US & Bush Embarassing on Tsunami aid.

i hate democrats

 

Well, you know something, glynch, that is not what I have been hearing and reading.

Why don't you take the time to check out this link:



Too bad you didn't read it before you started this piece of garbage thread.

I hope that your BBS persona is nothing like your real one because if it is you must be one depressed and sad individual.

The inane diatribes you spew on this board really sicken me.

 

Thanks for posting that Manny....just hate how one sided people can be when they dont know the full truth

 

finding the truth these days isn't all that easy

 

Well gosh if the bloggers say it, it must be 100% true!

I mean, the bloggers are always right and they don't have an agenda or anything...

 

New York Times
Are We Stingy? Yes
December 30, 2004

President Bush finally roused himself yesterday from his vacation in Crawford, Tex., to telephone his sympathy to the leaders of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia, and to speak publicly about the devastation of Sunday's tsunamis in Asia. He also hurried to put as much distance as possible between himself and America's initial measly aid offer of $15 million, and he took issue with an earlier statement by the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, who had called the overall aid efforts by rich Western nations "stingy." "The person who made that statement was very misguided and ill informed," the president said.

We beg to differ. Mr. Egeland was right on target. We hope Secretary of State Colin Powell was privately embarrassed when, two days into a catastrophic disaster that hit 12 of the world's poorer countries and will cost billions of dollars to meliorate, he held a press conference to say that America, the world's richest nation, would contribute $15 million. That's less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities.

The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million, and we applaud Mr. Bush's turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid. According to a poll, most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent.

Bush administration officials help create that perception gap. Fuming at the charge of stinginess, Mr. Powell pointed to disaster relief and said the United States "has given more aid in the last four years than any other nation or combination of nations in the world." But for development aid, America gave $16.2 billion in 2003; the European Union gave $37.1 billion. In 2002, those numbers were $13.2 billion for America, and $29.9 billion for Europe.

Making things worse, we often pledge more money than we actually deliver. Victims of the earthquake in Bam, Iran, a year ago are still living in tents because aid, including ours, has not materialized in the amounts pledged. And back in 2002, Mr. Bush announced his Millennium Challenge account to give African countries development assistance of up to $5 billion a year, but the account has yet to disburse a single dollar.

Mr. Bush said yesterday that the $35 million we've now pledged "is only the beginning" of the United States' recovery effort. Let's hope that is true, and that this time, our actions will match our promises.

 

I wonder how many people we could clothe and feed here in the USA with 35 million?

And, no I am not suggesting we NOT help out.

DD

 

New York Times
America, The Indifferent
December 23, 2004

It was with great fanfare that the United States and 188 other countries signed the United Nations Millennium Declaration, a manifesto to eradicate extreme poverty, hunger and disease among the one billion people in the world who subsist on barely anything. The project set a deadline of 2015 to achieve its goals. Chief among them was the goal for developed countries, like America, Britain and France, to work toward giving 0.7 percent of their national incomes for development aid for poor countries.

Almost a third of the way into the program, the latest available figures show that the percentage of United States income going to poor countries remains near rock bottom: 0.14 percent. Britain is at 0.34 percent, and France at 0.41 percent. (Norway and Sweden, to no one's surprise, are already exceeding the goal, at 0.92 percent and 0.79 percent.)

And we learned this week that in the last two months, the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping hungry nations become self-sufficient, and it has told charities like Save the Children and Catholic Relief Services that it won't honor earlier promises. Instead, administration officials said that most of the country's emergency food aid would go to places where there were immediate crises.

Something's not right here. The United States is the world's richest nation. Washington is quick to say that it contributes more money to foreign aid than any other country. But no one is impressed when a billionaire writes a $50 check for a needy family. The test is the percentage of national income we give to the poor, and on that basis this country is the stingiest in the Group of Seven industrialized nations.

The administration has cited the federal budget deficit as the reason for its cutback in donations to help the hungry feed themselves. In fact, the amount involved is a pittance within the federal budget when compared with our $412 billion deficit, which has been fueled by war and tax cuts. The administration can conjure up $87 billion for the fighting in Iraq, but can it really not come up with more than $15.6 billion - our overall spending on development assistance in 2002 - to help stop an 8-year-old AIDS orphan in Cameroon from drinking sewer water or to buy a mosquito net for an infant in Sierra Leone?

There is a very real belief abroad that the United States, which gave 2 percent of its national income to rebuild Europe after World War II, now engages with the rest of the world only when it perceives that its own immediate interests are at stake. If that is unfair, it's certainly true that American attention is mainly drawn to international hot spots. After the Sept. 11 bombings, Washington ratcheted up aid to Pakistan to help fight the war on terror. Just last week, it began talks aimed at contributing more aid to the Palestinians to encourage them to stop launching suicide bombers at Israel.

Here's a novel idea: how about giving aid before the explosion, not just after?

At the Monterey summit meeting on poverty in 2002, President Bush announced the Millennium Challenge Account, which was supposed to increase the United States' assistance to poor countries that are committed to policies promoting development. Mr. Bush said his government would donate $1.7 billion the first year, $3.3 billion the second and $5 billion the third. That $5 billion amount would have been just 0.04 percent of America's national income, but the administration still failed to match its promise with action.

Back in Washington and away from the spotlight of the summit meeting, the administration didn't even ask Congress for the full $1.7 billion the first year; it asked for $1.3 billion, which Congress cut to $1 billion. The next year, the administration asked for $2.5 billion and got $1.5 billion.

Worst of all, the account has yet to disperse a single dollar, while every year in Africa, one in 16 pregnant women still die in childbirth, 2.2 million die of AIDS, and 2 million children die from malaria.

Jeffrey Sachs, the economist appointed by Kofi Annan to direct the Millennium Project, puts the gap between what America is capable of doing and what it actually does into stark relief.

The government spends $450 billion annually on the military, and $15 billion on development help for poor countries, a 30-to-1 ratio that, as Mr. Sachs puts it, shows how the nation has become "all war and no peace in our foreign policy." Next month, he will present his report on how America and the world can actually cut global poverty in half by 2015. He says that if the Millennium Project has any chance of success, America must lead the donors.

Washington has to step up to the plate soon. At the risk of mixing metaphors, it is nowhere even near the table now, and the world knows it.

 

New York Times
In Efforts to Organize Aid, Powell and Governor Bush Will Tour Ravaged Areas
December 31, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, seeking to raise the American profile in the international relief effort in Asia, will tour devastated parts of the region next week to assess the need for future aid programs along with Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, the White House announced Thursday.

Mr. Powell also moved on Thursday to step up coordination between the United Nations and a core group of countries organized earlier in the week by the Bush administration to speed aid and avoid duplication. The "core group" - consisting of India, Japan and Australia, as well as the United States - was established earlier this week.

The decision to send Mr. Powell and Governor Bush, President Bush's brother, was seen by administration officials as likely to help defuse whatever hurt feelings there might be in Asia that the president was slow to respond, at least compared with how quickly many other nations reacted to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Administration officials also said a diplomatic payoff might also grow out of the current crisis, if disaster relief efforts encourage cooperation in areas of Indonesia and Sri Lanka with long-running separatist insurgencies.

Speaking with the new president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President Bush said that the movement of aid into northern Aceh province, near the earthquake's epicenter, might extend a truce in the fighting between government troops and rebels and present an opportunity for further cooperation, an administration official said.

"He made the same point in the conversation with Sri Lanka's leader," the official said, referring to the insurgency that has gone on for 20 years in the north and east of that island nation, particularly on the low-lying Jaffna peninsula, which was especially hard hit.

Mr. Powell reiterated several times on Thursday that the American contribution of $35 million for relief efforts from East Africa to South and Southeast Asia was only the beginning, based on initial assessments of American teams that sprang into action within hours of the earthquake on Sunday.

"As the need becomes clearer, you can expect the United States to make more significant contributions in the days, weeks and months ahead," Mr. Powell said outside the Indonesian Embassy, where he signed a condolence book. He also signed similar books at the Sri Lankan and Thai Embassies.

Aid officials said that the United States' move early in the week to set up the core group of countries was an innovation in international relief efforts necessitated by the fact that the disaster had spread across thousands of miles and affected many countries.

Four days after the first reports of the earthquake and tsunami set the administration into action, the architecture of its response was becoming clearer.

The center of Mr. Powell's efforts was his video conference call at 11 a.m. Thursday with Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations; James D. Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, and other international relief officials. They were joined by envoys from India, Australia and Japan at the State Department.

"The intention is to use the core group as a launching pad to get others to join in," said J. Edward Fox, assistant administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. "Usually you have a lot of countries working together in one place, under one tent, but you can't do that with a crisis that stretches across 5,000 miles."

Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said that meanwhile, two separate task forces headed by department officials were up and running: one to coordinate an interagency task force on relief efforts and the other to track missing or injured Americans.

Marc Grossman, under secretary of state for political affairs, was named on Wednesday as the head of the interagency task force, which includes top military officials at the Pentagon.

A senior State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that so far, there was no need to add to the $35 million set aside by the United States for immediate relief, but that the money would be available when the time came to distribute it, once assessments are made. The official said that $500 million in government aid had been raised so far around the world, and that this had been matched by a like amount of private contributions.

The idea of setting up a core group of nations outside the United Nations came spontaneously, according to officials of various countries, as it became clear that Australia, Japan and India had relief capabilities as well as military forces in the region, even though India was itself a major victim.

"This is the first time that you have had a country that was hit on such a scale by a natural disaster but that has also been one of the biggest participants in the ongoing effort to help others," said Ambassador Ronen Sen of India. "We had more people on the ground in other countries than any other country, from Day 1."

Even as Indian forces were helping relief efforts in the 1,400 miles of Indian coastline, they were also being dispatched to the Maldives and Sri Lanka, island nations off the Indian coast.

There was no intent to exclude any other nations, only to avoid duplication, Mr. Sen said. "We are certainly not trying to be competitive in any way," he added.

 

You know, that UN person was talking about a lot of countries and I find it absolutely hilarious how Bush has reacted to it as singular attack on the US. Not saying something publically right after the disaster was very stupid. How long did it take for other countries to preach solidarity and help to the US after 9/11? I don't care what side of the isle you are on, you can't tell me that doesn't make us look bad in the eyes of the world.

As for America being stingy, even though the government contributes less per capita than other countries, don't we hand out more in private aid per capita than other nations?

 

I want to know what % of my taxes (in dollars) every year go to foreign aid?

 

Just a few facts...


President Bush sent Congress a $2.4 trillion election-year budget on Monday featuring big increases for defense and homeland security but also a record $521 billion deficit.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/12/politics/main605544.shtml

The United States uses the most common measure of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 30 rich nations that counts development aid.

By that measure, the United States spent almost $15.8 billion for “official development assistance” to developing countries in 2003. Next closest was Japan, at $8.9 billion.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6762079/


You can do the math.



Although the United States is the largest source of foreign aid, it still is the lowest provider among developing nations when calculated according to national wealth, or GNP. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the top donors in relation to GNP in 2001 were Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Sweden. Also according to OECD, after the United States, the largest providers of foreign aid in absolute dollars were Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.


Foreign assistance not only helps recipient countries, but also helps donor countries. President John F. Kennedy stated, “The answer is that there is no escaping our obligations: our moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations—our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy—and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.” Foreign aid is a tool for change. “Over the past 40 years, life expectancy at birth in developing countries has increased by 20 years. Over the past 30 years, adult illiteracy in the developing world has been cut nearly in half. In India, the literacy rate for women rose from 39 percent to 54 percent in just the past decade. In Uganda, the number of children in primary school has doubled. Six million Ethiopians are now benefiting from better education and health services.” As data indicate, foreign aid can result in providing longer, healthier and more productive lives for those in need.

http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/action_foreignaid.html#_ednref10



Just for grins...

Clinton announces record payment on national debt
By John King/CNN

May 1, 2000
Web posted at: 5:13 p.m. EDT (2113 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) - President Bill Clinton said Monday that the United States would pay off $216 billion in debt this year, bringing to $355 billion the amount of the nation's debt paid down in the three years since the government balanced the budget and began running surpluses.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

How can W be expected to sympathize with a place that is so abstract in his head. I mean up until this week he probably always assumed that Sri Lanka was some French colony off the coast of Senegal and Indonesia was a neighbor to Tibet, smack dab in the middle of Asia

 

is EVERYTHING politics??

 

Here is the problem I have with all of this....

The Tsunami hit Southern Asia, which is a big Al Qaeda recruiting area, especially Indonesia.

The USA has a piss poor image in that part of the world.

The USA could ratchet up the aid which might help to diffuse our image problem in that part of the world. This could possibly be a huge weapon in the war on terror. Prove to those suffering that the USA is a compassionate, caring country full of people who are willing to help out the rest of the world in times of trouble.

Then when Al Qaeda goes to recruit them, they will remember who saved them from the Tsunami...the United States of America.

An intelligent administration would see this, especially in light of our current circumstances and image around the world.

Unfortunately, this administration cannot see the forest through the trees...again.

 

CNN reported we are at 13% of the total aid, which is probably 13 more percent than Al Qaeda and France.

 

Don't assume