You don´t read my posts carefully - again and again.
I SAID THAT YOUR CONCLUSIONS CONFUSE ME.
You could read (from the context) that I never blamed other countries for not having offered help to the flood victims in East Germany 2002, but rather find it ridiculous when western nations call for help. We can stand on our own feet!! Period.
HAHAHAHA!
Michael81Dus,
I think what has really got people up in arms is not that people didn't say thank you for any help offered. People at the grass roots level do remember (as you point out, there are many Germans who remember the generous treatment of Germany and Germans after WWII by the USA)
What has got people angry is someone who was part of the UN, Emergency Relief coordinator Jan Egeland, saying Americans are "stingy".
First, the UN is an organization that many Americans are loath to support, given the general anti-american tone of operations there (if there is any question, one need only examine the wording of resolutions and the voting record of most of the participants).
Secondly, this is an organization that admitted countries such as Sudan, Syria, Libya and Vietnam to the UN Human Rights Commission, which also voted OFF the United States.
Thirdly, this is an organization that is completely steeped and bathed in corruption. How many billions of US Dollars were skimmed off to people in this "Food for Oil" scam, many of them Europeans who railed against the effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi children. How many millions of MY tax dollars ended up in the pockets of people associated with this completely morally bankrupt organiztion?
Then, to have this gentleman from this organization call us "stingy"? Stingy?
As several people pointed out, more money flows out of this country to other countries for any number of charitable operations. Sure, maybe we can afford it. But we are not socialists, and we don't believe in the concept of redistributing wealth. We give, because it is the right thing to do, and for all our real and percieved faults, we want to help because, often, we can.
A lot of it goes unremarked, unnoticed, unreported, and unthanked. Even our military hardware, which costs huge amounts of money is used in these types of operations. I have seen one rough estimate that a carrier battle group costs nearly 10 million dollars per day to operate. We are sending two of them to the Indian Ocean. Or flying all those C17, C5 or C130 aircraft with their crews to the area. Nobody is factoring these things in. It is just taken for granted. But it is OUR money, it is MY money that is being used. And I, and many Americans, are not only fine with that, we enthusiasically approve (discounting, of course, possibly the families of these crewmembers who have waited so long for them to come home)
What we DON'T like, and what really ticks us off, is this guy, with this morally corrupt, do nothing organization, who, to us, appears as the Prototype of the European "Sitzpinkler" telling us that we are not doing enough, THAT is what has got many of us really ticked off.
Please do not take this personally, and I don't think you would, because it is not directed at you. I have read your website extensively, and while I disagree with many things you say, I also find much to agree on. You have taken the time to see through our Hollywood stereotypes to a degree.
While we don't generally mind being taken for granted, it irritates many of us no end to be called on the carpet by an organization the likes of the UN.