my comment should really have related to "the royal house of saudi" contribution. i agree, if we look at donation per population saudi-arabia would probably have donated well; still wonder about the riches of the house of saudi(unfairly perhaps). hbg
Magus wrote:"The US has always come through with humanitarian aid"...?
What a broad (and self-serving) statement!
Pat yourself on the back much?
Trumpeting and strutting one's charitable accomplishments only diminishes them... it is ignoble and narcissistic.
Accolades should be unsolicited... and come from external sources.
I can recall when athletes did NOT spike the ball after every touchdown, or hang from the rim after every basket... Ii miss those days before Crowing and Grandstanding became de rigeur.
(Thinking back, we DID give Viet Nam "Military Advisors", megatons of Agent Orange, ordnance and Napalm; not to mention buckets of blood... all to prevent the predictions of that dreaded "Domino Theory"! )
It must suck to live in your world.
"Australia on Wednesday led the table of major governmental pledges -- including loans and grants-- by promising $ 764 million. It was followed by Germany's $668 million, Japan's $500 million and the United States' $350 million. "
Lol - well, I guess it is better than a goddamn arms' race!!! Could this be some sort of bizarre new olympics?
Actually, it is Oz's region, fairly and squarely - and I would therefore consider us to be very appropriately putting as much as possible in.
Thing is, our government is doubtless (as with Powell) seeing this as a chance to try to repair some of the damage done by Iraq in our relationship with our Islamic neighbours in Indonesia - in Oz's case, East Timor eis also an issue - the Indonesian "street" sees our intervention in East Timor as validating their worst fears that we secretly want to break their country up. Howard's incredibly stupid parroting of the "Pre-emptive strike" Bush doctrine also did us a great deal of damage in the region and fed fear and suspicion.
On another note - I know that Islam is strongly in favour of giving to the poor - but I DO wonder if they have a well in place sense of this including the poor in other countries??? I wonder if their wealthy government responses reflect their not having worked out the political motives and benefits behind foreign aid, as well as having a different international consciousness, if you get what I mean?
No agenda here - just wondering....
Well, it's one of the German holiday regions, too. And since more than 1.000 Germans seem to have died .... (Yesterday, privates and firms have donated more than 70 million dollar during a 2 1/2 hour tv show.)
dlowan wrote:"Australia on Wednesday led the table of major governmental pledges -- including loans and grants-- by promising $ 764 million. It was followed by Germany's $668 million, Japan's $500 million and the United States' $350 million. "
Wow! That's awesome! I guess we're going to have to add another zero after all, if only to keep pace. If we're not careful with this contest, we're going wind up doing something crazy like feeding the world.
Ps. Should we start a petition to get that ungrateful dolt at the UN to shoot his mouth off again?
Can some of those countries sustain such huge donations though?
Wheres that wee sh*t Bill Gates? Why doesn't he send one of his billions over?
Wasn't the Gates Foundation one of the first big donors?
ahhhh, here it is
Quote:The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $3 million, and the software company founded by Bill Gates will do even more: Under a current program, Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) will match charitable donations by its U.S. employees. And a spokeswoman says offices in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India are working with rescue and relief groups
.
This was from December 30, 04.
http://www.forbes.com/2004/12/30/1230autofacescan05.html
Dammit, ehbeth, you beat me to it!
In Germany, seven-time world Formula One champion Michael Schumacher led the pack of prominent sporting donors to victims of last week's Asian tsunamis, gifting a massive $10 million (7.5 million). (The German football [soccer] federation and league announced a donation of 1.5 million.)
Finally you know the name of Ralph's brother, Walter.
I cited this figures on another thread.
What do you think about a weekly Jan Egeland address Walter? Begin each broadcast with: "Listen up you cheap bastards..."
I think maybe he (Jan Egeland) might be feeling a wee bit desperate, McGentix. So much devastation, so little time to act, so much already given, so very much more money needed ... It's an extremely daunting situation.
OCCOM BILL wrote:What do you think about a weekly Jan Egeland address Walter? Begin each broadcast with: "Listen up you cheap bastards..."
O'Bill
Toooooo funny!
Much funnier than this cartoon from LeMonde (which says "Let me handle it. I know the country well".)
No. It was posted on the weblog of a Londoner who also opines as follows:
Quote:The execrable cartoonist of Le Monde, Plantu, hitting yet another low. Over 155,000 people have died in this massive tsunami disaster. The U.S. is spearheading critical aid efforts in the region. Little matter, of course. Better to make snide commentary along the lines that, hey they destroyed Iraq--and so are well suited to handling such calamities. Sick thought process, no?
Note the cartoon is linked to this story entitled "How the U.N. is Coordinating Aid to a Devastated Asia." What's it about? Basically, French resentment that the U.S. is making a bid at being the leader of a "humanitarian coalition" assisting the hundreds of thousands devastated by the massive seaquake. The short article is, encore, obsessed with the U.N. (read: France) having a major role! Yawn.
It gets worse. In an article on the American humanitarian effort in Indonesia, after a lengthy preamble about how unpopular the Iraq war effort was in Indonesia etc etc., this gem:
Colin Powell, qui se trouve à Bangkok et doit se rendre à Djakarta, essaie de faire comprendre le sens de la démarche : "Nous ne recherchons aucun avantage politique", assure le secrétaire d'Etat américain. "Nous n'essayons pas de nous faire mieux voir par les musulmans, affirme-t-il. Nous le faisons parce que des êtres humains en ont besoin, en ont même désespérément besoin." Autrement dit, même les avions de reconnaissance américains P-3 Orion qui survolent Atjeh ne cherchent qu'à repérer les destructions pour faciliter l'aide humanitaire.
Translation: Colin Powell, who is in Bangkok and is on his way to Jakarta, tries to make sense of the [U.S. initiative]: "We are not looking for any political advantage," assured the U.S. Secretary of State. "We are not trying to make ourselves look better in the eyes of Muslims," he affirmed. "We are doing it because human beings need it, even desperately need it." In other words, the P-3 Orion American reconnaissance planes that are flying over Aceh are only surveying the destruction to facilitate the humanitarian effort. [emphasis added]
Note the staggering sarcasm. We are doing recon over Aceh, not really to help (wink wink) but to perhaps prepare another oppressive, anti-Muslim adventure we've got up our sleeve. Absurd and insulting. Memo to Le Monde and their ilk: Get over yourselves. You are a middle power, lucky to have a U.N. Security Council seat still, and with little resources to mount the kind of operations the U.S. is currently pursuing in places like Indonesia.
Rather than commend the U.S., if just for a moment in the midst of this immense tragedy, Le Monde's journalists and cartoonists prefer to insinuate that the U.S. has nefarious motives in Indonesia, or make crude fun of the difficulties in Iraq having 'prepared' us for Indonesia's blight. Such sad fare isn't just wrong, tasteless, petty and rancidly provincial. It speaks of a society, like contemporary Germany, that is ailing and so needs scapegoats. It's not politically correct to look internally for them anymore. So everyone loves to beat up that favorite bogeyman--the U.S.--out of a mixture of incomprehension, envy, fascination, stupidity and crude stereotyping. It's sad really.
Look, don't get me wrong. I love many things about France. And we cooperate with them in places like Haiti, Afghanistan (though their contribution there is rather paltry), critical intelligence sharing on terror. But France has become a society in desperate need of fresh thinking, different directions, new horizons. Sarkozy would help--though there is no easy panacea. After all, this kind of myopic, obnoxiously self-interested news treatment of this massive tragedy speaks volumes, doesn't it?
Just a side note re the US contribution to the relief effort; there is quite a bit more to it than just the $350 Million figure on which The Media have fixated. With the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, including USS Shoup, USS Shiloh, USS Benfold, and USNS Ranier, and the USS Bonhomme Richard Expeditionary Strike Group, including USS Duluth, USS Milius, USS Rushmore, USS Thach, USS Pasadena and USCG Munro, along with the Hospital Ship USNS Mercy, with her 1100 beds and 12 operating rooms equal to any of the world's largest, most modern, most capable hospitals, and six supply-laden 47,000 Ton Maritime Pre-positioning ships (for perspective, a typical 50-to-60-car heavy freight train goes somewhere around 5 to 6,000 tons), plus land-based US Navy and US Air Force assets relocated or performing mission support from US Asian Pacific bases, the US now has assets worth somewhere around $25 Billion en route or already there and helpin' ... at an asset-maintenance cost of a few million dollars an hour apart from the costs associated with actually employing the capabilities of those assets - thats just what it costs to own 'em and have 'em available to use. Note that no one else even approaches that commitment - for the simple fact no one else on the planet can. It should be noted also that the first heavy humanitarian aid assets on-scene were US.
Just thought that was worth mentionin'.
