£15MILLION AID IS NOT ENOUGH / WILL THE WORLD WALK AWAY?

Daily Mirror/Guardian | December 30, 2004 | Daily Mirror/Guardian

[ejdrapes]

$220 million has been pleged so far from countries all over the world and the leftist media is complaining that it's not enough and is fretting about the world "walking away".

I've no doubt that the US, Britain, Australia, Japan, ect. will donate a lot more money/assistance over the coming months/years. But doesn't it make more sense for countries to stagger their aid pacakges? I mean how in the world can the aid agencies and NGO's handle all this at one time? Especially when they can't get to a lot of places and communication is so difficult because of all the damage. What's more money going to do right now, except be misused?

[kb2614]

It The Guardian. Karl Marx would approve this paper. Disregard it, it's not based in reality.

[AntiGuv]

I don't agree that more money will be misused just because it's set aside earlier, but I also don't get why all the 'panic' over aid when people have hardly had a chance to assess the situation and respond. Geez, it hasn't even been five days yet...

[ejdrapes]

Aid pledges so far:
EU $44m
US: $35m
Canada: $33m
Japan: $30m
UK: $28.9m
Australia: $27m
France: $20.4m
Denmark: $15.6m
Saudi Arabia: $10m
Norway: $6.6m
Taiwan: $5.1m
Finland: $3.4m
Kuwait: $2.1m
Netherlands: $2.6m
UAE: $2m
Ireland $1.3m
Singapore: $1.2m
Source: Reuters, United Nations

[ejdrapes]

I don't know what some people expect. How could anyone be prepared for a tragedy like this? Especially when it happens over the Christmas Holiday. I think everyone is doing the best the can under the circumstances. But thanks once again to the UN for causing all this panic and uproar over the amount of aid being provided.

[marty60]

It is the fascist socialist propaganda against the FREE nations. Definitely need more STATE control. Ofcourse, then they will not have any money to give because they are to busy making welfare payments to their own people.

[stevem]

It's getting impossible to respond fast enough to all the anti-West and especially anti-United States venom that is pouring forth like, well, a tsunami by leftists everywhere. The Minneapolis Star and Tribune this morning accused the United States and especially the Bush administration of such evil in this disaster, they came close to saying President Bush is the proximate cause of the earthquake itself.

At times leftists can be so stupid they need to be laughed at as you would an anachronistic vaudvillian.

[marty60]

My question too. What is the EU? Does that include the Uk donations. Or is this just another lie told by the socialist in Europe?

[drt1]

That doesn't include private charities donations which, I hear on Bloomberg this AM, are equal to or exceeding the Gov't assistance totals.

I suggest India and Pakistan set an example and make a contribution by taking funds to be used for Nuke and Rocket Development and donate them to regional disaster and economic aid. This to be followed by hefty donations from numerous regional mega-billionaires whose riches are derived on the backs of their impoverished subjects and "Baksheesh" levies on Western companies for the privilege of doing business in their various fiefdoms.

There is plenty of capital in this region - Only the willingness to apply it to regional development is lacking - Especially in the face of the readiness of so-called "Developed" countries to take on these responsibilities.

[Ticonderoga34]

This whole episode just shows how far gone the left has become. Instead of just collecting money for the victims, the left has to engage in Bush and America bashing. The left takes advantage of a tragedy in order to further their agenda. Too vile for words, these people.

[huac]

America Bad. Bush Bad. UN Good. Fire Good. huac like Fire. And Marshmallow. huac like Marshmallow.

[weegie]

From the EU central budget. Individual countries donations are incremental

[EBH]

Articles like this are nothing more than propaganda to sell their paper. Any person with any common sense knows the world will NOT walk away.

Here are some bits of reality though that we can expect the media to pounce on:

Slow response to areas. Not that these areas most heavily hit are in countries that do not have the emergency infrastructure like more progressive nations.

There will be more death due to disease, pandemic, or epidemic. Again this will be the rest of the worlds fault because aid and help is too slow responding to a tropical disaster.

Already there are terrorists interfering with aid in Sri Lanka. Yes, terrorist are already capitalizing on the disaster. Sri Lanka has been fighting them for a few years now in the Northern part of the country.

Folks, things are going to get worse here for a while. It drives me crazy too, to read/listen to main stream media reporting that is so pessimistic about aid efforts. These countries were unprepared for an event of this proportion, albeit the world was unprepared. The world is stepping up and the world will rebuild what was lost, and it will be better than before.

[jigsaw]

The WHO warned yesterday that five million people in the region now lack the basics necessary for survival.

A grain of salt for the WHO.

Most of these five million people will survive because of their will-to-live and their finding ways to cope with their terrible difficulties. Mankind has been doing it for eons.

[traumer]

I don't see China on the list...

[marty60]

Absolutely. Americans know how to handle these situations efficiently for the most part. Leave us alone and let us do the job.

[Pete98]

They are just pissed because they can't steal aircraft carriers and clean water. They want us to only send cash, so they can STEAL IT.

[marty60]

Our young people are very impressive. Hard workers and committed. Now that really po's them.