In fact, it’s even less self-centered than that. It’s because 90% of all tsunamis occur in the Pacific Ocean. The Indian Ocean countries decided that scarce resources could be better spent other ways. And given devastation that cyclones have and can inflict in that area, they may have been correct, the current tragedy notwithstanding.
Note that there is not a tsunami warning system for the Atlantic coast of the United States (or elsewhere, though there is a proposed one for the Caribbean). Though I’m sure that Wake up call has an explanation for that.
The E. coast of Thailand had tsunami warning stuff in place. But they never thought Phuket and the West would be hit, so they didn’t put any sensors there.
And, you’re right: New York and Miami would have precisely as much protection from the much-talked-about Cumbre Vieja-induced tsunami as did any of the Indian Ocean countries.
I must offer my praise for the Bush’s latest pledge, as well as the leadership shown by the US in this matter.
An incredibly generous contribution, an example to other countries, and world leadership of the right kind - inclusive. I just watched Powell and Annan standing together to spearhead the relief efforts.
And interestingly . . . the U.S. has upped its contribution tenfold, just as the projected death toll has risen by about the same ratio from the figures I initially saw (ca. 15k dead as of last Sunday).
First of all, there has been some improvement since I posted the OP. Bush just committed $350 million. I would have been less hasty to make the OP, had Bush been quicker in making his announcement today.
Second, I was not the only one comparing the two situations. As you can see here, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has also said that the United States could draw [for tsunami aid] on some of the $16 billion that had been authorized for Iraq reconstruction but not yet spent.
Third, I still maintain we could do more in prevention of suffering prior to such natural disasters (see my last post above). That’s why this is in GD.
The problem with that libertarian viewpoint that the US government should only support US citizens is that the vast majority of americans do not agree with it.
"A very large majority supports US efforts to alleviate hunger in other countries. In the current survey, an overwhelming 87% favored the US “giving food and medical assistance to people in needy countries.”
That is 87% of people who serve in the military, 87% of voters, 87% of taxpayers, 87% of people who serve in political office, etc. Even the president is lucky to have a 60% approval rate and supporting things like humanitarian aid has an 87% support rate here.
Not only that but things like this are good for our reputation. Indonesia is the largest muslim democracy on earth, and if people get the impression that we do not care at all about this situation while countries like Sweden and the UK donate close to a hundred million each what do you think that will do for our reputation as a power hungry, mercurial power? Our reputation is very important to things like other people’s motivation to hate us, join our enemies, or become our allies. $350 million to have an effect on our international standing and save hundreds of thousands of lives is a small price to pay.
There are lots of things that a large number of Americans want to do, but that does not make it “The function of the government of the United States.” If you read all of the material you quoted from, it stated that, “…more than three in five (61%) said the US spends too much on ‘foreign aid.’”
I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t spend government money on disaster relief. I think we should. I still don’t believe, however, that it’s “the function of the U.S. government.”
Ah yes, my ancient enemy! Long have I awaited this confrontation, gnashing my teeth at my previous ignominious defeat. But now I am back, My hour is here, my time is nigh and I will not be denied the vengeance that has filled my mind night and day, consuming me these long three years. I have no fucking clue who you are. I’m sorry but I don’t think you made much of an impression. It is good to see though… that you’ve been thinking of me.
Oh contraire! I have been training. My Kung Fu is strong.
Ha! I see you run back to your Op after challenging me! Stand and fight. Face my tiger style debate!
No. We don’t. Your warning system is not a preventative measure.
Are you seriously opining that we should be creating warning systems all over the entire world so that we can everybody of every possible disaster that might occur?
I have bad news for you. Bad things happen sometimes. As soon as your tsunami warning system is in place and you feel safe, some other part of the world will have a landslide that wipes out an entire city, or a drought, or a plague of locusts, or an asteroid.
At that point in time you can show up and admonish us as selfish and having our priorities skewed because we have failed to put locust detection systems all over the world to protect everybody from locust plagues.
Your argument is inherently, and obviously fallacious.
The tsunami is nobody’s fault. It is not our fault for not detecting it. If somebody had detected it chances are that almost as many people would have died, and certainly the damage would have been equivalent. The sucker was moving at 500 miles an hour.
Again, it sickens me that you would attempt to blame somebody for this disaster.
“Why didn’t you try to prevent it? Where was the preventative money? Why are you spending all that money on Iraq when you could have been making tsunami protection?”
It’s truly contemptible, but all too common.
I doubt I’ll remember you next time either.
Happy new Year.
I have to confess that I don’t understand this comment. Secretary Powell said earlier this week that “the United States will be a major contributor to this international effort. And, yes, it will run into the billions of dollars.” Were you unaware of this, or did you think it didn’t portend a large increase coming, or what?
But following my post, do you understand why there wasn’t a prevention (actually detection of course) plan in place in this instance? That it’s precisely the same reason that there’s no tsunami detection plan in place for New York City or Miami?
No. We don’t. Your warning system is not a preventative measure.
Are you seriously opining that we should be creating warning systems all over the entire world so that we can everybody of every possible disaster that might occur?
I have bad news for you. Bad things happen sometimes. As soon as your tsunami warning system is in place and you feel safe, some other part of the world will have a landslide that wipes out an entire city, or a drought, or a plague of locusts, or an asteroid.
At that point in time you can show up and admonish us as selfish and having our priorities skewed because we have failed to put locust detection systems all over the world to protect everybody from locust plagues.
Your argument is inherently, and obviously fallacious.
The tsunami is nobody’s fault. It is not our fault for not detecting it. If somebody had detected it chances are that almost as many people would have died, and certainly the damage would have been equivalent. The sucker was moving at 500 miles an hour.
Again, it sickens me that you would attempt to blame somebody for this disaster.
“Why didn’t you try to prevent it? Where was the preventative money? Why are you spending all that money on Iraq when you could have been making tsunami protection?”
It’s truly contemptible, but all too common.
I doubt I’ll remember you next time either.
Happy new Year.
[/QUOTE]
At the end of post # 20 in this thread you said “wake up call: I feel like I know you”.
And then after a few exchanges in the same thread, you finally backed up in defeat and said in post # 77 “Consider me creeped out.” That was back in November 2003. You then switched out of GD and basically stuck to BBQ PITS, MPSIMS, Café Society, GQ and IMHO. Just run a search on your own posts since November 2003 till today. It is only recently that you have become active again in GD.
You and **Manhattan ** did not read the link I provided above regarding mitigating natural disasters death and destruction. Please go up a few posts and click on it and read it to its conclusion.
Obviously setting up detection systems alone is not the answer. It is all the other actions that needs to be taken to prepare for such unforeseen natural disasters. Again. Please read the link to its conclusion.
I read it. Did you? You asked, “While we set up a Tsunami Warning System to help protect the western coasts of the US and Hawaii, one wonders why we haven’t done so elsewhere?” I gave you an answer – because tsunamis were and are considered a low risk in that part of the world and the governments there agreed with that assessment and chose to put natural disaster detection, prevention and mitigation resources into higher-risk areas such as earthquakes, landslides and volcanoes. Your link agrees with that conclusion. It ranks the tsunami risk in Indian Ocean basin countries as “low” and recommends finishing and beefing up the Pacific tsunami detection system while making no mention whatsoever of a similar system for the Indian Ocean.
So now one doesn’t wonder why anymore. One knows why. We (and they) haven’t done so for very sound scientific and resource-allocation reasons which unfortunately didn’t pan out this time.
Well I read it. And Manhattan and Scylla both answered you. You seem to be substantially missing the point when you talk of using military bases to detect tsunamis. In fact, it was apparantly already clear that a tsunami would be created from the data already gathered, but there was no means to get this information to people in the affected areas. More detection wouldn’t be any help without some means of putting this information into the hands of local officials and them knowing what actions to take.
Ok. I do remember you now. You’re the guy with the creepy fixation, and the delusion that he’s my arch-enemy.
This is that creepy fixation thing that I was talking about.
No. I didn’t. You miss the point. Do you expect us to put up detection and protection systems for tsunamis across the entire planet?
If so, why do you choose tsunamis? What about asteroids, forest fires, locust plagues, earthquakes, volcanos, droughts, typhoons, red tide, the flu, ebola, serial killers, the Jersey Devil, bigfoot, Nazis, Saddam Husein, Al Quaeda, toad rain, the ozone layer, shifting poles, alien invasion, Hurricanes, the Opium trade, defenestration, clitirectomy, and irritable bowel syndrome?
Why the sudden fixation on tsunami protection?
It seems to me (and this is just me talking,) that having just had this humongous disaster involving tsunamis, the next huge disaster the earth will face will be something besides tsunamis.
This particular disaster on this kind of scale isn’t commonplace, you know?
You seem to be focussing on safe barn door management after the horse has run away. Not particularly useful.
You seem to be suggesting that the US was somehow negligent in not predicting and taking steps to prevent this disaster. Is this in fact your stance?
The vast majority of americans don’t know how much we spend on foreign aid. For that post I made I tried to look up a study I read once saying the same thing (90% of americans supported humanitarian aid), and it showed most americans thought we spent 5-7% of GDP on humanitarian aid when we actually spend about 0.15%.
Disaster relief is popularly supported in the US and a good way to promote a good reputation which is important in things like tourism and national security. However this is a debate all in itself and I don’t want to take away from the OP.
The underlined is the reason why Pacific Ocean tsunamis are more dangerous.
Most frequent in the Pacific. Some of the most notable that Wiki mentioned:
26 August 1883 - Krakatoa explosive eruption (affected both Indian and Pacific Oceans)
22 May 1960 - Chilean tsunami (Pacific)
27 March 1964 - Good Friday tsunami (Pacific)
26 Dec 2004 - Indian Ocean tsunami (Indian)
Other notables:
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, along with the resulting tsunami and fires, led to near total destruction of the Portuguese capital. (Atlantic)
One of the worst tsunami disasters engulfed whole villages along Sanriku, Japan, in 1896. A wave more than seven stories tall (about 20 m) drowned some 26,000 people. (Pacific)
1946: An earthquake in the Aleutian Islands sent a tsunami to Hawaii, killing 159 people (only five died in Alaska). (Pacific)
1958: A very localized tsunami in Lituya Bay, Alaska was the highest ever recorded: more than 500 m (1500 ft) above sea level. It did not extend much beyond the outlet of the fjord in which it occurred, but did kill two people in a fishing vessel. (Pacific, but this was actually very localized to one harbor).
1976: August 16 (midnight) a tsunami killed more than 5000 people in the Moro Gulf region (Cotabato city) of the Philippines. (Pacific)
1983: 104 people in western Japan were killed by a tsunami spawned from a nearby earthquake. (Pacific)
July 17, 1998: A Papua New Guinea tsunami killed roughly 3,000 people. A 7.1 magnitude earthquake 15 miles offshore was followed within 10 minutes by a tsunami about 12 m tall. The villages of Arop and Warapu were destroyed. (Pacific)
And since the Pacific has greater frequency of tsunamis instead of the Indian Ocean, this little Wiki blurb pretty much sums it up…
Final score:
Pacific - 8 (I won’t count the Lituya Bay, Alaska tsunami since it was very localized.)
Indian - 2
Atlantic - 1
Of course, there are other tsunamis that took place in ancient times in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, but the most recent (when the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center was established in 1949) are primarily in the Pacific. It’s not because we don’t give a damn about the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean.
