Slashdot Mirror
Polio Eradication Program Suspended In Pakistan After Aid Workers Shot
Hugh Pickens writes "Jamal Khan reports that the United Nations has suspended its polio vaccination drive in Pakistan after eight people involved in the effort were shot dead in the past few days. The killings dealt a grave blow to the drive to bring an end to the scourge of polio in Pakistan, one of only three countries where the crippling disease still survives. Militants accuse health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and claim the vaccine makes children sterile. Taliban commanders in the troubled northwest tribal region have also said vaccinations can't go forward until the U.S. stops drone strikes in the country. Insurgent opposition to the campaign grew last year after it was revealed that a Pakistani doctor ran a fake polio vaccination program to help the CIA track down and kill Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in the town of Abbottabad in the country's northwest. The Pakistani government has condemned the attacks against aid workers, saying they deprive Pakistan's most vulnerable populations — specifically children — of basic life-saving health interventions. A total of 56 polio cases have been reported in Pakistan during 2012, down from 190 the previous year, according to the U.N. Most of the new cases in Pakistan are in the northwest, where the presence of militants makes it difficult to reach children. Clerics and tribal elders were recruited to support polio vaccinations in an attempt to open up areas previously inaccessible to health workers. 'This is undoubtedly a tragic setback,' says UNICEF spokeswoman Sarah Crowe, 'but the campaign to eradicate polio will and must continue.'"
Seems like every backward region I've ever been too has been awash in conspiracy theories, urban legends, and superstitious horseshit. Worked down in South America, where every illiterate countryside hick seems to think Americans are trying to steal their organs (resulting in shit like this). Worked in India, where half the hicks think that clean water is just a ruse to poison them. Even worked in a ghetto, where the rumor was that whitey was putting chemicals in menthol cigarettes to make black men sterile.
So it doesn't surprise me that backwater Pakistanis believe that Christians are out to give their kids drugs to make them hate Mohammad (or whatever other crazy crap runs through those heads), disguised as these things called "vaccines." Combine that with a CIA sleight-of-hand and a Taliban which is happy to use any excuse to show it's still relevant, and you get a lot of kids who are now going to die from a disease the rest of the world eradicated long ago.
Fuck, just look at this idiot as the perfect example of what happens when you mix base stupidity with just enough knowledge to be dangerous.
It's all well and good until said hillbillies start killing people or getting them killed.
I guess the Taliban have obtained biological weapons of mass destruction after all. They didn't need any fancy technology, just a whole lot of stupidity.
'Shot' makes it sound like they survived. Just say 'Polio Eradication Program Suspended In Pakistan After Aid Workers KILLED'
Find the similarities.
Pakistan is a beautiful country, particularly in the North. And their food is fantastic, the people are hospitable. It is tragic that the government there has little desire or ability to keep a lid on these extremist wackos. Pakistan is indeed a dangerous country.
Then there's this: Afghan Taliban support polio vaccination campaign
So it's not really fair to blame this on the CIA's operation...
The summary is screwed up - the fake program used in searching for bin Laden was for hepatitis B, not polio.
By killing the UN workers, they are potentially killing thousands of children.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Eventually run out of people to get killed or crippled by polio and the rest of us can get on with living in the 21st century.
I hope the families of the slain sue and are successful in getting bazzzilions of dollars out of the idiot Americans.
So the Sikhs that were killed in the wake of 9/11 as "blowback" should sue the Taliban and Al-Queda?
Man, "justice" sure is fucked up where you're from.
Oh yeah, and Americans are idiots.
Ah yes, it is the entire American populace that are idiots. Yep, we were all part of everything you just said. Not one of us opposes it. All of us act together uniformly. No one protests. Man, for people who like to criticize Americans as racist bigots, they sure could look in the mirror from time to time.
My work here is dung.
Pakistan allied itself to NATO and America, allowed its land to be used freely for US spy planes, Voice of America broadcast stations, bought every bit of military hardware US was allowed to export, from Patton Tanks, to F-16s to E-3 Hawk-eyes to stinger missiles to.... India claimed to be a leader of Non-Aligned movement, but in fact it was leaning towards USSR with MIG-21, MIG-23, Sukai, Hind helicopters and T-72 tanks etc.
But though both countries were mired in poverty, somehow India's democracy thrived. No one would mistake India for a developed country, with its slums and open sewers and congested roads and perennial power cuts and corrupt politicians and periodical flare up of communal violence. But somehow it is emerging out of it, in fits and starts, cornered the cheap back office white collar market, some good IT companies, decent medical systems, eradicated polio, making good progress on other diseases...
I don't think the difference is religion. I think the difference is government dominated by the military in Pakistan, and civilians in firm control of the military in India. That I think set a completely different social processes, incentives in the economy etc. I think economists should study how this process happened instead of wasting their time out doing one another in forecasting gloom and doom following the fiscal cliff. More and more the economists are looking like Mayans predicting the end of the world at the end of their long count calender.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
God in the classroom? check.
No internet pornography? check.
A ban on mind altering substances? check.
So by process of elimination the problem must be violent video games! Starcraft strikes again! When will these zealots learn? I mean for God sake they become worthless once your opponent develops air power.
0-18 commentards all blind supporters of foreign usurpers waltzing around in sovereign nations, shooting kids up with globalist poisons. If you think the vaccines are safe then how about the human trafficking and rapes the UN continues to participate in? UN reps in my country will be warned to leave once and then they will be eradicated.
The font (on OS X Chrome) on this article really makes the headline look like "Pollo Eradication", which I suppose is what they do at "Pollo Campero"!
Except this WAS NOT and IS NOT a paranoid delusion. It actually happened. That link is taken from the summary it's one of TFAs. The conspiracy had a limited and focused goal. They were mostly after just one man, but it was real.
No theories. Actual conspiracies.
...maybe it's time to start the taliban eradication program ?
OH NO! They're on to us!
Who cares? let them eradicate themselves via polio. SEND IN THE DRONESSSS
Parent is correct.
I know this is an international site and there will be folks from regions mentioned. But the thing is, he speak the truth. I've traveled far and wide, and the only thing constant in this World are people's prejudiceses and stupidity. My own included.
I don't know what to say to the ignorance that mod'ed the parent down.
Please, sometimes you need to call a pot black. Enough of this relative morals or whatever it's called these days.
Enough already.
We are now a global community - like it or not - and we really need to work together.
The United States bribed a Pakistani doctor to help covertly find Osama bin Laden. He was helpful. Pakistan failed, or did not want to find Osama. How will Pakistan react now that vaccination, which benefits their own citizens, is under threat, at the risk of some American spies killing more Taliban?
In the defense of Pakistan, the doctor could have been spying on Pakistan in addition to Osama.
1. Use a polio vaccination program as a front for a CIA operation
2. Let people know
3. Polio vaccination program treated as a front for a CIA operation
4. OUTRAGE
If they do not want the world's help, then let them suffer the consequences.
Actually I will blame the CIA.
They went and took an urban legend and made it true.
Now when the Taliban says "We killed aid workers because they were spying on us." we can't say they are full of shit anymore.
So if people lynch and kill someone with Asperger's Syndrome out of fear to protect their children, you will put the blame on Adam Lanza?
Child marraige is good for men. Little girls are nice to men and are cute. It is disadvantatious to women and this is a woman's world.
I hope the world is destroyed rather than allow it to completely be overrun by pro-women anti-male values.
Death to women's rights.
Marry little girls.
Respect cultural differances so we can all have a place for ourselves.
Of COURSE the children are sterile, they havent even reached puberty yet!
Idiots!
Jeng is a fuckiing goddamn moron.
theyz needz gun control
That's the better culture.
You Americans are just naive idiots. The "militants" are actually acting on behalf of the real rules of Pakistan, their ISI military intelligence service. They allow this shit to happen as they want to control not just Pakistan but also Afghanistan. They cannot accept an Afghan nation.
In these countries double-dealing is the norm. On one hand they collect American weapons, munitions and aid, on the other hand they sustain these militants instead of crushing them. Sometimes they set up a dog-and-pony show and claim to "have had a heavy fight with the militants; many people/soldiers killed". In reality, they want this chaos as it assures they rule over Afghanistan.
Your arms makers and mercenaries love this situation, too, as it assures a continuous stream of revenue from spare parts, ammunition and replacements for destroyed/worn-out weaponry. Boeing loves the Taleban, they recently destroyed a good part of the US harrier inventory so Boeing gets a fat new multi-billion dollar contract for replacements.
All the surveillance/intel and mine detection developers/makers have the basis of their business in this crap-war in Crackistan. Securing America's borders and interiors would be vastly more effective and cheaper, but it certainly would reduce revenue for Boeing, Lockmart, L3, Raytheon, General Atomics and all the other crooks.
"we are so helpless". Bullshit. They want a chaos they can use for their purposes.
"we need Armed Vaccinations, everywhere !!"
Here is the intel gear to protect the vaccinators from road-side bombs. Only 400 million $ a pop.
In the Wikileaks memos, you can read from Mrs Clinton ordering the collection of fingerprints, credit card numbers and DNA of foreign diplomats.
It proves American morals are rotten at the core. Why the fuck do you need to have DNA of the representatives of a foreign government ? Because you are a mad American with some even more mad phantasies about how you can fuck with other people's DNA.
The good thing is that America's worst fears are those inducted by it's own pervert phantasies. They even burn Mr O'bumma's bedroom laundry because they fear a "customized", deadly virus for the precious president will be crafted by an "enemy" on the basis of that DNA.
You get what you deserve, America - your own shitty fantasies scare the hell out of you.
Always funny to see how the mercenary companies and arms makers can drum up support for their "business".
"We urgently need to vaccinate children at gunpoint. Sign the contract with XE Services for umpteen billions at the dotted line, Mr goverment fat guy".
look, these people support, and allow their children to succumb to, a toxic disease that criples their prospects and permeates their society. a disease that's been around for a long time, that we've only recently been aware that it's possible to eradicate, and they actively resist attempts to help them rid themselves of it - even killing those that attempt to help.
and there's also polio.
If the submitter or editors had actually read the linked article, they'd see it was a fake Hepatitis B program.
I wasn't clear whether the shots administered were actually placebos or not, but we do know they didn't administer the boosters. Any fake vaccination program is dangerous, but a fake polio one would be particularly reckless. A fake HepB is bad, but not horribly bad.
There is one government - the ISI and their masters, the army general staff. What you see is exactly how they want it to be. That is how they control Pakistan and the best part of Afghanistan. That's how they can extract massive funding from the US. That's how they can justify their excessive expenditure.
A surge in revenue at L3, Lockmart, Raytheon. Only that can do the vaccination.
Make sure the locals know that every child crippled or killed by polio is the direct fault of the taliban. They can keep out health workers but not information. The taliban is waging Satan's war against the children of Pakistan. The parents should be actively fighting back. If you know where a taliban lives, kill him in his sleep, poison his food, whatever it takes. His wife will thank you. Shoot them in back. Blow them up with their own bombs. Use your imagination. Every taliban you kill gets you that much closer to Heaven!
...once again destroying a massive effort of thousands of people for the pure evilness of it. It's like anybody who isn't an American isn't even human to them.
...agenda 21.
Its real and it has a goal of reducing the population down to 1 billion.
This is not a troll or a conspiracy theory, its simply stating fact.
So how to reduce the population? how many ways can it be done. Preferably in a way that doesn't cause alarm by those being subjected to.
Have vacination beeing used to sterilize women unwittingly? Yes.
http://healthmaven.blogspot.com/2010/03/vaccines-can-be-used-to-lower.html
a guy ready to shoot health workers is not a representative of any culture or set of beliefs. plenty of intelligent and well-adjusted pakistanis are valid representatives of their culture, and they want polio eradicated
oh my god, shut up you moron. giving people polio vaccine does not destroy anyone's culture.
why do you think this atrocity represents some sort of valid defense of a culture? what other insane lies do you swallow?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Don't take these people as totally ignorant because in second oldest profession, faking ignorance is a spectacular weapon. They want that reservoir to use as a biological weapon against the West should the strain mutate. Who cares if some lives are lost, it is for a greater cause. This is a culture where life means nothing and revenge means everything. It is in the best interest to each of you readers. Air travel is unstoppable. Show me a nation that can afford to properly screen every air traveler for communicable diseases or close its borders, especially for a nation in such deep budget and trade debt such as the USA. Remember, if the "genocide" is NOT completed via vaccination, that polio WILL mutate and make a bee-line for each one of YOU.
People may care, but infectious molecules don't.
==//==
100,000 cases of polio is far worse.
It seems to me that population reduction will occur regardless of whether or not the UN has a hand in it.
Your link is to a crackpot site, I hope you realize.
You do realize I was pointing to a video of Bill Gates speaking at a TED event....
Heh, Pakistan a nuclear nation for decades? Uhh, they got their nuke parts from China. The country doesn't exactly produce a whole lot of Nobel Prize winners.
Like the North Koreans, all the Pakistanis have to brag about is nukes. Meanwhile, they couldn't even stop a bunch of SEALs from killing their guest Bin Laden right under their noses. Looks like those nukes didn't offer a whole lot of deterrence protection.
Having to post to undo accidental moderation is lots of fun!
This is yet another reason why government aid programs are bullshit - they carry the sins of the governments that "fund them" (steal on their behalf), and are thus rightly seen as propaganda stunts by their enemies. Private charities don't have this problem - some may be religiously affiliated and be at a disadvantage in reaching certain places that are charged with religious strife, but that will make room for secular charities to go there instead.
Coercive monopolies in aid have a very long track record of being inefficient and prone to corruption, empowering the very commie tyrants that are the cause of "their" people's ongoing poverty to begin with! Private charities, on the other hand, must compete for voluntary donations on the basis of merit. When people manage their own money, and what is done with it has a direct impact on their reputation, they have a much greater incentive to make sure it does the most good, with no side-effects.
A gradualist libertarian program to fill the gap is to offer governmental "matching funds" for donations to private charities, still funded by involuntary taxation at first, but then eventually phased out. As the poison of "let the government take care of it" thinking leaves public consciousness, wisely donating to charity will be seen as a crucial virtue. Rich people who don't support any charitable causes will inevitably experience some degree of ostracism. Instead of bragging about their Porsches, people will brag about the engineering projects in Africa that they're sponsoring - and get the greater ego boost in return!
--libman
Your nutty argument reminds me of Deeps Pocket Theory used by lawyers who sue for damage claims. The idea is that you blame (and sue) whoever is in sight who has the most money. No sense blaming (or suing) a poor person, because you can't get any money out of them.
A drunk driver careening down the street crashed into a phonebooth, injuring the guy inside who was making a phonecall.
So who did the injured guy's lawyers sue? Not the drunk driver, since he had no money. Instead they sued the phone company, because they're big and had a lot of money.
So if the Taliban kill polio vaccination workers, don't blame Pakistan for creating and cultivating these pack of regressive nutjobs to be their Contras force. Instead blame the "Big Bad CIA", because they're part of "Big Bad America". No sense blaming the Islamic Republic of Krapistan for creating these nutcases, because there's no profit to be had in that.
Pathetic Left-wing moral calculus.
The US must be one giant hillbilly country there. Where is Donald "Batshit Insane" Trump from? For that matter, right here on this site you can find plenty of conspiracy theorists.
Just yesterday the Nazi Pope released another message of hate unto the world, a message most Americans seem to believe. That homosexuals are the end of humanity or some such bull crap. And plenty here believe it.
Plenty people in the west also are against vaccinations, including Polio and these fucktards are bringing long dead diseases back because of their moronic beliefs.
The truth is that modern society is very scary for some people with all its self-determination and humanity and all. Far easier to follow some guy in a dress and be certain you go to heaven despite all the contradictions.
But at the core is that guy in a dress who is either just plain insane or just plain evil and he manipulates peoples minds to give himself power and it WORKS. Has ALWAYS worked and you can't stop it by being nice. Being nice is like dancing the tango. It takes two. Being nasty is like fighting and only requires one. As long as their is power to be had by being nasty, you can only change things by being even nastier. You can't negotiate with the Taliban because they want EVERYTHING and see you not as an obstacle but your eradication as the very goal. Look at Somalia, mass starvation but the Muslim areas are closed of to aid workers because those in power rather see people starve then risk losing control over them.
You can try and attempt to look at little personal reasons why each individual is behaving like this, try to see it as family drama's were the father sees himself as so important that he rather kill his family off rather then admit he needs help, overly inflated ego's seeing themselves as the dispensers of all wisdom...
But why bother. By the time you solved one guys issue, ten thousand more will have sprung up. Cure one homophobic Pope and the next one will be showing his dangly bits to the bishops who ALL have child rapist among their underlings and did nothing about it. The systems are rotten to the core, taking the rotten apples out of the basket will do nothing if the basket is the source of the rot. Their is power in being a nasty narrow minded prick and power always seduces. Sure you may be ruler of a shitty corner of the world nobody else wants but you are the ruler.
And the real kicker is of course that even the tiniest kernel of truth to all these myths, makes them true enough for most. Organs HAVE been harvested in the world. Not on a massive scale but enough to give the story alluded to by the parent an eternal life. Just check how many here believe the conspiracy theories.
I don't have an easy answer for any of this, this is humanity when you stop pretending and see the little shits around you for the little shits that they are. And then ultimately, you got to look in the mirror and ask yourself. Am I a little shit?
99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999% should answer yes. Heaven does not exist because natures abhors a vacuum. Hell does not exist either, it exploded long ago from over-stuffing.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Rationalizing is a sad disease that affects those that have a tiny tiny tiny voice telling them things ain't right in the world but they don't want to do anything about it because it would involve effort and risks their cosy little lives.
It is seen as such stuff as people saying child labor ain't so bad because at least it means kids have an income, that slave labor conditions are better then having no job etc etc. And that horrible nasty practices should be preserved because else you are not respecting peoples culture. Oddly enough these people NEVER preserve their OWN culture, they did take the polio vaccination because apparently THEIR culture was not worth preserving. Only OTHER people should be kept in a primitive backward miserable state to preserve cultural diversion and totally by accident the power of their own culture.
Basically, the grand parent is an elitist asshole trying to rationalize why others must live in misery to preserve their cultures so he can not associate with them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
We are extremely close to complete eradication of Polio:
http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring/Poliothisweek.aspx
This even justifies bombing of North Pakistan or nuking it for the good of mankind. This should be military operation and it should be done in Nigeria as well. Either vaccination or bullet to the head.
India is indeed not a simple country and the lack of a Taliban style movement in India amongs it many Muslims is explained by some by the fact that a Muslim in India, despite being among the lowest of the low, STILL has it better then a Muslim in Pakistan. This idea is also present in the Middle East were Muslims in Israel are better off then Muslims in say Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Even for the Palestines, you see an unreal connection to Israel, they rely on it for jobs, education, medicine, law and even political systems. Don't forget that the Palestines had a vote... it might not sound like much to you but it is pretty damn rare for a Muslim to have one. An elected government. For that matter, Israel has a Muslim party and Muslims in government. How is the ethnic diversity being handled in the rest of the middle east?
Why do you think the Palestines are always looking in? The complaints are always about the Palestine-Israel borders being closed, there is a border on the other side (just as closed often) why not cross THAT one for jobs, medical care, education, shopping, etc etc? If Palestine is a refugee area, it would be like Anna Frank digging a tunnel from Holland into Germany to go to work, go to the doctor etc etc. You would think refugee's would dig AWAY from the place they fled. They don't. There is a reason for that.
It is always hard to choose between a fridge in your house and your ethnic heritage. It is the reason you see lots of grumbling among European Muslims but nobody actually leaving. For that matter, the reason you see very few people moving away from modern countries no matter how much they grumble. How many republicans who said they would emigrate actually did? In France with the election of a socialist government ONE actor moved to Belgium. One.
Most people stay put, put up and grumble if the comfort outweighs the perceived injustices. Better to eat then to life as you say you want eating dirt, with no fridge.
The parent thinks it is the type of leadership... except he ignores that EVERY Muslim country that does even remotely well, did so under military rule and enforced secularity. Turkey is slipping as it becomes more democratic. Yes, it has massive economic growth... do you also get excited when a penny stock goes up 10%? If I go from 1 dollar and hour to 2 dollars an hour, I have a 100% increase. If I go from 100 to 110 dollars an hour a mere 10%. I know which salary I would rather make. Same with India, yes it is making progress but my god does it still have a long way to go. In many ways far further then you might think because it is not like the west is sitting still.
No, the secret to India and its relative peace (IE, it looks peaceful from afar but locally the bodies are piled sky high) is upward mobility. You CAN be a Muslim or lowest cast or even casteless and STILL make it. The American dream is a powerful dream and can keep people content for a long long time. Well, just see how well it works in the US, a candidate who says he think 47% of his voters are filth STILL gets 47% of the vote. because in America, ANYONE can make it to the 1%, so the 1% is not raped murdered and pillaged in their sleep.
Pakistan is far less mobile, those in power are in power and they stay there. That is what ultimately was behind the Arab Spring. Remember that Libya was/is RICH. Filthy rich, richer then rich. NOBODY was going hungry in Libya, nobody was poor but there also was NOTHING to strive towards. It educated its young men and then had nothing for them to do but collect a wage in a meaningless job payed for by oil. The peasants revolvted against their king NOT because they had nothing to do but eat cake. Hunger is better then no prospects. When you are hungry in the US, you can dream of when YOUR day will come. When you collect your wellfare with your diploma in Libya, that was your future.
And this is ultimately the problem. Those in power in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan don't want their people to move but the people want to see at least some
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Bin Laden's dead, so there's no more vaccination operation anymore. So what's the new excuse for Taliban? And furthermore, what are the Taliban doing themselves to eliminate polio if they won't let others do it? Frankly, they should be keeping their own end up by taking care of vaccinations on their own without burdening the rest of the world with having to do it for them. If they want to cut down their numbers, it's their own folly.
Exactly like hiding weaponry in an ambulance in time of war. Then all ambulances get shot at. Inexcusable. The people responsible for this should see serious retribution.
You do realize I was pointing to a video of Bill Gates speaking at a TED event....
the video itself is fine, the commentary is crackpot-level.
“I’m not sure what the nothing-to-see-here explanation is for Bill Gates’ theory that “new vaccines” can help lower the population of the world,”
In large parts of the world children are first and foremost retirement provisions for their parents. If you want to reduce the population (without killing productive people just for the heck of it) then make sure that more children survive infanthood and grow up to be healthy adults (any sort of severe illness during childhood affects job prospects massively).
The more children die before reaching adulthood and the less the surviving children can be expected to earn as adults the more children have to be raised. This is extremely wasteful and leads to an unnecessarily high population. Improvements in (child) health are - with about a generation lag - generally followed by reductions in birth counts.
Any sociologist or economist dealing with developing countries could tell you that. But no, it has to be an evil conspiracy.
No, seriously. This is one case where we all need to step back, look at what has happened and deem that these people know what they are doing.
We know where they are. We know how infectious and deadly this disease is. Seal off the area.
Shoot anyone who leaves the area without going through Medical checkpoints first. Set up a 50km kill zone around the places where they are know to occupy. Instance kill orders for anything which moves in any kill zone. Anything which enters the kill zone will die.
The problem will eventually take care of itself.
Peace out.
You linked to a blog which embedded that video, and devoted the whole post to speculating on the meaning of a single throwaway line in that video. What Bill Gates meant was that vaccinations reduce childhood mortality, which means poor third-world people don't need to have 10 children just to have a reasonable chance of 1 or 2 surviving to look after them in their old age, if they can have 2 children and be confident that at least one of them will be around to look after them in their old age they are a lot less likely to have more than 2 children, THAT is how vaccinations can help reduce the global population, not the crackpot ideas put forth in that blog.
refusing humanitarian aid to your own population as a means of politicial pressure somewhat deserves an honourable mention. Did i read that right actually it seems a bit unreal?
yah, sorry to say apparently i did
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?