Why is it that the death of 3,000 people in NY in 2001 required allocation of billions of dollars, including going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And yet, here is a death of more than 100,000 people, and no one gives a shit but giving a token relief of a few million dollars?
I’m as unsupportive of the motives behind the war in Iraq as it gets, but the rationale of a military response is certainly not beyond me. Do you want to declare war on the tsunami? A terrorist attack is a fundamentally different thing than a natural disaster and has geopolitical ramifications beyond “let’s get these people some water and medicine”. Yes, more aid is needed than has been provided, but the events are not comparable based on the number of body bags that result. I see anything but people not giving a shit.
Sorry, but this is one of the most pointless questions I’ve seen here in a long time.
And, other than me supporting the reasons for the Iraq war, I go with what Raygun99 said…
Plus, in what I can only assume is the spirit of the OP’s question, consider this:
Upon hearing the news, America characteristically rushed to help. Yesterday, outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell promised a $15 million aid package and stated this is only a downpayment on America’s good will.
By way of contrast, the 25-member European Union, the world’s largest trader, whose combined economy is larger than that of the United States, will deliver $4 million.
It was the faultline between 2 tectonic plates that caused the earthquake that caused the tsunami. Surely we could declare war on the faultline and drop underwater bombs on it. There are no possible drawbacks to this plan…
Your figures are out to date from what I can see.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4133971.stm
An Irish Government Minister was just on the radio talking about Irelands initial payment of 2 million, so I highly doubt the other countries in the EU are only equaling one of it’s smallest countries population wise.
These figures are meaningless as the final figures both in money and resources are going to be enormous as will the death toll of the people who at this very moment are still dying from injuries. Millions of people are in trouble and it’s going to be very hard to help them.
Needless political points scoring isn’t helpful either.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tsunami/story/0,15671,1380854,00.html
There’s an initial 15million Sterling (28miliion Dollars) and 2 million Euro (2.7milion Dollars) = $30million from just two EU countries.
I’m surprised nobody has tried to blame the Bushiviks yet. I’m sure there’s a conspiracy theory wanting to get out. The damn NeoCons planted a bunch of nukes to cause widespread destruction to kick-start the Asian economies to get them to import US products to bring down the deficit. It fits like a glove! All this quake-stuff; a cover-up.
The OP is bunk since 9/11 was an act of terrorism, and the tsunamis were an act of nature.
Hail Ants, the UK alone has increased its initial payment to $15 million.
But please, people of all political persuasions: enough of using this tragedy to bash the US/UN/EU. All that matters is that we help.
As sticky as stepping in at this point and defending the OP may be, you’ll remember that Americans whipped out their checkbooks and penned off untold millions of dollars to various relief and charity organizations with 9/11 relief funds (tax deductable, of course).
It is a sad fact of life that a force of nature like a tsunami can dwarf the damage done by mankind’s own hand against itself. It just doesn’t inspire a great drive to action, as a political, social, economic, or military attack does. We are much less able to deal with a natural event than with an opposing country.
This is similar in nature to WWI vs. Influenza after WWI. The history books tend to spend a lot more time on WWI.
I don’t know about the US but the BBC and RTE(Irish TV) both reported that the British and Irish appeals are recieving money from the public faster than another other appeal in history.
Apparently you didn’t read all your source:
‘Offers of aid have poured in from around the world in the past two days, with the European Union’s executive arm releasing $4 million in emergency aid and pledging an additional $27 million.’
They were reporting yesterday that the UK Red Cross received £600,000 (US$1,155,000), and Oxfam received £1,000,000 (US$1,925,260) within 6 hours of launching the appeals. This doesn’t even count in the Salvation Army, Christian Aid, and other smaller charities. This is unprecedented.
The Beeb just reported that donations from the UK public have now reached £20,000,000 (over US$38 million). This is the largest donation ever raised, and the fastest too.
I’ve not seen any information on donations from the U.S. public. Though I would say it wouldn’t be surprising if the UK raised more and faster because percentage wise I’d bet the UK has a larger population of people who were born in the region affected than does the United States.
As I explained in another thread, it was easy to throw billions of dollars at 9/11 within a few days because the tragedy struck us here at home and all the infrastructure surrounding the tragedy was still okay.
The United States does not have infinite money. In the case of 9/11 we could, at any point during the rebuilding, divert funds change funds et cetera as the cause/need arose. Maybe it ends up that doing X cost $15m less so we can divert that $15m to Y.
Once we give money to another country we lose that flexibility. Say we give more to one country than they need, or we give more than we can afford to one country that doesn’t need it as much as another that has suffered more. There’s no “take backs.”
Furthermore the infrastructure is so badly damaged instant funds will not fix a lot, we need people, equipment, and rations more than money. Eventually large flows of cash will help, but right now there is a fairly low point at which we will be shown a diminishing return on raw cash investments into the relief effort.
Cite?
The British government has just increased its aid pledge to £50 million (US$96 million).
yes they are. 9/11 was an act of terrorism and the tsunami an act of nature. while one require vengeance and force of arms; the other reminds us of how insignificant and petty our differences are, that we should put aside politics and help a fellow human being in need. a pity that we respond better to violence.
The OP’s headline says 300,000. I guess that was just to attract more readers. Or something.
Enormous number of people, and their governments appear to ‘give a shit’. It’s only been about four days since the disaster, however; assessments of damage are not yet complete, the area affected is much larger than in most recent natural disasters, meaning that damage assessment and aid distribution will be a lengthy process; and reports are already surfacing (see BBC this morning) that materiel intended for the victims is piling up at logistics bases due to the difficulty of moving it by road to the affected areas.
I have little doubt that western nations will eventually end up contributing billions of dollars to the aid effort, individually, through government aid and the various relief agencies.
If it turned out that three months from now, North American and European governments, or their populations, had made only paltry contributions, then the OP might have a valid point. This early in the process, not so much.
Please don’t remove my context. This is an entirely different statement than what I said.