Pakistan and the untruths.

It’s become almost acceptable to criticise Pakistan in any given context. The cricket team beat England yesterday in the test match, but there is always an underlying thought that some of the players may be taking bribes or taking performing enhancing drugs. How about British Pakistanis? They hate the indigenous British and promote a culture of radical Islam. There is no smoke without fire and some of these stories contain some truth, but issues become regurgitated every time Pakistan appears in the news.

The seasonal monsoons have devastated vast swathes of the Northern Pakistan and have continued to destroy the lives of up to 20 million people, but what line has the media taken in reporting this story? It is standard. In comparison to the devastating 2004 Asian Tsunami or the Haitian earthquake this year, donors are reluctant to part with their cash to help a huge number of helpless people, They are all living in poverty with no food for them or their children. Some fear corruption i.e. the Government’s back pocket (only 2% of the country’s budget is spent on education).

The media have led with stories of militant groups giving aid and the pictures show doctors with long beards helping the sick. The fact aid may not be coming through ordinary avenues does not mean that they will turn to the Taliban. As the excellent journalist Mohammed Hanif points out, the man filmed swimming across the river with a chicken tied to his head was not doing it so he could partake in a bloody fight in a country he knows nothing of, he was swimming across to save his chicken. These families only export food from the land they have farmed for centuries and nothing else. We may correctly assume in most circumstances the worse of the nation’s government and military but these innocent men, women and children only care for their next meal, not the Taliban.

Iraq off our backs.

History came and went yesterday as US combat troops left Iraq seven years after they embarked on removing Saddam Hussein. After losing over 3000 men and women, many questions will be asked whether America, military, economically and psychologically has the appetite for intervening or fighting in foreign fields. The departure is part of a wider planned exit strategy to reduce America's footprint in the world, particularly the Middle East, and though admittedly hurried, Iraq has improved over the past few years from the democratic process seeing a decline in militia violence and economic boosts from the oil industry. Despite America's full withdrawal at the end of 2011, Iraq is still a violent place, where simmering religious and ethnic tensions could potentially destabilise future political progress. It is still too early from an American military perspective to conclude whether combat operations were successful or not but America and Barack Obama will need to continue the fight in Afghanistan.

The problem with exit strategies as General David Petraeus recently said is that they should be settled on military grounds, not by political decisions. NATO forces have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, yet strategists believe the country's future can only be resolved with the Taliban around the negotiating table; yet to what extent is this desirable? The historical precedents of Somalia, Sudan and Yemen must not lie comfortably with historians. Surely all that time invested would appear futile if Afghanistan descended into the midst of its recent history. What about all the soldiers who have died for a better place for young Afghanis, it would appear all in vain for a quick fix exit. Last week, nine aid workers (including several women) were murdered by the Taliban, as a new UN report illustrated that violence against woman and children has increased by 30 per cent; three quarters of these acts have been committed by the Taliban.

Political impetus seems to take precedence over these matters. Maintaining a fighting army costs billions of pounds and heavy casualties does not enhance the war's popularity. With an enemy that is increasingly using abhorrent tactics and a political situation that seems neither effective or evolving, a withdrawal seems hopeless when there is no plan in place which surely means Afghanistan will dot our futures' for some time to come.