There has been quite a fuss today in the British press about why "we" aren't moved by the plight of Pakistanis suffering. The Independent of London asks "why is the world unmoved by the plight of Pakistan?"

Is it really?

Respected political magazine, the New Statesman, chimes in with a blog headlined "Why has international aid to Pakistan been so slow?", which is at a least slightly less emotive way of looking at the issue.

Alas while the Independent poses the question, it doesn't actually answer it. The suggestion appears to be that it's because Pakistan is a Muslim country but it's never actually stated as such. Is this what they mean by "begging the question"?

Certainly the response has been muted in comparison to the 2004 Tsunami in the Indian Ocean or this year's earthquake in Haiti, but it's a bit of a stretch to hint at "Islamaphobia" or racism.

Not everyone is ignoring the crisis, though. In the absence of foreign aid it seems the Taliban is picking up the slack. Oops.

"A Pakistani Taliban spokesman on Thursday morning told press the militant organisation is ready to donate $20 million in support, while urging Islamabad to reject "Western" assistance," reports the EUObserver.

The idea that radical Islamic groups should be running about distributing aid should hardly surprise anyone. When militant Islamists landed in the middle of the Yugoslav civil wars in the 1990s they fancied themselves more as Amnesty International with automatic assault rifles than a mujahideen, something facilitated by the desperate desire of many in the west, notably Germany, to turn a bloody civil war into a moral crusade. In short, the politicisation of other people's tragedies is hardly anything we've not seen before.

Never fear, though, the EU is on the case. The EUObserver reports that Europe's foreign ministers are to "upgrade [the] Pakistan effort".

So… it really is to become a political football, then? It seems there is no human suffering which can't be turned into a case of "us" vs "them".