Pakistan

Interesting (& long) article on Pakistan in yesterday's NY Times Magazine. A bit of everything in the article — politics, religion, religion, economics, education. Sense and nonsense.

This oil spill was nearly as big as the Exxon Valdez incident in 1989 off the coast of Alaska. But with no terrorism angle, the event was mostly ignored by the foreign news media. As the oil washed onto Karachi's best-known beach, it sullied the marvelous vista of an affluent neighborhood's high-rise apartments. Three months later, when I stood on the shore, the hapless ship was still marooned, its bow at an odd angle like a broken bone. A top layer of oily sand had been scooped from the beach itself, but some of the spill had seeped a full 20 inches down. Waves were dumping more dirty water on the dirty beach.

Patches of foamy brown stained the sand where the sea rolled in. ''Is that oil?'' I asked Brian Dicks, a British expert, who was standing beside a backhoe.

''Oh, no,'' he answered, ''That's raw sewage. Comes in streams from the big apartment buildings. Some people take care of their waste, some don't.''

In this case, the sea's use as a latrine was actually an advantage, he explained. Nitrogen and phosphates from the sewage were helping break down the oil.

But, it's only at the end of the article that Barry Bearak gets to the main issue. How will the Bush administration square its high ideals and lofty language with Pakistan. Changing regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan or leaning on Egypt and Saudi Arabia to provide more freedom and opportunity for their people is easy compared with making a working Democracy out of Pakistan.