Angels of mercy

According to George Bush, "in the mountains of Pakistan, they call our Chinook helicopters 'angels of mercy.'" They may well (whoever "they" is; for all we know, "they" is Karen Hughes and Condoleezza Rice). But if Chinook helicopters qualify as "angels of mercy," what must the Pakistanis call the Cuban doctors and other medical personnel?

The white-coated army comprising the Henry Reeve International Contingent, whose vanguard arrived in Pakistan on October 14 last year to give humanitarian aid to the victims of the devastating earthquake six days previously, have attended to 1,043,125 patients, of which 439,894 were treated in [32] field hospitals in the northern mountains of this country.

In the field hospital operating rooms at various points of the Pakistani provinces of NWFP and Kashmir most affected by the quake, orthopedics and surgeons have performed 10,920 important operations, many of them highly complex.

Now those are "angels of mercy."