Flooding The Zone
by diogby
Meanwhile, as America decides to stage a live national re-enactment of Birth Of A Nation there this:
With monsoon rains continuing in Pakistan on Wednesday and water-borne diseases reported spreading, international relief officials said the pace of aid donations was still not sufficient to deal with what might be the nation’s worst disaster. “The scale of the response is still not commensurate with the scale of the disaster of almost unprecedented magnitude,” said Martin Nesirky, the spokesman for the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, reading a statement from the humanitarian affairs office. “This is a catastrophe that continues to unfold.” The United Nations, which had been saying that as many as six million people needed some manner of emergency assistance — shelter, food, drinking water or medical care — estimated that figure could reach eight million. Since the weekend the pace of pledges to the United Nations’ $460 million appeal has accelerated, Mr. Nesirky said, but it remains short of its target. “The funding response to the floods is improving, but much more is needed,” he said. “The effort must be sustained in the days and weeks ahead in order to have the resources to reach the people who desperately need help.” Shortages of the most basic supplies presented the biggest challenge for aid workers in Pakistan, along with the logistics of how to deliver them across a vast part of the country lacking infrastructure.
Which leads to this:
The floods in Pakistan have upended the Obama administration’s carefully honed strategy there, confronting the United States with a vast humanitarian crisis and militant groups determined to exploit the misery, in a country that was already one of its thorniest problems. While the administration has kept its public emphasis on the relief effort, senior officials are busy assessing the longer-term strategic impact. One official said the disaster would affect virtually every aspect of the relationship between the United States and Pakistan, and could have ripple effects on the war in Afghanistan and the broader American battle against Al Qaeda. With Pakistan’s economy suffering a grievous blow, the administration could be forced to redirect parts of its $7.5 billion economic aid package for Pakistan to urgent needs like rebuilding bridges, rather than more ambitious goals like upgrading the rickety electricity grid. Beyond that, the United States will be dealing with a crippled Pakistani government and a military that, for now, has switched its focus from rooting out insurgents to plucking people from the floodwaters. The Pakistani authorities, a senior American official said, have been “stretched to the breaking point” by the crisis. Their ragged response has fueled fears that the Taliban will make gains by stepping in to provide emergency meals and shelter. “It certainly has security implications,” said another official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal policy deliberations. “An army that is consumed by flood relief is not conducting counterinsurgency operations.” On Thursday, the United Nations will convene a special meeting devoted to the floods, hoping to galvanize what has been a lackluster global response. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to announce that American public aid has surpassed $100 million, an official said. “We’re obviously not oblivious to the political and strategic implications of this catastrophe, but right now, we are fully focused on the emergency relief effort and trying to get a good assessment of the needs,” said the administration’s special representative to the region, Richard C. Holbrooke. Noting that several weeks remain in the monsoon season, Mr. Holbrooke said, “Worse may be yet to come.”
So that’s good. If we play our cards right we might just get us that Holy War Pamela Atlas is angling for.
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