As Tsunami Recedes, America Bashing Begins
By Richard Davis (12/29/04)
The last wave of that Indonesian tsunami had barely swept back into the Indian Ocean before attacks began on Americans for not promising enough money in the relief effort. Bashing America after an international crisis has become as predictable as aftershocks following an earthquake.
The UN’s top emergency aid official, Jan Egeland, exhibiting the contemptible character we’ve come to expect with UN officials, assaulted the West for being “stingy” and suggested we should be willing to raise taxes on ourselves if necessary to pay whatever the UN thinks we should.
Equally contemptible, however, was the knee-jerk reaction by our State Department to Egeland’s slander--raising our aid commitment almost immediately by $20 million to $35 million. Bad timing.
We don’t need to kowtow to an organization whose officials, including its secretary general, stood by and watched a million or more Iraqi children suffer and die horrible deaths for almost a decade knowing full well their deaths could have been prevented with aid monies they themselves were pilfering? Tell us about that Egeland before you lecture us on greed.
Egeland’s comments, coming soon after the US announced a $15 million aid package, larger by $5 million than that of any other country, were timed to humiliate the United States in retaliation for the growing anti-UN sentiment among Americans. The fact is no one knew on Monday the true extent and nature of aid that would be needed, where it would be needed and by whom. All aid commitments were considered preliminary. That didn’t matter to Egeland. Whatever the US had pledged would have been insufficient.
Aid officials like Egeland use natural disasters and health crises to further their own personal and political agendas, which are invariably leftist and anti-Western. Notice that Egeland didn’t mention anything about China, Malaysia, Japan or any of the other countries in the region quite capable of providing the relief necessary. No stinginess there.
Listening to Egeland and the media one would think this tragedy occurred in the barren wilderness far from any civilization, and our help is the only recourse these people have. That impression is purposeful, designed to heighten the guilt and lubricate the cash flow.
These countries have governments and infrastructures. Indonesia, Thailand, India, etc., aren’t without resources. Furthermore, it’s their crisis. Shouldn’t they be taking the point on relief efforts? There’s more than a little patronization and even racism lurking behind Egeland’s comments. Only the Great Western Relief Worker and his cash can save the poor natives.
If these governments are too corrupt or inept to handle their own disaster, why are we lavishing millions of dollars on them.? Why would we give any money whatsoever to the scandal-ridden UN? How long will it be before the same media that chastise us for being selfish begin running investigative pieces questioning where all the money went? Not very long.
Egeland did say one thing that was interesting: “Christmastime should remind many Western countries at least how rich we have become.” What is interesting here is not the offhand, materialistic gloss Egeland gives to Christmas, but that he makes an association between Christianity and Western affluence, unintended though it was.
Perhaps we should send Christian missionaries into Indonesia as our relief contribution so that one day Indonesians too could be reminded by Christmas of how rich they had become.
The United States has given hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to foreign governments in aid, and frankly it’s doubtful even 10 percent of it resulted in any good. We’re lucky if it doesn’t do harm. Look at the billions we’ve given Africans or Middle Easterners, including Egyptians and Palestinians. Has there been a bigger waste of money?
There is one last difficult point. Despite the unprecedented generosity of America the past half century we are hated worldwide, especially by Muslims. That doesn’t mean we refuse a hand to people in desperate need. We don’t. But it is a factor in the equation. We have millions of people in our own country with needs. They should be in the equation too.
In other words, by all means provide emergency humanitarian relief. But don’t become enticed by political motivations, believing our generosity will be appreciated by the locals and make us new friends. It won’t. Repeat that as many times as necessary, then come home.
Almost certainly Americans will give a lion’s share of aid, public and private, to help these victims. That’s what Americans do. But just once--sweet Jesus just once--wouldn’t it be nice not to be insulted, slandered and publicly maligned while we do it? Just once.
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