The counter-argument: Pakistan's image in the West is a perversion of reality
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 12:08AM 
To be fair to Pakistan after my mini-rant above, try this column from the Guardian (WPR Media Roundup).
The gist:
Compare and contrast: within days of the 2004 tsunami, £100m had poured into Oxfam, the Red Cross and other charities, and by February 2005 when the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) closed its appeal, the total stood at £300m. The Haiti earthquake appeal closed with donations of £101m. The DEC total for the Pakistan floods appeal has just reached £10m. .
The reasons for this disparity aren't complex. There has been a slow steady drip of negative media coverage of Pakistan since the 1980s, and if it lessened a little in the 90s as civilian governments went in and out of administration, it became inevitably tougher with the return of a military government, 9/11, the "growth" of Islamic extremist organisations in Pakistan, and the ins and outs of apparent ISI-sponsored terrorism in both Mumbai and Afghanistan. At home, Pakistan's image has been affected by debates about burqas, the bombings in London in 2005 and the country's perennial linguistic association with "terror".
Some good perspective at an angry moment in an angry relationship.
Reader Comments (1)
Hi Tom,
The world might have looked past Pakistan's rancid hatred for Westerners, the paranoia, it's preeminent role as a state sponsor of terrorism and the incompetence, except there's also the strong (and accurate) perception that the humanitarian aid that would be sent to Pakistan would be appropriated by Pakistan's extremely corrupt, military-feudal elite and most of it would never reach those in need.
Pakistani behavior has placed the country in the same "no-trust" zone previously occupied only by North Korea and Zimbabwe. A remarkable feat.