I assume you mean ‘compared to the region’ though right? If so then yeah, Kuwait is one of the more liberal countries compared to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, etc. But globally, no.
Of course I did, see my above post to Larry Mudd…
I’m really surprised by the lack of accurate perspective exhibited by many in this thread with regard to Kuwait.
Lets begin with the facts.
GDP of Kuwait in 2004 equals $ 41,460,000,000 .
Although the population of Kuwait is listed at 2,257,549 by the CIA, the actual citizenry totals 966,195. These are the people that recieved a $700 million dollar dividend reported in my cite in the OP (The rest don’t count. They are foreign nationals just trying to make some money to send home). That’s a bonus of over $700 each. A more accurate GDPpc is $41,460,000,000 divided by 966,195 or $42,910.
Now according to the cite in the OP, Kuwait is expecting a budget surplus of $10 BILLION for 1984. That translates to over $10,000 per man woman and child citizen. Doesn’t anyone see the fucking irony here?
The US spent countless money and lives rescuing these people in 91. The US is suffering a huge budget deficit owing to a war that resulted in part from that rescue (not to mention their own internal natural disasters), and now this country, which exploits the very people affected by the latest natural disaster has to be pushed to finally spend just under 0.1 % of an annual income for disaster relief for fellow muslims ? Where’s the fucking gratitude?
And the big story around here is that America didn’t respond fast enough. Fuuuuuck !
That should be $10 billion in 2004.
Tax cuts for the rich had nothing to do with it eh? I don’t recall Kuwait begging us to get into this damn fool war, we’re certainly not doing at their behest, so how the fuck does our stupidity obligate them to be charitable to a third party?
Branding Kuwait the new France won’t alter the anything. Kuwait has done what Kuwait has done. The US has done what the US has done. There’s NO CONNECTION between the two on the issue of tsunami relief. Both countries are now doing a fine job of responding. Are you just beating on Kuwait to draw attention away from the fact that it took president Bush took three days before he could say anything at all about the great disaster? It must be something like that, because your argument above makes no freakin sense whatsoever.
If you’re doing it as a proportion of GDP, then the USA would have to donate $2.6 billion to match Kuwait’s $10 million (note: I do not think the USA’s response is inadequate at all). I have no idea why you seem to want to consider GDP per capita, since you are deriding the total amount donated in your OP. In any case, your “more accurate” GDP per capita figure is completely flawed, since it assumes that resident non-citizens produce precisely nothing, an insupportable claim.
Ironically (and this actually is ironic), if your only point was that those criticising the scale of the US response are full of shit, you’d have my full agreement. Logistics, not money, is the limiting factor at this stage, and the USA is providing a great deal of help in both ways. I’m just not quite clear why you felt the need to resort to such a daft reverse argument aimed at Kuwait. The bit about how they ought to donate more out of gratitude to the USA is particularly odd, I must say, although I did like the heartwarming concern for the hardworking immigrant just trying to send a bit of money back home.
If you’re wondering why you’re only hearing criticism of the USA’s contribution, I suggest that it might be because you right next to the USA, and not near Kuwait. If an American wants more of his tax money spent on aid, it would seem somewhat odd if he were to complain to the Kuwaiti government. What your story illustrates is that people in just about every country are calling for their own government to do more. Colour me underwhelmed.