According to that China has a navy.
Money can be turned into whatever is needed. Stuff, for now at least, is pretty much stuck being whatever stuff it was to begin with. For instance, if a boatload of blankets shows up, but what they really needed was construction equipment or water purification systems, they are pretty fucked.
Besides, it’s not like we are dropping one fat check on Indonesia; I am pretty certain that a goodly chunk of that 350 million will be in the form of food or whatnot. Even if we give them stuff, someone has to pay for it at some point. That’s where money earmarked for ‘disaster relief’ comes into play.
Greed is a harsh mistress. I’d take the check.
Not to speak for him, but I think he meant they had no navy in the sense that Detroit has no football team. Sure, we have dudes that run around in funny clothes and fumble the ball, but…
China doesn’t have significant sealift capability, and what it does have is geared more towards Taiwan than long-distance deployments.
Actually, though it pains me to say this, I didn’t read the cite in the OP…I was responding more to the tone of the OP which seemed to be talking about the US being stingy. Stuff like this: “Somehow it seems inapropiate… even if the US and Bush were being a bit skimpy. Though I was quite amused by the comment by an american politician about spending US$ 35 million in Iraq before breakfast.”
If it were a Norwegian making the comment, and he was talking about ‘the wests’ response he was equally wrong, even at the time. It was WAY too soon to be talking about how ‘the west’ was ‘skimpy’ on helping out, as things don’t happening instantly, and nations were still evaluating what they could do, and what the needs were. Hell, they were still assessing exactly how bad it was. Even today I noticed that the toll of damage and lives was upped…so we STILL don’t know the full extent of how bad things are.
I think ‘the west’ has responded admirably to this catastrophy, giving both quickly and generously to those shattered peoples, and I for one am proud to be a citizen in one of those nations. In fact, I’m rather impressed with the entire worlds response to this horrible catastrophy…just look at the Japanese response for instance. Awesome.
-XT
Just in case people weren’t aware, by the end of the week, the “Norwegian”, Mr. Egeland, had completely reversed his earlier remarks, making comments about how “generous” the world was turning out to be. Yesterday, he called the U.S. response “ideal”:
"U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland – who sparked international debate last week when he called wealthy nations “stingy” with foreign aid in general – told “Late Edition” the United States has been “ideal” in the way it has responded to the disaster.
“They have also provided military assets that we are reliant upon now, as we try to reach out to the most remote places in Sumatra and Aceh, which are the worst-hit of the areas,” he said."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/02/tsunami.usaid/
Here’s a quote from today:
“The world is really coming together here in a way that we probably have never seen before.”
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050102-071327-6518r.htm
Ed
Right on… well the Chinese lost the opportunity for some nice neighborhood helping… and shown that they can’t threaten Taiwan that easily either.
The “stingy” norwegian comment certainly seems a perfect example of “foot in the mouth” comment. Especially so early on.
Perhaps, but as I said in the Pit thread on the subject he was having the worst day of his professional life – and his professional life is a hell of a lot more stressful than yours or mine. I think the US would have come off better if someone had dropped that sentiment off the record to the right reporters and got on with the business at hand rather than getting defensive about it.
As to the money/material thing: Both sides are correct. What is needed today is a little bit of money for immediate needs and a massive logistical undertaking to deliver material, which the US Navy is leading among countries which don’t have the infrastructure to do it themselves. That’s exactly appropriate for now. Going forward the money is needed for rebuilding homes, bridges, tourist areas, fishing ports, etc. And that’s when Brutus’ point about money being fungible will be relevant, and that’s when the big dollars that countries are pledging will be spent.
of course the money will be useful… but right now people are starving, sick and diseased. Prompt help will save more lives. The billions given will help restore their livelihoods and other stuff naturally.
BTW… why are US casualties in the Tsunami so few or so rarely reported ? I’d venture there would be way more americans in the area…
True, and the US and other nations are doing what we and they can. In addition to the Lincoln task force, the US is flying C-130s out of Thailand with supplies.
Unfortunately, this mostly helps the places which need help the least – relatively well-developed tourist areas are the ones within range of big airports and modern road systems. You have to understand that a lot of the places hardest hit are remote even by the standards of the countries involved. They’re underdeveloped, have semi-autonomous local governents with tiny resources, etc. The Navy is good at making people think it’s ubiquitious and omnipresent, but unfortunately it is not. Other countries’ capacity to respond to things like this is well discussed here.
I know, it’s extremely frustrating that doing everything we can just isn’t enough – the world wasn’t prepared for a disaster of this large global sweep. We’d all be able to do a better job on a disaster with similar deaths and injuries if it were more localized. But this is the situation that nature has handed us, and the best we can do is the best we can do.
Dunno why the American casualties aren’t receiving more play – the State Department says that there are still 5,000 “open inquiries,” which is to say questions about the whereabouts of US citizens. But they also say that there are many duplicates in the count and that people are continuing to turn up. I have to say that I’m glad the press isn’t dwelling on it. In the first days, when the death total was “only” thought to be 10,000 or so I was kind of sickened to see reports that said things like “3 Americans and 10,000 others dead.” I’m glad our press has some sense of the scale of things here and that it is not an American thing.
Still its wierd… I’d think americans would be more accounted for due to “terrorism” dangers or whatever. Just about every major number of tourists has been reported… except the US.
CNN reports 15 US dead… and nothing else.
I was under the impression that there were thousands of Americans missing.
I’ve seen from 1k to 5k… but never anything solid. Other countries have more precise numbers of confirmed dead versus presumed missing.
I know how hard it is to track down the missing… I know many of those working in Brazilian efforts at determining how many of our countrymen are missing. Numbers vary wildly… still more or less constant figures are showing for Brazilian victims, swedes… austrians and germans… but not Americans.
9/11 probably killed less americans if these missing figures are as big as has been taunted.
Well I’ve just saw ABC reporting.
15 confirmed dead
3000 unaccounted for.
Finally a little bit of good Kharma for our military! Now, weren’t those the good old days in the nineties when our arm of justice actually helped countries and saved their people instead of occupying countries and killing their people?
Halcyon.