Give 'Til it Hurts
Yesterday, the head of humanitarian operations for the United Nations, Jan Egeland, called America and other Western nations' contributions for the Asian nations' recovery operations "stingy".
At the point of this writing, the United States has pledged $35 million, compared to $4 million from all European nations combined. The United States gives a massive amount of aid, every year, essentially thanklessly. There's a great debate raging over at Right Thinking that has an excellent analysis of the situation.
The death toll is up to about thirty-three thousand, and could continue to rise to an estimated fifty to fifty-two thousand. It's surpassed the Bam earthquake of Christmas 2003.
What's my reaction to all of this? Well, when one looks at a map of countries and their positions on the 2003 Iraq War, we see that India, Indonesia, and many of the other nations that were affected by the tsunami left us to hang when it came to protecting international security and enforcing international law. The United States has extensive economic ties to both India and Indonesia, so it's probably in our best interest to help them out; but it's worth noting that we're going to help them, even though they saw fit to let us hang. It appears that Sri Lanka remained neutral, so I see no problem with helping them out.
There's no end to the aggravation that I feel when we go out of our way to protect and help everyone in the world, and they turn around and do their best to screw us over. This Jan Egeland character should be ashamed of himself.
UPDATE: Fox News is now reporting that the death toll is up to fifty-two thousand, and counting. It's possible that the effects of disease and other secondary effects of the disaster itself could double the death count.
“If, actually, the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of the gross national income, I think that is stingy, really. I don’t think that is very generous.”
At the point of this writing, the United States has pledged $35 million, compared to $4 million from all European nations combined. The United States gives a massive amount of aid, every year, essentially thanklessly. There's a great debate raging over at Right Thinking that has an excellent analysis of the situation.
The death toll is up to about thirty-three thousand, and could continue to rise to an estimated fifty to fifty-two thousand. It's surpassed the Bam earthquake of Christmas 2003.
What's my reaction to all of this? Well, when one looks at a map of countries and their positions on the 2003 Iraq War, we see that India, Indonesia, and many of the other nations that were affected by the tsunami left us to hang when it came to protecting international security and enforcing international law. The United States has extensive economic ties to both India and Indonesia, so it's probably in our best interest to help them out; but it's worth noting that we're going to help them, even though they saw fit to let us hang. It appears that Sri Lanka remained neutral, so I see no problem with helping them out.
There's no end to the aggravation that I feel when we go out of our way to protect and help everyone in the world, and they turn around and do their best to screw us over. This Jan Egeland character should be ashamed of himself.
UPDATE: Fox News is now reporting that the death toll is up to fifty-two thousand, and counting. It's possible that the effects of disease and other secondary effects of the disaster itself could double the death count.
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