[Vision2020] "Humanitarian Warfare" in Pakistan: Bombs not Bread: "...scale of flood disaster barely comprehensible"

[Ted Moffett]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20641

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=section&sectionName=about

"Humanitarian Warfare" in Pakistan: Bombs not Bread.
The scale of the disaster caused by the floods is barely comprehensible

by Felicity Arbuthnot

 Global Research <http://www.globalresearch.ca/>, August 16, 2010


 " .. to wade through slaughter ... and shut the gates of mercy on mankind."
Thomas Gray (1716-1771.)

The scale of the disaster caused by the floods in Pakistan, is barely
comprehensible. As Juan Cole has written, expressing near disbelief : "The
submerged area of the country is as big as the United Kingdom, fourteen
million Pakistanis are affected, two million are homeless." Six million need
immediate relief, according to the UN., and thirty six thousand are
suffering from acute diarrhoeal symptoms, with cholera already diagnosed.
1,600 are reported dead, with the number certain to multiply. Famine is a
real possibility.

The great Indus river, one of the world's longest, which flows also through
China, India and Kashmir, rising in Tibet and flowing in to the Arabian Sea,
has flooded Sindh and Balochistan provinces, forcing the evacuation of over
ninety percent of the villages. With no place to hide, people watched their
homes washed away, in a monsoon season that continues through September.
Hundreds of villages are inundated or completely under water, with roads,
rail links, thus transportation cut, as frantic people try to flee to safer
ground. It is the worst flooding in the country's history, with some experts
saying the region worst affected for nearly one hundred years. A far wider
area is now threatened.

When the waters subside, the million-plus people who are directly or
indirectly dependent on the mangroves, will have had their livelihood
affected or erased, as will the fishermen along this great expanse.

Looking at US., news sites, the enormity of this tragedy has evoked not
pity, but almost universal vindictiveness. One with over 19,000 comments are
typified by:

-"Pray for more rain"; "Uncle Sam, I need your help again!!! ...";
-"Doesn't it just pull at your heartstrings that Dear Ol' Uncle Sam wants to
help out the enemy-";
-"Ha, God truly works in mysterious ways ... forsaken by their false
prophet";
-"What did it cost to deploy this missle to kill a measly 12 people? Not
good use of our tax dollars! Get a bigger missle,12,000 would be better!"(1)
are, sickeningly, a few of the milder ones, addressed to a River Valley
civilization which dates to about 3,300 BC., with tools found, used fifteen
thousand years ago.

Saturday 14th August, is Pakistan's Independence Day, celebrated annually
since 1947. Flags and flowers, traditionally decorate all, homes, roofs,
vehicles. This year celebrations were muted to sombre, devastation and death
dominated. Prayers for both replaced festivity. The army cancelled their
celebrations and donated the funds allocated for their day's events to the
flood victims.

President Obama in a message for Independence Day, pledged U.S. support:
“... in line with deepening partnership between the two nations”, praising
the Pakistani people " ... as they bravely respond to widespread and
unprecedented flooding." He ended: "I have directed my Administration to
continue to work closely with the Government of Pakistan and provide
assistance in their response to this crisis.”

Pakistan has requested helicopters from this US "partner", close by in
Afghanistan, however : "A senior U.S. military official said transfer of
additional helicopters, which are in short supply in Afghanistan, would
require a political decision in Washington. 'Do they exist in the region?
Yes', he said. 'Are they available? No' ", writes Robert Naiman.

What was available, on Pakistan's National Day, and the third day of the
holy month of Ramadan, were US drones. A US missile strike on (as ever) a
"militant" compound on the Afghan border, killing thirteen "rebels" and
wounding five others on Saturday, in the village of Eisori, in North
Pakistan, is widely reported. Wait for the bodies of the militant children,
women, teenagers. It is still confusing to know how these "militants" are
recognised from the air, from a computer in the US, given so many have
turned out to be families having a meal, tending their land, or mince-meated
infants. What happened to Courts of Law?

Unmanned drones, decimating lives since 2004 in the US's "deepening
partnership" country, operated by those who have graduated from computer
games to war games, with real human targets, has to be one of life's more
memorable, bizarre, cowardly, illegal obscenities. Some "partnership."

The good news or the bad?

A shipload of U.S. Marines and helicopters did arrive to boost relief
efforts in flooded Pakistan on Thursday (12th August.) However, given the
number of US Special Services alleged to have been at sites of bombings in
Pakistan, from schools to communal compounds, the cynic might wonder whether
this is in spirit of co-operation and "partnership" or an eye to the main
chance.

And the US has a bit of form when it comes to Ramadan missiles. In Ramadan
in Iraq, the US., military signed their missiles with: "Have a nice Ramadan,
Saddam."

UN Secretary General, Ban, has finally limped in to Pakistan, saying not a
lot. The Taliban have offered, allegedly, twenty million dollars in aid if
Pakistan rejects US aid (given US form, they could possibly be on to
something - further once in, the US., have a tendency to stay) and President
Obama and his family are swimming in Florida to promote tourism in BP
infested waters.

One commentator reached a US news site, and compared poor Michelle Obama to
Marie Antoinette. A long way from: "Change we can believe in."

Nearly five hundred years ago, William Shakespeare put it well : " ...
perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame; savage, extreme, rude, cruel,
not to trust."

Funny world.

*Note
*
(1) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_pakistan#mwpphu-container

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_pakistan#mwpphu-container

*Felicity Arbuthnot is a frequent contributor to Global Research.*  *Global
Research Articles by Felicity
Arbuthnot*<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=listByAuthor&authorFirst=Felicity&authorName=Arbuthnot>
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