Blame the victim, cartel version

In response to my column today about Animal Planet's "Hurricane Reunions" program, Kenneth Lee writes:

I might agree with your column, except for the fact that Pakistan's Gulf Coast neighbors, and fellow Moslems, earn enough money from their oil revenues to take care of all the displaced earthquake victims without any sacrifice. I fail to understand why Americans should solve the worlds ills when other rich nations ignore their neighbors. Whether the Katrina lost pets are ignored or receive publicity  has no effect on the Pakistani victims.

Well, of course the Katrina pets have had "no effect on the Pakistani victims." I wasn't suggesting they did. And yes, I have heard Pakistan has vast natural resources to rely upon, although there's something screwy about any logic that suggests a dozen nations in any region of the world can just get together and solve their problems.

But isn't this a key difference between every developing nation and a developed nation -- the ability to husband national resources effectively? Whether Pakistan is poor because it doesn't have the resources or because it has suffered decades of neglect from inept rulers has no effect on the Pakistani victims -- we should remember and help them anyway.