From: Glen Closson (glen_closson@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Dec 30 2004 - 18:45:22 PST
I'm sure regardless of what the US does to help these poor people it will be
considered wrong, many people (i.e. the media) and other countries will find
fault with it and not a single person will say 'thank you.'
Instead we will hear:
1.) "The relief didn't get here quick enough. It was the wrong kind at
the wrong place."
2.) "The relief workers were not sensitive to my special needs."
3.) "How dare they ask me to live in a square tent? Don't they know
that my people can only live in round tents? Living is a square tent is
evil so they must be the devil."
4.) "The earthquake and tsunami were the work of the US/CIA/Military
anyway as a way of suppressing us. Probably nuclear testing. Death to all
Americans!"
5.) "The Americans brought green tarps to make shelters out of. We
can't live under a green tarp. Green is the color of the rebels. They
should know this. They insult us."
6.) "Stingy Americans! Why should we thank them? They have all the
money in the world - driving their SUVs. Just look at their movies!
Everyone is rich and beautiful and doesn't work."
7.) "The instructions on the Porta-Potty were not in my unique dialect
that is spoken by only 200 of us. How insensitive! They are trying to
destroy my culture and take this land for their own."
8.) "The soldier hurt me when I tried to take his gun away from him."
9.) "The soldier hurt me when I mobbed his helicopter/truck/van and
tried to grab anything I could."
10.) "The relief was not well organized."
11.) [Fill in your own]
NY Times calls U.S. aid for tsunami 'miserly'
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/30/quake.usa.editorial.reut/index.htm
l
Stingy Americans? U.N. official's comment hits nerve
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/28/stingy.americans.ap/index.html
...Measured another way, as a percentage of gross national product, the
OECD's figures on development aid show that as of April, none of the world's
richest countries donated even 1 percent of its gross national product.
Norway was highest, at 0.92 percent; the United States was last, at 0.14
percent.
Such figures were what prompted Jan Egeland -- the United Nations' emergency
relief coordinator and former head of the Norwegian Red Cross -- to
challenge the giving of rich nations.
"We were more generous when we were less rich, many of the rich countries,"
Egeland said. "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 Tuesday his complaint wasn't directed at any nation
in particular.
(more)
Glen
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