paranoid ramblings

Here's a small but curious thing.

There's at least one US Marine task force in the Indian ocean or nearby - couple of days from Pakistan. Probably there are two, with at least two helicarriers and associated ships. There is also at least one US Navy aircraft carrier group, possibly as many as three. These are at sea, and were recently doing readiness exercises. They have at least a couple of hundred transport helis.

But none were tasked to earthquake relief in Kashmir near as I can tell. Instead NATO assets from Afghanistan and then Europe were sent over, in small numbers, slowly, and the initial ones were straight out of combat, still with bullet holes in them.
Now some of the USN is supporting the Marines in west Iraq (and why is that, tasking Hornets out of the gulf seems insane when there are several fully loaded USAF bases in country, they can't be that busy, unless the Marines and USAF have trouble communicating...), but helicopters from the gulf are not going to help you west of Baghdad.

So, what gives? Why do you need these forces in place so urgently they can't take off for a couple of weeks to give assistance to a very important ally in very serious trouble (if Musharraf is perceived to lose control of the relief effort, or to lose control of Kashmir he in very serious internal trouble)?

Good thing I don't get paranoid about such things...