Washed Away
Somebody's gonna have to explain this one to me. At staggering cost in blood and treasure, really mortgaging our economic future, we are engaged in what the President calls a Global War on Terrorism. At least, that's the way it looks if you buy Bush's story that the war in Iraq is central to this GWOT.
We're burying American soldiers daily, racking up a stratospheric budget deficit, and drawing sharp criticism even from our closest additional allies in order — we suppose"”to win the hearts and minds of a billion Muslims.
Yet, when an historic catastrophe, one of truly biblical proportions, strikes the biggest Islamic nation on earth (Indonesia), the leader of the richest and most powerful country has nothing substantial to say for 72 hours?
Bush finally emerged from underneath his Crawford, Texas wood pile earlier today to express his platitudinous condolences. His hired toadies scurried to tell the press that the yawning, three-day delay can be explained this way: it took the President that long to comprehend the scope of the disaster.
I hope this is BS. Because if it's true, then our President is immeasurably dumb. All of us knew instantly, as soon as the news of the Asian tsunamis poured over us Sunday morning, that tens of thousands were dead and that a half-dozen countries had been devastated. I have to assume that Bush — or someone on his staff"”could have figured that much out.
So"¦one thing we know. What a striking moment of monumental political ineptitude and downright stupidity by a U.S. administration that could not find a simple voice of compassion and human solidarity in the wake of such massive human disaster. What a missed opportunity to offer an American face to the Muslim world other than a Marine in greasepaint.
What we don't know is why such knuckle-headedness from the White House. Surely, the supporters of the President don't want us to believe he really didn't "comprehend" what it meant to have a 30 foot wave wash over tens of thousands of families. Then again, his Poppy was voted out of office because he didn't know what to make of a supermarket scanner.
December 29th, 2004 at 9:53 pm
“Spain has publicly committed about $68 million.” (from linked article.) That’s impressive for a relatively small country.
I’m sure we’ll end up committing a lot more to this as the relief effort grows, because that’s what Americans do. But it’s a damn shame that this initial bout with cluelessness is what will tend to stick in memories.
The scale of this tragedy is nearly impossible to comprehend. My wife, a huge Law and Order fan, caught herself over the morning paper responding more viscerally to the news about Jerry Orbach than to the headlines declaring 10s of thousands of anonymous victims. In an attempt to personalize the tragedy, Good Morning America was even more…I don’t know..either egregious or clueless, focusing a story about child victims solely on four white European children.
Every time I revisit the news, the death toll has climbed by 15-20 thousand. Unbelievable…Like something out of the Bible.
December 29th, 2004 at 9:57 pm
Leahy’s absolutely right. We’re spending an average of 9.5 million an hour on our war in Iraq, and Bush takes a break from brush clearing to brag about earmarking 35 million for disaster relief. Yet his aids have the temerity to suggest that the reputation of his administration worldwide is undeserved. Maybe, to paraphrase an old Country Joe McDonald song, he really thinks that `the only good Muslim is one thats dead’.
December 29th, 2004 at 10:15 pm
The money being put up by the U.S. is nothing when compared to what’s going on in the corridors of Wall Street, where year-end bonuses for the securities industry are the big story in New York. Readers of The New York Times were greeted Tuesday morning with above-the-fold images of destruction in Asia and below-the-fold accountings of personal riches.
This year the New York state comptroller reports bonuses are estimated to total $15.9 billion. In a press release, the comptroller reports, “The $15.9 billion to be paid in 2004 divided among the approximately 158,000 securities industry employees in New York City works out to an average bonus of $100,400. This is slightly higher than last year’s average of almost $99,700, and just short of the record of $101,000 paid in 2000 at the peak of the last Wall Street boom.”
And what are the rich financiers going to do with their money? According to the report in Tuesday’s Times, one senior investment banker said, “I have a sailboat, a motor boat, an apartment, an S.U.V. What could I possibly need?” Then he thought of something: “Maybe a little Porsche for the Hamptons house, but probably not.”
December 29th, 2004 at 10:33 pm
Wow. Alexander Cockburn on Susan Sontag. What an awful thing to post!
His comments on Sontag remind me of the famous quote from Bull Durham when the Kevin Costner (crash davis) character asserts in an argument with the Susan Sarandon (Annie) character that the “the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap.†That could be true. I prefer her non-fiction. As for what Cockburn said about Sontag’s noble stand in regards to Yugoslavia, pure crap as usual. Like Seattle, Cockburn was nowhere near Sarajevo. To me, a fictional character in a film has more credibility than Cockburn. Sontag’s courage in regards to Yugoslavia cannot be viewed in retrospect as anything other than admirable.
Susan Sontag’s doodlings have more worth than anything Alexander Cockburn has ever written. I am sure he will come up with something snappy on Counterpunch to celebrate her death.
Hitchens wrote a good obit on Slate
December 29th, 2004 at 10:35 pm
Ooops… Wrong thread.
The best way thing for us all to do is donate some money to relief organizations.
December 29th, 2004 at 10:37 pm
What’s also gulling about Bush is he used the oportunity to take a cheap jab at Clinton, for being too empathic in times of crises.
December 29th, 2004 at 11:25 pm
Glad you called it, Marc. But, truth be told, if I think too hard about Bush’s absurd reaction —or lack thereof—to what is shaping up to be the largest natural disaster in modern history…well, it makes me so angry I’m not entirely sure it’s healthy.
So, I’m going to “make progress in the good,” as the I Ching would no doubt wisely advise, by letting y’all know that, if you’re looking for a place to donate toward disaster aid, Operation USA is one of the best organizations I’ve ever seen.
International relief tends to be big biz, but, Op USA is an exception. Richard Walden, the organization’s founder, is an extremely bright, dedicated, very savvy guy. As a result, for 20 plus years, they’ve done the most with the least. (Only 2% of the funds donated go toward administration, the rest goes to relief supplies.) I traveled with them twice to SE Asia as a reporter when they first started up, and have followed them in the intervening years.
Anyway, if you’re looking for a satisfying way to donate, you might check them out. I guarantee your money will get where it’s supposed to go, not to non-profit administrators’ salaries.
Here’s the link: http://www.opusa.org/index.html
December 29th, 2004 at 11:52 pm
P.S. ….Rhetoric redial: It’s ONE of the worst natural disasters in modern history, but not THE worst. The 1976 Tangshan earthquake in China killed at least 255,000 people. The 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh killed 139,000.
December 30th, 2004 at 2:40 am
Bush may be clueless, but maybe he’s waiting for a PR coup: the American people (not their government) will very likely end up topping the donor list in total contributions. And maybe we’ll even score high on a per capita basis as well. Then he’ll congratulate us all, in a month or so, and while he’s at it, he’ll slip in something in the same speech about faith-based initiatives. It would be just like him, wouldn’t it?
December 30th, 2004 at 5:15 am
I have some links for disaster relief on my blog. http://gmscorner.blogspot.com/2004/12/of-tsunamis-and-disaster.html
As one of the readers notes, don’t forget to donate blood.
December 30th, 2004 at 7:26 am
Yeah, we needed to be reminded of how lacking in empathy and public displays of sympathy Bush is.
Pathetic.
December 30th, 2004 at 8:46 am
I was always struck by the fact that Bush didn’t attend James Byrd’s funeral while governor in Texas. Despite his conspicuous religiosity, something is missing from his heart.
I hope those bankers reconsider spending their bonuses.
Doctors Without Borders is another good place to donate: doctorswithoutborders.com.
December 30th, 2004 at 9:10 am
Michael Turner, you’re my Cooper Comments Hero.
Why does everyone think that all the decency in the world has to be vectored through the United States government? Is it so that they can grab a piece of it because they’re taxpayers?
December 30th, 2004 at 9:34 am
I’m not interested in Bush’s withdrawal as a measure of his human compassion-the debate about his private feelings is ancillary to examining his political actions/goals (he is, after all, very powerful). As noted on Juan Cole and in Marc’s post, staying sequestered in Crawford is primarily a major failure of statesmanship. If it isn’t lazyness or incompetance that prevented the President from immediatly flying to Indonesia or making public outreach to devastated muslims, then what is it? What policy objective is served by inaction during crisis? They tell us this is the battle for hearts and minds.
December 30th, 2004 at 10:04 am
It didn’t take long for the blame Bush crowd to come out. Yeah, this is all his fault. I even heard one person say that this is Bush’s fault because of global warming. Really, aren’t these complaints about Bush pretty pathetic?
One, wherever the President goes, his job and the White House go with him. He’s never not at work. He can monitor and respond to world events from Texas as well as he can from the capital. So, quit the complaints about him being on vacation and not on the job.
Next, many of us red staters see more accomplished from substantive responses rather than symbolic gestures–about which most of you seem to whine. If a kid scrapes his leg, who helps more…the person who talks about feeling his pain or the person who gets the first aid kit?
Further, I think I understand most of you well enough to know that if Bush had come out with an immediate statement, you would have accused him of grandstanding for political points rather than helping. Wasn’t it Kerry who accused Bush of being in the way of the response when Bush went to view the Florida hurricane destruction?
This reminds me of a sports analogy. One time I watched a football team gang-tackle the ball carrier. A fan for the team on offense said that the defensive players were too sorry to make a solo tackle. On the other hand, when his players made a gang-tackle, he boasted about their aggressive play and team work. That type of criticism and hypocrisy really gets old quick.
The world is always condemning America because of our strength; but, when there is a crisis, they expect our help and demand that we solve the problem. If we have to be a father to the world, then let’s get a little appreciation. When Father’s Day comes, I hope that the U.S. can get some nice ties or gift certificates to sports bars.
December 30th, 2004 at 10:13 am
Oooh, I just hate the way he talks, and those stupid jesusland ‘people’ that voted him! Texas? Eeeuw. And everybody knows I support the troops and I am no fan of Saddam, but the process, man, you should have let it play out! Foreign aid? Give me a break. Thee’s no oil, so why should he care? One word: Abu Ghraib!
Its your blog, Marc, but this is another example of why you folks are losing ground.
December 30th, 2004 at 10:38 am
Having been involved in disaster relief (including on several on the scene such as Mexico City earthquake 1985 which killed about 40,000 (officially 10,000), I want to comment that measuring cash contributions is silly. A major disaster is an extremely complex situation requiring all sorts of resources and organization. But since we are talking money, France sent only $750,000 and a few rescue teams. I don’t hear any criticisms here.
So what is the US doing? We are providing that which we are uniquely suitable to provide – military assets. We are also giving some money, and individuals are donating to the many NGO’s who know how to organize disaster relief:Red Cross, Salvation Army, Catholic Relief, World Vision and others.
Military assets on the scene or enroute include 5 P-3 Orions – uniquely effective in searching for survivors at sea and with sensors useful for disaster surveys, Air Force C-130′s carrying supplies, two naval groups including an aircraft carrier and an amphibious assault ship, a forward command element to organize all of this, KC-135 refueling aircraft that can also carry cargo. By the way, the amphibious group included 5,000 personnel who gave up their R&R on Guam to help.
Based on my experience, US embassies and consulates will also be involved.
If you want to count the bucks we are expending, look at what it costs to operate that equipment and how many soldiers are now spending their time on that effort.
The important thing to realize about these disasters is that the relief is international. Many nations contribute various kinds of specialist teams (often volunteers), or specialized technology. Individuals on the scene usually operate together without regard for politics or nationality. However, the coordination effort is immense, which is one reason it takes time before their efforts are visible.
Also the media picture of a disaster is very selective. In the Mexico City disaster, it looked on TV or in the papers like the city had been flattened, when in fact most buildings survived with minimal damage, and yet I saw no damage at all for the first 5 days I was there.
December 30th, 2004 at 10:38 am
pj – Abu Ghraib is two words – the pictures, of course, were each worth a thousand.
December 30th, 2004 at 10:40 am
You seem to put a great deal of stock in public relation images… a President fighting back tears as he acknowledges the enormous loss of life. I could really give a shit about the President timely or delayed “platitudinous condolences.” I just want to know men, resources and funds are moving into the area at great speed. As for the commenter’s suggestion that Bush fly to Indonesia to show how much he cares, had this occurred I’d be reading derisive comments about how he’s so self-absorbed he’s turning this tragedy into a public relations stunt. Given the security restrictions and expense, it would be inconceivable to fly Bush to Indonesia.
The region need cash, water, medicine, shelter. If the Bush toadies can make it happen without me having to see Bush’s mug on tv showing me he truly, deeply cares, all the power to him.
Besides, this is Kofi Anan’s and the UN’s make or break moment.
December 30th, 2004 at 10:51 am
Well said, PJ. And may I add, Butt-titty butt-butt.
Woody, I gave options: either laziness or incompetence. Isn’t this, as Marc says, “a missed opportunity to offer an American face to the Muslim world other than a Marine in greasepaint.†Remember Bush’s public face in the wake of 9//11 – it gave many Americans comfort and trust in his leadership (though we could have done without the “crusade†comment). Why can’t he muster up something similar for this devastating tragedy?
Margarita, you also ignored an “or” in my statement. Bush is very good at American public relations and very poor at international public relations. I think the left has been consistant asking for more of the latter.
It seems this holiday season may afford “Too Many Steves” the option of reducing the length of his nomenclature. Is this your doing Marc?
OT-I’d love to hear from either Marc or Randy-Paul on the recent Venezuela situation. Chavez charging foreign funded dissidents with treason relates to our Ukraine discussion.
December 30th, 2004 at 10:53 am
JMUF – France has sent over $20 million, not $750,000. (You must be getting your figures from The Disaster Relief Veterans for Truth.)
Also, while we’re pointing out the foibles and obsessions of our political opponents (“it’s Bush’s fault”) I couldn’t help but notice that Moore turned this into an opportunity to point out the selectivity of the Liberal Media in making things look worse than they actually are. I’m still wondering why, for instance, the New York Times printed those pictures of the buildings in Mexico that were flattened by that quake, rather than pictures of the ones that were still standing. Reminds me of the way they completely distort what’s happening in Iraq, eh ?
December 30th, 2004 at 11:17 am
Criticism of Bush from the left has zero effect on him. Where are the honest critics within his camp? For those who support this war, I am sure you are as pained as anyone by the loss of American life and the sacrifices brought to bear. Wouldnt YOU have preferred a President able enough to have made a quick, public gesture toward Indonesia if nothing else for rank, political and dimplomatic gain? You dont think it important that what you call an epic length war be also fought on the diplomatic and political fronts? If you dont– you dont understand history.
December 30th, 2004 at 11:21 am
Two things to add to Marc’s spot-on remarks:
1. Bush has a long track record of stunning indifference in the face of suffering and death. Remember him making fun of Karla Faye Tucker? Or his refusal to attend the funerals of the military dead in Iraq? People who’ve been around more presidents than this one have been struck by how unbothered he is about life-and-death decisions (except, of course, stem-cell research!)
and
2. One shouldn’t underestimate how the tsunamis look to the fundamentalist Christian mindset. Yes, the best Muslims are dead Muslims, but remember also the pseudo-Biblical prophecies about the Tribulation that will herald the glorious return of JC. As far as the Bush grassroots are concerned, the more apocalyptic the tsunamis the better, because it means they’re that much closer to that great Costco in the sky, where only true believers like themselves are members and the prices on prime rib are just outstanding.
December 30th, 2004 at 11:52 am
I, for one, long ago ceased judging a person’s depth of feeling by how they did or did not show emotion. Having been accused of being stoic in the face of many of those tragic personal moments that life delivers to us all, I understand quite clearly that the expression on a person’s face does not often tell the whole story of how they deeply they feel.
That said, I do wish President Bush would find a way to put a public face, in a timely manner, on how he feels. I also wish he would learn how to pronouce “nuclear”. But, if wishes were horses, and all that.
There would be two principle benefits to doing so:
1. It would shut up many of his carpingest critics (present company excluded);
2. It would, as Marc so nicely states, serve a valuable geo-political purpose.
I am uneasy that Bush fails to see this but blame it on his broadly observed discomfort with public speaking. I am consoled by his commitment to action, even if it is often at the expense of (useful) words.
December 30th, 2004 at 12:02 pm
Mavis Beacon wrote: “…I gave options: either laziness or incompetence…”
Marc wrote: “Wouldnt YOU have preferred a President able enough to have made a quick, public gesture….”
It’s interesting that the first impulse from the left is to criticize the President rather than express concern for the victims. That doesn’t make them lazy or incompetent, but maybe they value political points over human suffering–sort of like the Democrats who care little about the tortures and murders suffered under Saddam Hussein.
I really don’t think that an “instant” response from Bush would have been the right thing. His was fast enough.
One, we were still trying to get complete and accurate information from the devastated areas–so, any immediate response might be the wrong one. We needed facts, and Bush waited on those. That approach doesn’t make him incompetent, lazy, or unable. That’s being smart.
Second, nothing this President says is going to make the left or the Muslims like him, or our country, more or at all. That’s a dream. There’s no diplomatic gain to be made from people who hate you no matter what.
We’re arguing the presidential election all over again, which the left lost. The majority of voters prefer substance over style.
Not everything in the disaster response will be perfect, but at least we’re taking the right steps for the people who are suffering rather than worrying about the right steps for those seeking political advantages. That is the more humane approach and that, in the end, is the right approach.
(Sorry that I don’t have a sports story to share with you here.)
December 30th, 2004 at 12:04 pm
Sorry, those comments were from Woody but my name dropped off when it posted.
December 30th, 2004 at 12:28 pm
“It’s interesting that the first impulse from the left is to criticize the President rather than express concern for the victims…but maybe they value political points over human suffering”
How dare you! It’s “interesting” that I have no regard for an immense tragedy and loss of over a 100,000 lives! If that were true, it would be sick, not “interesting”. But it’s not true, Woody. And you owe me an apology for suggesting it.
December 30th, 2004 at 12:31 pm
“sort of like the Democrats who care little about the tortures and murders suffered under Saddam Hussein.”
Screw you …. it wasn’t a Democrat who met with Saddam and arranged to send our military intel to The Butcher of Baghdad when he was committing war crimes against Iranian soldiers or who sat on his hands and failed to even give air cover when the Shiites rebelled in ’91. Your hypocrisy and selective history is as mindboggling as it is predictable…and a testament how far the minority of Americans who still think this war made sense have to reach in the service of their compulsive, half-baked BushCo apologia. Talk about valuing political points at the expense of decency.
December 30th, 2004 at 12:39 pm
Who’s to say Bush didn’t pick up the phone and call Indonesia directly on the morning the tradegy unfolded? He may have been working the diplomatic angle in a different way.
December 30th, 2004 at 12:44 pm
Marc,
I would have preferred that Bush make an earlier gesture for exactly the reasons you stated – public diplomacy. I don’t think it would have made much difference – certainly none to the people actually suffering, but it would have been useful in the war.
Criticizing Bush’s staying in Crawford is just silly – this isn’t the 20th century – he has adequate mobility, communications and visibility (should he choose to make use of it) right there. I notice Kofi Oil-For-Bribes Annan was at a ski resort for the first three days of this disaster. Why aren’t there complaints here about that?
Reg, you are too quick to jump to conclusions. My comment was not meant as a criticism of the media (and had nothing to do with its political slant) but to remind people that they do not see anywhere near the full picture from it. In the case of the media, it’s “if it bleeds, it ledes” that dominates this sort of thing. In Mexico City, I don’t think it was “leftist” to spend almost all of their time focused on the collapse of the St. Regis hotel, it was ratings mongering (TV media in this case). The St. Regis was the only hotel I know of that collapsed completely, in the only downtown block that had a fire as a result of the quake. A better story was the collapse of almost all of the 1000 unit government built housing structures. But they weren’t downtown and the result wasn’t spectacular, just lethal (tens of thousands of dead right there).
Notice that there was also a major focus on the Maternity Hospital, where surviving babies were found for days after it had completely collapsed. That was, of course, a tear jerker human interest story (more of a tear jerker if you actually went there and saw the smashed incubators, the rotting bodies of mothers pulled from the wreckage, and the crowds of relatives). Of course, nobody in the press asked why that building in particular collapsed. The answer is that an unusually high percentage of all collapses were in government built structures, as a result of corruption.
I do find it ironic that those who want Bush to make a symbolic gesture do not themselves do the same thing. This is just another kick Bush around event, apparently.
As to France, goody that they upped their contribution from their earlier one.
If you really care about this stuff, give some bucks to a disaster relief organization, and then join one and get the appropriate training so you can help out next time. Actually helping people is a lot more uplifting than blogging about it, and does a lot more good.
December 30th, 2004 at 1:43 pm
`Substance over style’? Well, gee, Woody, you would have at least thought Bush might have divvied up more than he is spending on his upcoming inauguration.
December 30th, 2004 at 1:43 pm
Mavis Beacon wrote, “… (to suggest) that I have no regard for an immense tragedy…you owe me an apology….”
Calm down, Mavis. While I introduced my remarks with reference to yours and Marc’s comments, my response was a generic one directed to the left in general and to no one in particular. I couldn’t possibly make a list of individual names to whom my comments might apply, and I couldn’t tailor those remarks to each one. But, people on the left who think like I have observed know who they are and can argue my point with me.
Obviously, this does not apply to you and was not intended to be pointed at you. Also, it is against my nature to be insulting–particularly to individuals and to someone on this post whom I respect. Please don’t take this personally, and I’ll try to be more careful as to whom my comments are directed.
To reg, thanks for your offer but I’ll pass.
Let me simplify my longer comments…. Now is the time to get the job done rather than worrying about who gets credit for it.
December 30th, 2004 at 2:37 pm
My first inclination is to agree with you, Marc. But I don’t know what Bush actually did do during the first three days. If he lounged in the hammock he’s even worse than you described him. But I seriously doubt that he did. (Really, though, what do I know? Not much of anything about this.)
He should have said something for the sake of decorum, but it wouldn’t have actually accomplished much of anything. What he did or did not accomplish in the same time period is what matters to me.
December 30th, 2004 at 3:13 pm
From the Washington Post:
“Earlier yesterday, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the president was confident he could monitor events effectively without returning to Washington or making public statements in Crawford, where he spent part of the day clearing brush and bicycling. Explaining the about-face, a White House official said: ‘The president wanted to be fully briefed on our efforts. He didn’t want to make a symbolic statement about ‘We feel your pain.’”
“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32337-2004Dec28.html
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe’s he clearing brush to tinvite the five million left homeless to live on his ranch.
By the way, Trent Duffy’s comment is what they call a twofer in the RNC: Praise the president, while bashing Clinton.
December 30th, 2004 at 4:17 pm
I know Abu Ghraib is two words–I was being sarcastic, for which I apologize.
I am assuming the progressives, or the left, wish to be a viable political force in this country, and I have been trying to point out to them why they are not. Perhaps I’ve been wrong, and that what they really want is to remain aloof, unsullied by the tawdriness of politics, morally superior and irrelevant to the bitter end.
December 30th, 2004 at 4:44 pm
Let’s just agree on this one: Bush failed miserably on this one and missed an easy and important political oppty.
December 30th, 2004 at 4:55 pm
Ok. Agreed.
December 30th, 2004 at 6:18 pm
Even if Bush didn’t handle this in the best way, I question the assumptions that (1) people in Indonesia are waiting to hear from the President of the United States or more than a small percentage would even know it if he made an early statement, and (2) that anything Bush would have to say would win over any hearts and minds.
Also, I have been advised by someone who usually knows what he is talking about that the $35 million in current US pledges is the entire remaining amount in the USAID budget, and Bush couldn’t commit any more cash aid under until Congress re-convenes and approves it.
December 30th, 2004 at 7:12 pm
Useful…
http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/
December 30th, 2004 at 7:22 pm
Re: Randy Paul’s contribution of the Trent Duffy quote, I think it’s hilarious that the Charge of the Right Brigade here was that Marc and other lefties were out of line to bash Bush in the wake of the quake, but the White House actually bashed Clinton as part of it’s official explanation of the President’s approach to the relief effort. The old double standard that seems to serve conservatives so well.
December 30th, 2004 at 8:03 pm
Todd Pearson,
If $35 million is the entire remaining amount in the USAID budget, and since the Federal Government Fiscal Year runs from October to October, it certainly seems to me that it’s a real challenge to determine whether it’s the Bush administration’s profligacy or parsimony that accounts for $35 million being all that’s left less than three months after the start of the fiscal year.
Wonder how they’re going to buy pencils, pay employees and electricity if that’s ALL that’s left . . .
December 30th, 2004 at 9:28 pm
Fifteen years ago, I spent a month and a half in Northern Sumatra, traveling through much of Aceh and even spending a few days on Pillau We, a tiny island off the northern-most tip, just above the regional capitol of Banda Aceh. It is hard to imagine the homes and buildings I saw weathering a 6.0 quake — much less 9.0 with tidal waves rushing over minutes later.
It’s been many days and the toll is still unknown. When reports say there are still many places they cannot reach, I understand.
In Sumatara, a nice fat line on map might imply a real road, but often it was a single eroding lane clinging to the curves of a mountain. In one harrowing sixty mile (five hour) trip — packed with 60 indonesians in an old minibus designed for maybe 16 — I saw two buses and three cars wrecked and tangled in jungle far below cliffs, left to rot.
Many, many thousands of people live(d?) in dozens of small un-touristed villages along the northern west coast closest to the quake. The few coastal roads — much smaller lines on the map than the road described above — are likely to be washed away or blocked. All the reporting I’ve seen comes from the regional capitol, Banda Aceh or from a single hellicopter flyover that reported thousands of uncounted bodies.
Funny thing is, the few outsiders who really know that coast line are extreme surfers. (Mostly US & Aussie.) One had malaria during my trip and it took him four days to reach Medan, the east coast island capitol, maybe 80 miles east as the crow flies but many time farther on the few existing roads. He died in hospital the day he arrived. It’s beautiful country, but very rough travel if you stray from the beaten path.
My point — and there must be one so I can bash Bush too — is that this is an area of great poverty with no decent infrastructure and bare subsistance living. And right there in Banda Aceh, Mobil/Exxon (in partnership with the Java-based Indonesion government) pump out a billion dollars worth of liquid natural gas and oil every year — with all the proceeds flowing to Jakarta. Little, if anything, comes back to support the people of the region.
And that is one reason why there is a somewhat popular armed resistance movement in Aceh clashing with indonesian solders from Java. Granted these observations are 15 years old, but I suspect the current (pre-quake) tensions in Aceh were no better, and possibly worse.
Funny, over the years, to see how much coverage Amy Goodman and others lefty favorites gave to the indonesian oppresion of the euro-connected christians in East Timor, while virtually ignoring Aceh and the many, many more muslim people who were killed there by Indonesian troops.
Of course, this current oversight is George Bush’s fault, but it’s late and I am too tired to figure out why. (Although it IS VERY HARD to imagine clinton, or carter — or even GW’s father — taking three whole days to come up with a tepid show of sympathy, especially considering the US’s current standing within the muslim world.)
December 30th, 2004 at 10:34 pm
It seems the death toll, as yet, has no end.
I’m tired of CNN mostly interviewing the white folks.
(I didn’t watch much tonight, so maybe it’s improved.)
It’s not about blaming GWB, it’s about feeling humiliated that our president was so tone deaf to a world situation that everyone I spoke with on Sunday had already apprehended for what it was: a tragedy of unimaginably terrible proportions—even the stranger in front of me in the supermarket, even my 88-year-old ailing Republican mom, even my (mostly thinking about snowboarding at the moment) 19-year-old kid….
And that’s before you factor in the “largest Muslim country in the world” part of the equation.
Oh, well.
Yesterday Keith Olbermann quoted John Donne’s timeless “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.” It seems also to have a place here.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls.
It tolls for thee.
December 31st, 2004 at 12:08 am
An addendum: during that trip — about three months in Sumatra, Java & Bali — I met so many friendly Indonesians of different regions, religions and ethnicities. The farther off the beaten track I went, the more often people would surround me and ask “dari mana?” (where from?)
When I’d say America, many, many times some villager would raise a big thumb’s up and say “America!! Superpower!!!” It sounded like they were repeating a school lesson, but it was also infused with genuine optimism and admiration.
When we act like we run the world, float above international law, and mouth lofty rhetoric about freedom, we create expectations. On MSNBC, I just saw a private two seat hellicopter droping a meager amount of water and rations into a remote village — while massive amounts of supplies sat waiting back at the hanger. After three long days of disaster, couldn’t we at least hear the President announce that dozens of US transport choppers had arrived and were already on the job??
The issue here is leadership. And GWB missed an important opportunity to show it.
December 31st, 2004 at 5:20 am
Of all the comments so far, I like Mark Schubb’s the best. (I even liked them better than the one where Cridland calls me his Cooper Comments Hero – whether he was being sarcastic or not.)
With a death toll set to go to six figures, I suppose it’s unbearably crass of me to get geopolitical, but … I’m unbearably crass to many of you anyway, so here goes nothin’.
The death toll is very high in three areas – southern Thailand, Indonesia’s Aceh, and a part of Sri Lanka – that host separatist movements. Dollars doled out by the U.S. government SHOULD (morally) be used to alleviate suffering equally, of course. But is this really how it will play out? CAN it play out that way, even if that’s the U.S. intent?
I keep a Google news alert going on Sumatra, and it’s generally a thin trickle, even when the casualties in the Acehnese insurgency exceed those in Iraq on a given day. (And until recent months, that was hardly unusual.) I don’t follow the supposed Islamic insurgency in southern Thailand, but I’ve been given to believe that it’s not a major one, not compared to what the Phillipines deals with, anyway – it seems that quite a few gangland murders in southern Thailand are attributed to Islamists, as the easy way out for the police and the central government. However, with southern Thailand in chaos, perhaps Islamist have been given an opening. The Tamil Tiger situation is likewise not a situation I follow closely. But think about it – it’s been stalemated for quite long time, with the Tigers holding some territory without question. A tectonic instability giving rise to major disaster might also destabilize the politics as well, and swing the situation in favor of Tamil independence.
You can see the diplomatic difficulties, of course. Disaster relief isn’t a one-week bandaid, especially when it’s a disaster on this scale. You need to keep helping for months on end, even years. But at what point do the questions of hostilities, laid aside temporarily in the name of all that’s unquestionably good, begin to rear their heads again? One thing is for sure: it’ll be far sooner for the governments dealing with the insurgencies than it will be for any outsider.
We’ve been hearing about the coast of Sumatra, for the obvious reasons. Mark Schubb’s comments point into the Acehnese interior – where the insurgency is strong. We probably still don’t have a handle on the death toll in there. Whatever that death toll is, however, the question is hard to avoid: whose relief helicopters will be going into that rebel-held territory? Who calibrates the aid amounts given? When do the arguments about who needs what, and how much, and how soon, become politically tinged?
Honestly, if I were in Bush’s circle of advisors, I sure wouldn’t be enjoying talking about all this. And I’m sure they’re talking about it. Beyond a certain point, it’s kind of a no-win situation. And that would probably be true for any president. The beauty (if that’s the word I’m looking for) of offering token official amounts in the meantime, and waiting for private agencies to get the bulk of the cash that will be spent, is that it’s an end-run around these political questions. U.S. naval captains bearing relief packages asking Sri Lanka for access to Tamil Tiger coastlines is … well, it’s gunboat diplomacy, even if it’s in a good cause. But if Doctors Without Frontiers is turned away by Sri Lankan authorities, this administration can simply decry the heartlessness of such a move in public, while smoothing the ruffled feathers through the diplomatic backchannels.
Would Clinton (or a President Gore) do the same? Perhaps so. When dealing with people in countries where life is cheap, you can end up cheapening life yourself whether you want to or not.
December 31st, 2004 at 9:17 am
“Would Clinton (or a President Gore) do the same? Perhaps so. When dealing with people in countries where life is cheap, you can end up cheapening life yourself whether you want to or not.”
Roughly speaking, since it’s the same kind of foreign policy establishment biggies that would be advising him and both political ‘parties’ agree on the fundamental priority of using what little amounts of aid are distributed to poor countries in the post-Cold War era as a means to compel the opening of markets to foreign competitors and privatization. So, really, for all that it looks like another Bush “blunder”, in fact there’s really little out of the ordinary in his actions. One only has to look at the conditions for forgiving debt that the IMF placed on Iraq recently to see this. I’d be very interested in reading the fine print of the ‘aid’ that the US will deliver to the tsunami affected countries.
December 31st, 2004 at 10:05 am
Here’s a view from the libertarian Right that I stumbled upon. Whenever folks argue for Bush’s “Social Security reform”, remind yourself that closet (or not so) Randites – like the Cato Institute – cooked that hoax up and want to impose their “values” on the rest of America. (As if a bunch of awesomely sophomoric, epically mediocre novels weren’t enough.)
U.S. Should Not Help Tsunami Victims
Thursday December 30, 2004
By: David Holcberg/Ayn Rand Institute
Our money is not the government’s to give.
As the death toll mounts in the areas hit by Sunday’s tsunami in southern Asia, private organizations and individuals are scrambling to send out money and goods to help the victims. Such help may be entirely proper, especially considering that most of those affected by this tragedy are suffering through no fault of their own.
The United States government, however, should not give any money to help the tsunami victims. Why? Because the money is not the government’s to give.
Every cent the government spends comes from taxation. Every dollar the government hands out as foreign aid has to be extorted from an American taxpayer first. Year after year, for decades, the government has forced American taxpayers to provide foreign aid to every type of natural or man-made disaster on the face of the earth: from the Marshall Plan to reconstruct a war-ravaged Europe to the $15 billion recently promised to fight AIDS in Africa to the countless amounts spent to help the victims of earthquakes, fires and floods–from South America to Asia. Even the enemies of the United States were given money extorted from American taxpayers: from the billions given away by Clinton to help the starving North Koreans to the billions given away by Bush to help the blood-thirsty Palestinians under Arafat’s murderous regime.
The question no one asks about our politicians’ “generosity” towards the world’s needy is: By what right? By what right do they take our hard-earned money and give it away?
The reason politicians can get away with doling out money that they have no right to and that does not belong to them is that they have the morality of altruism on their side. According to altruism–the morality that most Americans accept and that politicians exploit for all it’s worth–those who have more have the moral obligation to help those who have less. This is why Americans–the wealthiest people on earth–are expected to sacrifice (voluntarily or by force) the wealth they have earned to provide for the needs of those who did not earn it. It is Americans’ acceptance of altruism that renders them morally impotent to protest against the confiscation and distribution of their wealth. It is past time to question–and to reject–such a vicious morality that demands that we sacrifice our values instead of holding on to them.
December 31st, 2004 at 10:19 am
Reg:
Shorter Ayn Rand Institute: F@#$ Karma!
December 31st, 2004 at 11:10 am
reg wrote: “Here’s a view from the libertarian Right….”
Libertarians are both right and left, but I usually look at their ideas on individual liberties as being more to the liking of the left–such as drugs being declared legal and no restrictions on gay marriage. Their economic views are right. Libertarians are no more Republican than they are Democrats. So, let’s just leave it that Libertarians are Libertarians only–neither right nor left, or they are both.
The article you cited reminds me of a quote from Bill Clinton. When asked why he doesn’t give more control over the spending of federal education funds to local school boards, he responded by saying, “Because it’s not their money.” This also shows that desired control over tax money is shared by all sides.
It takes an extreme position to not want to use available resources to help others in a crisis, but I think that the arguments made by the article were meant to be academic only.
December 31st, 2004 at 12:11 pm
No one has ever accused Ayn Rand of being on “the left” – even a little bit. And I’ve never met a liberal who thought she was anything more than a shallow crackpot. If opposition to the failed “drug war” is a measure of “leftism”, William F. Bucklely and Milton Friedman are also in the thrall of “leftist” ideas.
Rejection of some of the sillier demagogy or failed crusades of what passes as contemporary conservatism isn’t as defining a measure of “right” of “left” so much as the degree to which one holds laissez-faire capitalism as virtuous or ideal, in and of itself. On that central issue, libertarians are as right-wing as you can get. They just don’t cloak their worship of unbridled capitalism in traditionalist mumbo-jumbo. It would be a fair observation that in the era of post-Keynesian, semi-reformed capitalism, advocates of de-regulation, regressive taxation and increased market dominance aren’t conservatives so much as radical reactionaries. Of course, “left/right” labels mask a lot of complexities and ideological variations within the respective camps, but an absolute rejection of human solidarity or social responsibility expressed through the polity is pretty decisive in determining whether one has anything meaningful in common with liberalism.
December 31st, 2004 at 12:37 pm
To characterize the right by Randist extremists is as silly as the Randist extremists themselves.
To say that the right has the same view but cloaks it in various terms is ignorant.
As for the disaster…
Just consider pledges of aid. Country X pledges $25 million in aid. TO WHOM? Sometimes that aid is just a hidden way of steering business to companies in that country. Ignoring that, do you give it to a government? What if the government is corrupt? The World Bank, long a believer in central planning, loaned huge amounts of money to countries which left a few people very wealthy, a lot of visible but not very useful infrastructure projects done, and the residents with a huge debt.
With a few exceptions, this is just a bash Bush thread. A couple of us have pointed out just a few of the enormous complexities. The left wants gestures. The left always wants gestures and tears. It apparently makes the left feel good. It doesn’t do a damn thing for victims.
December 31st, 2004 at 2:03 pm
“Rejection of some of the sillier demagogy or failed crusades of what passes as contemporary conservatism isn’t as defining a measure of “right” of “left” so much as the degree to which one holds laissez-faire capitalism as virtuous or ideal, in and of itself. On that central issue, libertarians are as right-wing as you can get. They just don’t cloak their worship of unbridled capitalism in traditionalist mumbo-jumbo.”
This is an excellent short definition of right-left that those on the right often run away from (oddly!). Yet a look at any of the big sponsors of the McThinktanks out there in thinktank-foundation land will show this to be transparent as can be. The Olin or Coors foundation will in one turn give money to a libertarian gay marriage advocacy group and in the next turn give the same amount of $ to a fundamentalist christian anti-gay marriage grouping. The reason? Their common cause of laissez faire tax cutting for corporations, privatization, right to work laws, etc.
December 31st, 2004 at 2:14 pm
That’s funny… a thread about our own Super Power’s tepid response to an unprecedented catastrophy gets down to this basic ideological assessment: “The left always wants gestures and tears.”
Of course I have my bias, but when I read this, the ideological blinders in this particular discussion seem most evident on posts like those above, twisting rhetorical pretzels to defend the lack of immediate, decisive, effective, public — and yes symbolic — action by President Bush.
I don’t much care for hollow gestures either. But for victims of unimaginable trauma — who survived by clinging to a tree for 12 hours or dumb luck or whatever — surrounded by the decaying bodies of neighbors and all their loved ones — who are now in day four or five with NO food and NO potable water, let alone medical care… well… gee whiz… I kinda thought, just maybe, our untold billions in military might help get some water and food delivered to people dying for the lack of those things – dying by the thousands within an hour chopper flight from an airport filled with donated supplies.
Silly, fuzzy, bleeding-heart me.
December 31st, 2004 at 2:59 pm
Eeek. John. Why can’t we just violently disagree with the guy without it being a “bash Bush” thread? That’s so dismissive! I believe that your views are sincerely held, thought out with care and in good faith, even though much of the time I don’t happen to agree with them. Accord those of us who sincerely dislike most of the Bush administration’s policies the same respect, (unless you can cite reasons why we are clearly knee-jerking).
Mark S. and Michael’s comments assuredly bring up the complexity of the issues with which many of the relief efforts will have to contend. (And Mark—you make an important point that I’m embarrassed to say has all but slipped by my personal radar, which is the fact that East Timor was a liberal cause for 20 years while the decades of human rights abuses in Aceh have been completely ignored, never mind that the Acehnese claims to and desire for independence are no less valid than those of the Timorese.)
But, about complexity: more often than not, relief efforts ARE forced to deal with political complexity. Yet when politics, rather than need begin to call the shots during a humanitarian disaster….it’s never pretty. (The example that most sticks in my mind was the ghastly situation that occurred in Cambodia, post killing fields, after Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were finally pushed out to the border, and Cambodians were dying of starvation by the thousands in country, but the US refused to send food into Cambodia—or to permit most international aide organizations to send food—because we were too much in a snit about the new puppet government installed in Phnom Penh by the Vietnamese, so we simply let thousands starve to death under cover of the absurd and never-verified fiction that the Vietnamese were trucking all food back to Vietnam. [See John, I’m equally enthusiastic about bashing Carter’s past misdeeds, although I like him a great deal now.])
BTW, OF COURSE the symbolic gesture is important….as well as the tangible aid. (Bring it down to the micro level, if you must. When you or your family are going through terrible times, caring notes or supportive calls from friends matter…as well as practical problem-solving help.)
One more thing, um…..Michael T? What exactly did you mean when you said, “When dealing with people in countries where life is cheap, you can end up cheapening life yourself whether you want to or not.†This may be a bugaboo of mine but I always am made nervous by the phrase: “..where life is cheap…†I find that it usually suggests—subtly or not so subtly—that in….say… the Sumatran outback, or the poorest areas of America’s inner cities, death is so commonplace that it is somehow felt with less grief and intensity. I’m sure that’s not what you meant but….what did you mean?
December 31st, 2004 at 3:19 pm
Rosedog, where the markets determine that life is cheap and its relative value as concerns foreign ‘aid’? Nota bene Afghanistan or Iraq.
December 31st, 2004 at 4:33 pm
Rosedog,
I appreciate your courtesy.
I read the thread this morning and was again annoyed. I think Marc’s original article is deeply off base, too quick to find fault, and offensive in tieing the Iraq war into this. There was the immediate assumption that our aid given was too small (and that the $35 mil was all we gave and all we were going to give – both false assumptions by far) and that this was Bush’s fault. A trivial amount of googling showed the vast military resources that were and are in route to help with the myriad of problems (for example, the Thai’s plan to use the forward command element we are sending as their central control point).
To me, the article looks pretty knee-jerk. The contrasting of war costs and aid is a pretty standard rhetorical trick, but in this case just gratuitous nonsenjse.
At the micro level, having been on the scene in disasters, I know that usually the last thing people care about is some foreign face feeling their pain. They want help. If you have ever stood at a wall covered with notes and pictures of those missing, you understand the micro level better. If you have seen people grieve for those killed due to local government corruption, you get an idea of the politics. If you have watched mass anti-government demonstrations by the survivors (not carried by American MSM), you see another part of the complexity.
But I do agree Bush should have said something sooner, although it has taken a long time to discover how vast this disaster is. Bush’s style is a bit weird that way. Catherine Johnson on Roger Simon’s blog makes a compelling case for better public democracy, which is what this gesture would be. Perhaps we should make Bill Clinton our condolences dispenser. He’s outstandinng at it (although the 1 second transition leaving Ron Brown’s funeral from laughing and smiling to weeping when he detected a camera was a bit much for me), and he loves the limelight. In this, I am not unserious.
I agree that politics is always involved in big disasters. The most important politics are local, and represent one of the major complexities. And the solutions there are often best not made public and certainly gestures aren’t part of it.
To me, it is interesting that there is so much focus on what Bush did wrong and little early news about the aid that was being sent with no fanfare by the US. I found out about the naval deployments from newspapers from the naval base communities, not the national MSM.
Finally, since you mentioned it. My respect for Carter has plummetted in the last decade. He seems to be best at making dictators look good. I used to think he was our best ex-president. No more. But that’s another topic.
December 31st, 2004 at 4:51 pm
Sorry for serial posting, but I just found a JOHN PODHORETZ article that is highly relevant to this discussion.
An excerpt:
Secretary of State Colin Powell found himself in the position of having to remind the world that over the past four years the United States has provided more such [disaster relief] aid than all other nations on the planet combined.
It is appalling that he had to mention this, and that President Bush was compelled to cite the same information on Wednesday, because you’re not supposed to brag about how charitable you are. But once a United Nations official decried the American aid pledge as “stingy,” the administration had little choice.
Any rational person would have understood without having to be told what the president told the world on Wednesday morning, which is that the $35 million pledge “is only the beginning of our help.”
From http://www.nypost.com/commentary/37436.htm
December 31st, 2004 at 5:38 pm
The U.S. government is always near the top in total humanitarian aid dollars – even before private donations are counted – but it finishes near the bottom of the list of rich countries when that money is compared to gross national product.
http://www.showmenews.com/2004/Dec/20041229News024.asp
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp#AidAmountsDwarfedbyEffectsofFirstWorldSubsidiesThirdWorldDebtUnequalTradeetc
Later the US official makes some lame rationales for why that’s perfectly ok…
If one need look any further at aid as a weapon, look at what the US has done in Iraq via its IMF arm:
“Under the plan announced Sunday, Paris Club members would immediately
forgive 30 percent of their Iraqi debt and write off an additional 30
percent in 2005 once the International Monetary Fund has approved an
economic reform program for Iraq. A final 20 percent would be cancelled
in 2008 provided Iraq has implemented the I.M.F. program. The remaining
debt owed to Paris Club members is to be repaid over a 23-year period,
with no principal or interest due for the next three years.”
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20041115/027119.html
December 31st, 2004 at 6:14 pm
steve.. cease and desist. If you have a pro-active argument to make go ahead. But please dont come back here to start tossing back bracketed excerpts. Not gonna happen anymore.
December 31st, 2004 at 6:46 pm
My argument is straightforward, what Marc perceives (re: the Tsunami aid debacle) as unusual or out of sync with US policy around the world in terms of aid distribution is actually consistent with US policy of aid to the poor nations of the world, one which is designed to coerce poor countries into reorganizing their economies along lines of privatization, austerity budgets, and opening up to much stronger foreign competitors. The Iraq case is but one in a long list.
I’ve done nothing in the above posts that you congratulated Mr. Pugliese for doing, aside from posting quoted articles that you disagree with, while Pug has posted articles you agree with. Occasionally I post a bracketed quote without comment, once in ten or so posts? It is odd that your anger at such behavior, which we’ve seen from others also in this recent thread, is only directed at me. Ya’d think I’d been swearing, hectoring people, questioning their patriotism..
December 31st, 2004 at 7:39 pm
rosedog asks, reasonably: “One more thing, um…..Michael T? What exactly did you mean when you said, “When dealing with people in countries where life is cheap, you can end up cheapening life yourself whether you want to or not.†This may be a bugaboo of mine but I always am made nervous by the phrase: “..where life is cheap…†I find that it usually suggests—subtly or not so subtly—that in….say… the Sumatran outback, or the poorest areas of America’s inner cities, death is so commonplace that it is somehow felt with less grief and intensity. I’m sure that’s not what you meant but….what did you mean?”
I was referring to the price of the average life set by the governments of such places, not the value placed on those lives by those close to the people who died. Attempts to impose more civilized norms on such governments often elicit shrieks about “interfering in our internal affairs.”
Independence-movement insurgencies are wars, wars are fought by armies, an army marches on its stomach, and food doesn’t have political allegiances. The Sudanese government, for example, has often barred food aid to Sudanese refugees when it’s in the form of canned goods and other non-perishable forms, because, they’ve said, it’s so much easier for that kind of food aid to feed an insurgent army. Their political agenda aside, they are, of course, *technically* quite right about this. However, food aid in non-perishable forms is all but useless in disaster relief, especially in the tropics. So, if it’s discovered that some 5,000 people in rebel-held parts of Aceh are starving to death because of landslides and floods kicked off by this earthquake, and the only appropriate food aid is non-perishable, how is that situation likely to be handled? Will Indonesia permit international relief efforts to reach those who, not long before, we’re shooting at its troops?
January 1st, 2005 at 9:43 am
Two examples of John Moore’s problems with facts (as if his association with John O’Neill’s gang wasn’t evidence enough.)
Moore: “To characterize the right by Randist extremists is as silly as the Randist extremists themselves.
To say that the right has the same view but cloaks it in various terms is ignorant.”
I did neither thing. I posted a commentary from the Libertarian Right noting it as such, because it struck me as bizare. I corrected another commentor who disputed that Libertarians are of the “Right”. Both of Moore’s contentions about my statements are false. They aren’t even good hyperbole. (I DID point out that the ideological genesis of “Social Security reform” is in libertarian think tanks like Cato – outfits that are open in their admiration for Ayn Rand. She’s lumped together with Thomas Jefferson in one glowing sentence on their “Cato University” page. To deny that her narcissistic materialism is a significant influence on the Right would be ludicrous. I wish that Moore were correct, and that ideological pitch-men like Charles Murray weren’t taken seriously, but their impact has been enormous. Alan Greenspan himself was mentored by Rand personally and, despite his apparent public pragmatism, has never repudiated the Rand worldview he embraced as one of her closest devotees.
Second Moore relays the FOX News/Rush Limbaugh/NY Post canard: “a United Nations official decried the American aid pledge as ‘stingy’…”
Contrary to pathetic hacks like Podhoretz the United Nations official DID NOT single out the United States in his “stingy” comment. He cited “Western nations”. The United States was not singled out for criticism or even mentioned by name. A European, the official used the pronoun “we” in his “stingy” sentence.
Here’s the clip from news reports: “We were more generous when we were less rich, many of the rich countries,” (UN offcial) Egeland said Monday. “And it is beyond me, why are we so stingy, really. … Even Christmas time should remind many Western countries at least how rich we have become.”
Egeland told reporters the next day that his complaint wasn’t directed at any one nation.”
If that’s taken generally in the U.S. – especially by the pro-Fundie, BushCo crowd – as an inappropriate comment by someone trying to muster maximum relief assistance in the wake of a Christmas Day disaster of Biblical proportions, then we aren’t a Christian nation. We’re a bunch of thin-skinned paranoics who, if we wouldn’t actually condemn Christ to a lethal injection, would most certainly subject him to a smear campaign on talk radio and FOX News.
What is most telling, for anyone who’s into the symobolism of it all, is that the United States has now dramatically increased it’s aid to Tsunami victims. It hasn’t doubled or tripled it. It’s increased it by TEN FOLD. Bush’s administration is not noted for responding to veiled criticism by essentially caving and doing exactly what some EuroWank implies they should have done in the first place. By so remarkably upping the U.S. committment, BushCo seems to validate the criticism.
I have to say after all of that, the symbolism involved in all of this wasn’t a biggie for me. Bush has screwed up so many things on the global front that I doubt he could have recovered much by playing this politically the way he played 9/11. Private donations and U.S. relief workers on the ground – including characters like John Moore putting their best foot forward in a foreign land (and I thank him for that) – will do the job of burnishing America’s image more than Bush at this stage, insofar as there is a global PR game. Frankly, the very idea of PR in the context of this tragedy is bad taste, pure and simple.
I assumed from the start that the United States would respond – publicly and privately – fairly generous as the scope and scale of the disaster became apparent. (The question of overall foreign aid is a seperate issue entirely, since most of the aid increases under Bush have been specifically tied to the wars in Afghanistan and, more significantly, Iraq.) I don’t look to George Bush for warm and fuzzies, gestures and tears. God forbid. He’s not even a good phony (like Clinton). Of course, that didn’t stop him from blathering about “hugging widows, because that’s what Presidents do” and similiar strange stuff. As none other than John Moore noted, “Bush’s style is a bit weird…” (Hope that wasn’t too far out of context.) Frankly, the Bush/Rove nexus turned Bush into the next best thing to a Kleenex dispenser with a couple of it’s more sappy election ads. But that’s another story, and I don’t really give a shit about little George Bush. On the serious issues, I care about policy. Of course, it’s galling to see someone so consistently incompetent shaping it.
January 1st, 2005 at 7:41 pm
Your point? Your mumblings about the right and randians and capitalism are bizarre, irrelevant and incorrect.
Podhoretz said it well. The remark was clearly aimed at America, among others. Your exaggerations are creative but absurd.
The increase in aid is, of course, natural, because that’s how these things work. You don’t just throw money. You figure out who to give it to. You get results from disaster surveys to determine what and where the needs are. Because this disaster affects an unprecedented number of nations, themselves often quit fractious, this is non trivial.
As for the Randists, they are nuts. Of course their ideas are considered in the formulation of ideas on the right, which has absolutely nothing to do with this subject. In the same way, leftists are pretty nuts themselves (some exceptions here) but that doesn’t mean that the right considers every one of their ideas to be wrong.
Single axis differentiation is too simple to characterize issues this complex.
January 2nd, 2005 at 10:23 am
The Randroid Libertarians (a big minority) put selfishness as a virtue.
The USA will donate the most money. Because we’re the richest. Because our capitalisit system is closer to Rand’s selfish ideal than any other system. It is in using capitalism to CREATE wealth, that has made the people of the USA the “richest” — though many in SE L.A. don’t always feel so rich, especially ex-cons.
Note that in 20 years of Global Warming talk, there has NOT been much in the way of effective disaster preparedness. The “altruistic” talk about global warming has driven out the “selfish (pragmatic)” talk about what to do if there’s a problem, and how to warn people.
Bush also took a few days for his 9/11 response, didn’t he? Wasn’t it 9/14 that he made his great speech? We didn’t vote for him for his fast words, or his false apologies.
Screw you …. it wasn’t a Democrat who met with Saddam and arranged to send our military intel to The Butcher of Baghdad when he was committing war crimes against Iranian soldiers or who sat on his hands and failed to even give air cover when the Shiites rebelled in ’91. Your hypocrisy and selective history is as mindboggling as it is predictable..
It WAS a wonderful talking Democrat that fully accepted Rwanda and some 800 000 murdered in a genocide.
It WAS a “peace loving” Democrat that accepted the Killing Fields of Cambodia in 1977-978; some 3 million dying in SE Asia directly as a result of the US losing in and leaving Vietnam.
All who supported the US leaving Vietnam have the 3 million deaths on their hands.
But this is mostly a bash Bush thread; I wish he was a better at PR, too. I also wish the Liberal Press was better with real facts, like the missing Form 180 of Kerry (hiding his military shameful secrets).
January 2nd, 2005 at 12:06 pm
Tom Grey is getting to be the Steve of the right.
“Note that in 20 years of Global Warming talk, there has NOT been much in the way of effective disaster preparedness.”
It’s called Google, Tom:
http://www.geophys.washington.edu/tsunami/general/warning/warning.html
http://ioc.unesco.org/itsu/
About 90% of the world’s tsunamis take place in the Pacific.
January 2nd, 2005 at 12:19 pm
“Tom Grey is getting to be the Steve of the right.”
cheap shot, actually I don’t accuse people of being unpatriotic or ‘anti-american’ for disagreeing with me and I back up my claims with citations from people that Marc Cooper approves of highly and is good friends with. Tom mostly just spouts his opinions without reference to serious evidence and then accuses those who disagree of being “unpatriotic”. Watch him in action over at Totten’s blog comments section, it’s a real contribution to ‘civil discourse’.
January 2nd, 2005 at 12:56 pm
Tom Grey – you want to play dueling dictators with a liberal ? Probably not.
January 2nd, 2005 at 12:58 pm
Moore – you are so good at being a liar that I think you don’t even know when you’re doing it anymore. I’ll not comment furthre on your babbling through this thread, in deference to your personality disorder.
January 2nd, 2005 at 2:14 pm
Steve,
You made a point of stating that Amnesty International had published far more reports about human rights abuses committed by the Pinochet regime than by the Castro regime and never backed it up with a scintilla of proof. Color me unimpressed.
January 2nd, 2005 at 4:37 pm
“You made a point of stating that Amnesty International had published far more reports about human rights abuses committed by the Pinochet regime than by the Castro regime and never backed it up with a scintilla of proof. Color me unimpressed”
Well, yeah, bug gosh, come on, I mean that’s a no brainer, just look at the AI reports from the years of Pinochet and compare with same years of Castro or the last decade. I offered that as evidence, you asked me to go fish it out, which I have neither the time nor need to given my level of confidence that the exercise, if you wanted to bother to do it, would be enough to demonstrate my case. It’s a whole lot more that I gave you than Grey provides.
January 2nd, 2005 at 7:04 pm
Toadies at work
“About eight hours after the disaster began, the White House summoned U.S. officials to a 4 a.m. meeting in Washington to begin planning a response.” LA Times – Jan. 2nd – Tremor Then A Sight
Colin Powell on Meet the Press
“By last Sunday afternoon, evening, I had started calling all the foreign ministers of the immediately affected nations and on Sunday evening, and then getting them all finally on Monday morning with time changes, I said to them the United States was following; “Let us know what you need. Please let our embassy know what you need,” and reached out to them. So they knew we were committed right away, on Sunday afternoon.
The president then, Monday and Tuesday, called heads of government and state, said the same thing.”
December 30th, 2004 at 6:37 pm
Dubious assumptions
My take is that even if Bush didn’t handle this in the best way (an assertion I won’t argue with), I find dubious the assumptions . . .
July 23rd, 2006 at 1:29 pm
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July 24th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
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