Posted on 01/15/2005 12:59:45 AM PST by kattracks
The national government has forced the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to leave Indonesian territorial waters, and Marines assisting survivors have had to scale back operations.Vice President Jusuf Kalla said Wednesday that foreign military forces must leave within weeks — barely three months after the tsunami struck.
Yet, the governor of Aceh province — the hardest hit, with nearly 130,000 people killed and 300,000 homeless — urged foreign workers to stick around in the interests of "long-term support."
All of which raises the not-unreasonable question: Why bother?
Yes, the Indonesian government is juggling a lot of balls right now.
In addition to recovering from a disaster of epic proportions, Aceh province has been the site of a decades-long virtual civil war.
[snip]
Given all this, it is somewhat understandable that the Indonesian government wants to be strict about security.
But the fact is that the U.S. military certainly has more than a few other priorities competing for its attention.
So if Jakarta wants American forces and relief workers out, fine.
They can be gone, yesterday.
But Jakarta can't have it both ways. If the U.S. personnel stay, they must be allowed to do what they can to both get the job done and keep themselves safe.
Either let them do their jobs or turn it all over to, say, the United Nations.
If Jakarta thinks that's a good idea, all it has to do is say so.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Very well said.
why bother?
i don't agree with the media fetish for disasters, anyway.
it's voyeurism.
So, dropping pamphlets probably won't work. Still, the people aren't stupid. If Indonesia lets the Christian NGOs work in Indonesia after our government is kicked out, word will get around to the people.
Good insight.
The $$$ millions in aid sloshing around, combined with the Islamist fundies makes for a volatile mix that is making them all crazy. Add the UN's newfound "oversight" role and you have lit the match.
The Islamists want Muslim control of Achea; the Jakartan bureaucrats (and military) are salivating over the money; the Acheans themselves just want to get on their feet.
Last in the equation are the US and the aid agencies, who are seen merely as roving ATM machines (but with all the frustrating audit trails and monetary controls that follow).
But with the UN assuming its "leadership" role, Jakarta sees a group of folks who might be willing to play ball. US out. Christian aid out. Anyone who won't satisfy Jakarta and the Islamists, out.
I'd say the relationship has always been marginal at best.
Sukharno was egregiously anti-American, and flirted with Communist dictators as a tool in establishing his "independence" from America and all other Western powers.
Suharto was kept under the US wing by virtue of $$$ billions in foreign aid, lucrative business deals and crony capitalism, and other financial incentives.
Since Suharto, the US/Indo relationship has been ambiguous at best, which is very Javanese.
I heard recently the term "patriotic" immigration.
We sure need that but how do we screen for it and then make sure that's what we get? This would take "discrimination"!
And who has the stomach for that?
Another was that American restaurants like McDonald's...well, they were American restaurants, that pretty much was it. I'd ask how come people in their countries would patronise them if they were so bad and it was usually something about cheap food, which I said was a great thing--you can't LIVE on the stuff of course, but what's wrong with cheap food? Answer: It's not the local kind of food but American. As if that McDonald's meal is what we all eat, all the time. Of course, labelling it American thus making it evil makes about as much sense as me denouncing Chinese food because of China, but that's what they said.
Money was another one, America is money-hungry. That this is said by people from, say, a small village in Turkey with only one faucet in the house back home while they were making big bucks working at a university doesn't seem to make them a little self-conscious. They truly had a feeling of entitlement--again, the whole The US has so much , we OWE everyone mentality. It was not a contradiction that this guy in particular was making big bucks while denouncing US citizens wanting to make big bucks because, well, I guess he wasn't an American. I got a sense a lot of the time that non-Americans felt that whatever they could get was OK because they weren't Americans, and that was as deep as it went. I thought of this quite a bit while reading about some of the attitudes of people receiving our aid--this idea that they've got this coming to them, and America, far from providing assistance, was merely paying back what was owed.
Ugh, this is getting depressing...
That is way out of line.
It is rather amazing what a lot of
uneducated [or uncritical-thinking], uninformed, out right false, mindless, blind, closed minded, totally emotional, arrogant, insecurity . . .
driven bunch of drivel is out there in other cultures.
What an incredible experience you had.
When I'm around such individuals, if it's remotely worth the bother, I try and seed thought-provoking questions and facts into their minds which Holy Spirit can later use to haunt them with.
I'm loathe to leave them too comfortable in their idiocies.
I got a lot out of living with those folks, but that was a big shock for me (I used to be a liberal ages ago). You won't be surprised to know that a lot of the idiocies of my foreign acquaintances were not too far off from those of a lot of Americans around that same school. (and of course there are no doubt many Ugly Americans in foreign countries--Idiocy doesn't respect national borders. :)
I will not give a dime willingly (other than how some polidiot spends my tax dollars) to any foreign nation. Charity begins at home....in my case that's where it ends also. While we try to save the world we are losing the USA.
American first "ALWAYS"........why feed a dog thats gonna bite ya first chance it gets ?
Well said.
I concur.
Why feed the dog that has been tenaciously gnawing on every piece of flesh it can bite for decades!
On the other hand,
I do believe that God blesses us when we live by HIS priorities, standards, criteria of doing good.
And, there has to be some great benefits from Him to be so sacrificially giving.
But I don't think we need to be so stupid about it.
No, we're not. Our money is stolen from us and given away by the fools comprising Big Stupid Government.
Nobody asked me if it was ok to hand out money stolen from me to idiot Moos.
Sounds like my local government!
American first "ALWAYS"........why feed a dog thats gonna bite ya first chance it gets ?
Bump to that.
Give the aid to somebody else who will appreciate it.
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