210,000 Dead in Indonesia.

Fox news

[ConservativeMan55]

Per Foxnews Alert.

210,000 people have died in the Tsunami.

The worst disaster in the last 300 years.

[cherry]

"Claiming that the death figures are inflated to get money is maybe understandable, but neverhteless completely wrong."

I think a lot of people get very cynical about these things...

I for one, can say that I think that there were very many families of people who died in the Trade Towers who were NOT financially hurting afterwards, and did not need what seemed like millions thrown at them....

sometimes we tend to go way overboard on the money we rain on victims....irrationally, for the most part...

there will be abuses in the Tsunami region of our money, just as there was abuse of it from 911.....

that's just life....

I agree with you, however, that there are going to be far more people turn up dead or missing .....

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

[Indonesia, which emerged from three decades of military dictatorship in 1998, remains strongly influenced by the armed forces, some of whose officers are discomfited by the sudden presence of foreigners in a conflict-ridden province that's the source of huge earnings from natural gas exports. ]

This snippet seems to express two of their (the authorities) major concerns: fear of loss of control of the region (not that they had had control), and fear of loss of control over the natural resources.

I would think that they would welcome any and all aide, along with any assistance which they could garner to gain the upper hand against their own Islamist insurgency. Surely the Indonesian government isn't concerned about protecting the insurgents.

However, they may believe that visiting forces may try to wrest control of these regions, help the Islamist insurgency, or simply grab the energy reserves. Seems to me they may have gone to too many Michael Moore films.

Or maybe they want us out so they can use this opportunity to go in themselves and clean house.

[blam]

Picture Emailed To Me.

[txhurl]

bttt

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Agreed. Regarding the photo -- which I have already seen -- I can only say, ditto.

[blam]

Unbelieveable Before And After Pictures.

[txhurl]

Damn, blam.

The bridge looks fine, eh.

[DoughtyOne]

There were two towns in Indonesia that were completely wiped off the face of the planet. One had a populace of 175,000, and the other 75,000.

I had actually thought their toll would go higher.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Indonesia announced that U.S. and other foreign troops providing tsunami disaster relief must leave the country by the end of March and ordered aid workers Wednesday to declare their travel plans or face expulsion from devastated Aceh province on Sumatra island.

Kicking those who are trying to help, out of the country is a nice way to spark, or strengthen a revolution.

[DoughtyOne]

I heard a report on the radio of a reporter who drove for miles along the beach, seeing nothing but private belongings strewn around the road area, with no buildings left behind. There used to be buildings there, people living and carrying on commerce there. The area was just basicly erased.

I do believe your comments are pretty accurate from what I've seen reported.

Sorry to hear it.

[babygene]

Dead people don't need aid... What dead Islamic folks need is a fire extinguisher. (I don't believe I said that...)

[carumba]

Don't forget Burma/Myanmar. They aren't even reporting their dead. I would not be at all surprised if in was about 50 thousand or so. I am sure we'll hear about it in a few years when the government there falls.

This is not even a blip on the radar. Makes you wonder how the newsies can blab about their courage and hard hitting reporting when something like this can sail by without even a sideways glance.

[texasflower]

Maybe that's what they think we will do if we stay? You and I know it's not going to happen, but those people have been fed bad things about us their entire lives.

[leadpenny]

Thanks to you both for your insight and commentary.

[OKIEDOC]

I agree.

[Veto!]

A very interesting first-hand report. Thanks for throwing some light on the numbers.

But why does the government want to limit aid? Are they afraid their people might learn that Americans and other Westerners are good, kind people and not monsters? Once they learned that, they'd be more difficult to indoctrinate with anti-American propaganda, yes?

[stlnative]

There was one area that had slightly over 10,000 residents. There is only around 300 residents left alive with less than 50 surviving children out of the 300 or so survivors.

[Petronski]

definitely a scam - 100K increase just comes out of nowhere?

Not out of nowhere, out of the number considered missing.

Up until now, there's been a number for dead, and a number missing. If the missing are suddenly presumed dead (far late for that, if you ask me), the number shoots up abruptly.

Does anyone remember the final number proposed about a week after the tsunami hit? 400,000.

[Veto!]

Amazing before-after photos. Do you know of any available for Burma? No one seems to know anything about possible damage in that dark, hidden country.

[John Valentine]

I can't fully comprehend what is going on inside the Indonesian government. I can only tell you that it is not a monolith, and there are a lot of competing interests at play. I know that there are some in the government, and in politics, who are appalled at the public commments of certain individuals.

It is a shame, though. Somebody should tell Jusuf Kalla, the Vice-President, to put a sock in it.