Our military was not formed as an intended Meals-on-Wheels organization. We took care of Indonesia, too, and they are hardly in our backyard. China, Japan, the EU, eastern Europe, etc.......how much did they do? How about the Islamic world? They are mostly muzzie, as is Indonesia. What did they do besides sit back and laugh at us for doing all the heavy lifting? How about the UN, whom we are the largest funder of? This is supposed to be what they do, but those assholes couldn’t organize a trip to the bathroom if their lives depended on it. I am sick and tired of propping up, feeding and rescuing every victim and every damned loser on the globe. Haiti was a $#!+hole before the quake, it’s a $#!+hole now, and it will be a $#!+hole 50 years from now.
Humanitarian aid should be given privately, end of story. It is not the business of the government to take our money and give it away in emergency aid to other countries. I would not object to the State Department assisting the private organizations through assessment of the event and by utilizing their communication channels to convey logisitical planning, etc., but no taxpayer expenditures. Our “leaders” are able to pick and choose who they will help, how much and so forth, and often it’s done for political show (which seems to be what you advocate) and thrown down a rathole because of the political factors and features inherently associated with payments from one country to another.
We need more grassroots, more local control and less government in all aspects of life. This is no different.
The US Navy has a long and established history of humanitarian assistance. For example, they played a leading role in assisting Messina, Italy after a massive earthquake in Sicily in 1908 that killed over 50,000 people.