Posted on 12/29/2004 5:07:39 AM PST by IronJack
The Wall Street Journal has Saudi Arabia contributing $10 million:
Aid efforts are just getting under way, but the complexity of the task is enormous. The destruction is geographically widespread, and the governments of the region are generally unprepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. An initial aid meeting was held yesterday in Colombo, Sri Lanka.Both national governments and the private sector stepped up aid commitments yesterday. The EU's $40 million came in addition to about $4 million donated to the International Federation of the Red Cross through the EU's humanitarian-aid office. Individual EU countries also planned donations of funds and supplies. Saudi Arabia yesterday pledged $10 million in emergency humanitarian aid.
The private sector also started to chip in. Johnson & Johnson said it was making an "initial cash contribution" of $2 million and was donating medical products and other supplies. Amazon.com replaced much of its home page with a plea for donations to the Red Cross and had raised more than $225,000 in a few hours.
On Monday, the United Nations relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, accused many Western countries of giving only a tiny percentage of their gross national income to the aid effort. "It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really. ...Even Christmas time should remind many Western countries at least how rich we have become," he said in a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Mr. Egeland backtracked yesterday, saying that his comments had been misinterpreted and that he hadn't referred to the response of any country in particular. But global attention has been particularly focused on the U.S. Officials from several international donor nations expressed surprise that the initial response from the U.S. -- just $15 million dollars in funds, half of what Japan had promised -- should have been so lackluster.
I don't think it was fair at all for Mr. Egeland to fail to mention the very significant non-cash contributions that are being made. Mr. Egeland's remarks were certainly ill-considered, and they have rightly been repudiated by the United States.
So would you seriously prefer someone who was not motivated by philanthropic idealism? BTW, I disagree that the monsters of the 20th century (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) were idealists. I rather think they were self-serving bastards one and all, whatever they may have professed.
The Congo sex scandal is alarming and the UN apparatus needs to take abuses by Blue Helmets way more seriously. But to discard the UN over that seems a little over the top. If anything I think it means that the more civilized nations, like yours and mine, should be more generous with UN peacekeeping troops to lessen the need for troops from more shoddy ones. As to Oil-For-Food, see my post about this above.
Here is the letter I fired off to Mr. Egeland yesterday:
Dear Mr. Egeland,
Before you go bashing the finest country on the planet again, why don't you ask Kofi, and Kojo, and Osama, and Sadam, and Vladmir, and Jacques, and Mr. Marc RICH, and the IMPEACHED former President Klintoon, and the rest of your slime bag constituency for thier donations?
Where was the UN this past summer when Florida got creamed by hurricanes?
How much Oil for Food money helped the Iraqi people?
What did the United Nations do to help America after 9/11?
As a matter of fact the way I see it, the U.S. does double it's share. It financially supports the totally corrupt UN, and then has to spend additional money to actually give the REAL relief to disastrous areas and countrys. You have the nerve to call this great nation stingy? You sir, are an anti-American idiot.
The cancerous growth in Manhattan called the United Nations needs to go find somewhere else to spread it's malignant deeds. It is not healthy for the United States to host it any longer, because it is undermining and sucking all the good, (that America truly does around the world) out.
My friend Jim is a New York City Fire Dept. employee in the EMS division. He is part of a special unit that goes around the country & world as needed in disasters. For instance he went to Turkey after the earthquake, Oklahoma City, Haiti/Dominican Republic...
I asked if he was going to any of the Tsunami countries and his answer was: "No more Clyde, I've had enough. You get to these areas around the world, and you know that help is on the way, but it never gets there. Food, clothes, medical supplies, and money gets re-directed to the corrupt governments running these countries, and the people who are suffering see very little of the aid"
I understand Jim's obervations and point, and it made me very sad and disappointed. Kind of helpless, I feel like we can't help even if we want to????
Where does all this aid go??
Get the US out of the UN and get the UN out of the US. I am sick and tired of this bunch of craggly old loafers sitting on their duffs doing nothing but going against the US anytime they are asked to help. All they did was support the French and the Germans when we asked them for help to support our efforts and they refused. If the UN is gonna remain, let them move out of the US and park their sorry butts in some other country like France or Germany but get the heck out of the greatest country in the whole world. I'm sick and tired of people speaking out against us and especially when so called Americans do. Like the panel on Brit last night. Seems Cici and Juan were saying we weren't doing enough. Thank God for a real intelligent person like Charles K. He has fact and substance. The other two have liberal mindsets and are nothing but puppets. If ya dont' like the USA then go live elsewhere. You can disagree but they need to stop the outright attacks on our President, our policies and anything else they can flap their big mouths about. The Untied States is the greatest countryu on this earth and theya re the most generous country on this earth and if we ever change all the rest of the world better be afraid!!! God bless our President and God bless the USA.
"Philanthropy" can mask a myriad of sinister motives. At its best, philanthropy is public generosity, much like that Americans have historically practiced when the forces of Nature wreak havoc. But at its worst -- as practiced so often by the UN and other socialist organizations -- it is simply theft writ large, redistribution from the "haves" to the "have-nots" in accordance with some bureaucrat's notion of egalitarianism. And since it is always accompanied by the veiled threat of violence, it is nothing more than oppression by another name.
You cannot extort philanthropy anymore than you can demand respect. The most you'll get is compliance, the act without the soul.
Another thing. I wonder how many of the people in these Muslim nations that are now suffering were dancing in the street when the twin towers fell?
And of course, taking their "cut" in the process! I wonder how much Egeland makes per year. No thanks, I'll donate to charities where the "administrative costs" don't take most of the donation!
Too much of foreign aid is pouring water down a rathole. This is in large part because the UN keeps pushing socialism, which is completely unsustainable. They encourage people in the Third World to expect their governments to provide for them. Huge quantities of money are sucked up, but the people are left in no better position than before to provide for themselves.
I saw an interview with Egeland once where he mentioned his salary. Don't remember the figure but it was certainly not very high, and much of it (he said) went into paying for a small NY City flat.
In any case, he wasn't exhorting us to necessarily channel aid through the UN.
I find that surprising to me -- I think most expat packages (and certainly those for executive management) include housing, and I would have guessed that he is an expat and not a local.
excellente
It surprised me too, which is why I remember it... The UN did *not* supply housing. And yes, he is an expat with a house, and a family to feed, back home.
I don't consider that a high salary for a top executive job. Do you? Really?
Violence can take many forms. Threats against one's reputation can be construed as extortion the same as a threat of physical harm.
They (in this case Egeland) simply exhort the rich to be more generous toward the destitute of the world.
"Exhort" under what authority? What endows them with any moral credentials to upbraid others for some perceived insufficiency? It is one thing to plead for generosity, to appeal to the conscience of well-intentioned folks to share their blessings. It is quite another to condemn them for failing to respond as quickly or as generously as you expect. The latter sets you up as an arbiter of equity, a position held formerly by the Almighty, and one usurped (with dubious effect) by the United Nations.
Or in general, how to get paragraphs into one's post.
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