question? No, I am not being flip about this, and yes, I am mindful about the horrible devastation that has happened.

How hysterical would it be if this recent earthquake killed Osama Bin Laden. Just think about the field day the radical Right would have with that. I can just see Pat Robertson now, "The power of God has killed Osama Bin Laden. You see, the President was right to not finish the job in Afghanistan because he knew all along that God would do it for him." Regardless if Osama Bin Laden is dead or not, let us all be prepared for the Evangelical onslaught that will accompany the earthquake.

Holy shit.

So, I admit: I've been chilling on the couch all night, watching baseball, and a little TiVo, and drinking a couple gin and tonics. Typical Friday night around here... then I log in to MyYahoo and I see this headline:

Wow. Just wow. Eight-Teen Thousand Dead. This is by far the biggest story of the year.

CNN has the story story

This blows away Katrina, in terms of human tolls. (But of course is nowhere near the Tsunami, which totaled deaths of 275,000.)

I'm sure we will find out soon how we can help. These numbers are mind-boggling. My thoughts go out to the victims.

NYTimes:

A powerful earthquake centered in the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan on Saturday morning sent tremors across South Asia, flattening villages in remote northern Pakistan, killing hundreds across both sides of disputed Kashmir and shaking houses and high-rises throughout the region. The Pakistani Army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, estimated the death toll in his country to be more than 1,000. That figure is almost sure to rise once the military reaches the far-flung villages in the North-West Frontier Province, where the quake was centered.

Estimates of its magnitude varied from 6.8 to 7.8, with the United States Geological Survey putting the number at 7.6. Its epicenter was roughly 60 miles north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where aftershocks could be felt for as long as 10 minutes. Officials warned that serious aftershocks could continue for the next two days.

"The earthquake today was the biggest in the upper parts of the country in the last hundred years," Dr. Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, director general of Pakistan's Meteorological Department in Islamabad, said in a telephone interview on Saturday evening. He added, "Up till now, 20 significant aftershocks between 5 and 6.2 magnitude have been recorded."

Islamabad was in panic, and people spilled onto the streets. Traffic jams clogged roads, and residents huddled in groups outside houses, shopping plazas and government buildings. The cellphone network collapsed for at least 90 minutes.

Horrible.

Struck around Midnight EST

CNN Reporter in Islamabad reporting massive devistation in Kashmir region.
From the BBC: