This is a total joke. W. is not out there biting his lip and hes a bad guy. Give me a break. They are just beginning to survey the extent of the loss and damage. Before this is over, the US Taxpayer and US private citizens will have donated the most. What are we going to do now - release $100 bills out of B-52s as they fly along the coastlines..

Correction:

Sending money to Florida il like sending snow to the eskimos; we prefer to sell/rent you water bombers when California is burning.

Not that we expect aid from anywhere, but the rental of emergency equipment during a crisis is hardly charitable.

Of course I think the U.S. should and will do more to help in the tsunami crisis, but complaints about the size of our gesture are graceless.

The whole world forgets that charity is optional. When it ceases to be voluntary it becomes a tax. Not happy with the size of the gift our taxpayers sent you? Kiss our rich American asses.

Red -
The US put up $15MM immediately, dispatched relief teams and navy patrols (which, as any peacenik likes to remind us, are not cheap) and made a commitment to remain in the reconstruction "for the long haul" -- Colin Powell. What is the magic you believe will occur if the US just says "OK, here's a blank check"? We've committed to remain and reconstruct ... but we're not the world's underwriter; this is not our open-ended loss; and we will, as we have always done, provide more cash and assitance than anyone else.

ASIDE-
Here and on some other thread, you seem to equate W's not dropping what he's doing to run back into some damage control mode. You've said some inane stuff on these hallowed boards before, but that's pretty close to the top. As tho' W's personal presence is going to get a check cut faster?! The US gov't makes the commitment and it follows it through, whether the Prez. is in DC or not. Your comment is, simply, stupid.
END ASIDE

As for the UN:
The United States supplies more than one-fifth of the United Nations' total budget (and 57 percent, 33 percent and 27 percent of the budgets for the World Food Program, the Refugee Agency, and Department of Peacekeeping Operations, respectively). We've been the United Nations' biggest donor every year since 1945.

But no matter how much money we (as the US) provide to the UN, in absolute dollars or as a % of the UN budget, when something goes wrong, the US is expected to dig even deeper than it does and WAY deeper than anyone else.

Yeah -- the US, the same evil, capitalist, unilateralist, interventionist, imperialist entity that is constantly maligned by the *****bag states in the GA -- or on the Human Rights Commission. Syria and Libya on hectoring the rest of the world about human rights from the UN pulpit? And some still think the UN is worth anything more than the fair market value of its Turtle Bay property?

The UN is not a philanthropic entity, it is a political coalition for nations to thwart the US. It does not prevent famine, it does not prevent genocide -- period. Where it "acts", situations tend to get WORSE for the locals, especially if they actually rely on the UN to defend them. Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Ivory Coast, etc. The litany of UN failures is nothing short of spectacular -- so to conceive of it as an entity principally known for what it almost universally FAILS to do is evidence of the blindspot the capital-L Left has for the UN b/c of what it claims to do.

The UN did not free Kuwait, solve Ethiopia, help Yugoslavia, liberate Afghanistan, prevent slaughter in Rwanda, and certainly does not keep NK from invading SK or China from walking over Taiwan in a long weekend.

And btw, American citizens send $34 billion in private aid around the world each year. The entire UN budget is about $3.5 billion. Americans -- qua citizens, not bureaucracy -- are bright enough to know that you don't provide the corrupt middleman (UN) the opportunity to skim "fees" for administering aid where and how it's needed. Oil-For-Food; 'nuff said.

I prophesy that whatever the US gov't spends to assist (both $ given and costs) it will dwarf any other nation's contribution when all is said-and-done (though the media silence on this point I also prophesy will be deafening). I prophesy further that Americans themselves will likely provide more money than either their government or any group of other contributors.

JP

Wow! All the cons are saying the samething. Must have been todays talking points from your handlers.

Ya, why not?

Were money laundring a fortune at 6 billion a month with no end in site in Iraq alone. What's another few billion? Hell its not like were ever going to payback the Rothschilds anyway. Our grand kids will have to deal with it, so put in on Amerikas credit card debt, since our dollar is bottoming out and the moniteray system is always warning of a collapse. Might as well go broke in style.

Hell we are paying Iraqis alot of money so they don't go broke and kill soldiers. Blackwater contractors, the mercinaries get paid a fortune.

You guys are acting like all this money is real? Its not, its just an illusion, there is no federally balanced check book. Its a bottomless pit, Cheney reffered this as their turn at the piggy bank anyway.

Hell if this were the middle east the US wanted to bomb another part of it would be a blank check to do that.

Bottomline: US has an endless cash flow to bomb and kill. But limited funds to save mankind.

I told U Red that we were beyond level 3..it's the begining of level 4..and has been since the advent of the UN in the 1940's....The true purpose of the UN is to end civilization or SWF...Strife, War and Famine....

USA is in for 35 million as of yesterday. I have not heard if there was more aid offered today but I did hear that Canada has just put forward about the same amount today (40 million CDN).

The difference is Canada is 30 million population, USA is 300 million.

Most other nations are giving as well.

Here we go:

I guess we're expected to let the UN siphon off 50% of the aid that's given, never tell us where the money went, and not end up really ever helping the people in need.

Ya, by the monkey setting up his own money laundring system he can make sure Halliburton distrubutes the cash for 50 dollar bottles of water. We all know the monkey isn't about secret deals and has the most transparent government ever run.

When he doles money out every penny gets to where it needs:rolleyes:

Whatever happened to the people who need the aid....
And who cares if the US is stingy or not....giving aid is an act of Charity..and the Bible says Charity begins at home....so giving ANYTHING is above and beyond the call of duty...

I think this country is really fouled up.....when the political oposition chastizes the President for not acting quick enough...it's not as if he let days or weeks go by....whats next ....are they going to criticize his BM's....This state of affairs is intolerable...and if this country can't lighten up it is DONE...

Bushy ain't the secular version of the AntiChrist for christs sake...

BTW...UFO...the last Presidnet to be described as a monkey...was Abe Lincoln...who is considered to be the best President the USA has ever had....

Ah, Tabby..

To some he is the AntiChrist

To others he is the savior returned

Somewhere in between, lies truth.

Yeah he is just a MAN, trying to do his job!

Wait a minute. His job is to lie to the country to get our kids to fight his wars?

Like just another guy doing his job the best he can, and in spite of this occasionally screwing up? I'm sure this pretty much describes all of us.

I find it funny that the standard for American Presidents (and America itself) is absolute perfection, but the standards for others is relative. The standard by which the UN is judged certainly isn't perfection, let alone reasonable competence.

HIS WARS??? Bushy and crew didn't run an airplane into the WTC...

Also pray tell which Presidnet hasn't lied in the Modern Era. ....

When I constantly hear rabid anti Bush or for that matter rabid anti Clinton (for example) rhetoric I start to heavily discount the credibility of the writer....simply there is something else going on with the correspondent that has nothing to do with the political situation...but personal issues...Nobody is a complete saint nor a complete demon....the truth lies somewhere in between, and if presented that way that persons credibility rises in my estimation...

And sometimes lying can be a good thing.

I hesitate to say this because I know it will be picked apart, but:

In 1942, when asked about Doolittle's raid, I seem to recall FDR saying something along the lines of the planes came from "Shangra La". Obviously, if he had given the actual details on the raid, he would have placed many servicemen at risk.

I'm fairly certain that our government, maybe even the President, sometimes intentionally say things that are untrue to test the reaction of, or to mislead, our various enemies.

No they signed off on others to do it for them. The reason is peak oil. They know 20 years from now oil will be getting scarce. So US, Israel and Britian decided to get the last major oil resources and control them to garuntee our way of life for as long as they can.

They needed a radical reason to invade Iraq (first) then Syria, then Iran, finally Saudi. Read Crossing the Rubicon, splains alot.

In order to pull it off they needed a new enemy but not one you couldn't just find and kill off quick. A hard to kill bogeyman was need to pull out anytime you needed it politically. So UBL was the best choice.

UBL didn't and could have done 911. He just a pussy hiding and putting out propaganda tapes. If he could attack the US again he won't. That would unify the US with Europe again and he don't want that. But Bush does, he needs another attack to get his approval ratings up and to blame Iran for it. I'm sure right now Cheney is plotting the next one.

Wouldn't it have been easier to just fire a missle into Isreal from Iraq?????

Say hi to the pill lady for me:)