Thanks for that, Skyhawk. It's interesting to hear an insider's view. Call me crazy, but I still don't trust the Indonesian military. Realistically, no aid money whatsoever should be controlled by them... too much of it will just go "missing". Remember President (ahem, dictator) Suharto? General Wiranto was his closest buddy and Wiranto hand-picked the Indonesian military's top-heavy rank of generals...

The last thing I wanted this thread to turn into is a pissing contest - we all know who would win. It just staggers me that we are able to commit to such a level. A lot of folks here feel that we're buying security in the region, which is true, but while we're broken hearted about the victims in this disaster and will do whatever we possibly can, not many of us trust the Indonesian government or military anything like our Prime Minister seems to.

As someone who considers the whole Iraq situation a collosal mistake, I sure hope the US military has some time to paint HUGE Starts and Stripes on all their Equipment.

The relief effort is the best way to prevent Al Qaeda from brain washing more Indonesians into thinking that the US and the West is an evil that must be defeated.

The Indonesians owe Australia big time now, and Australia knows it.

We're probably well past the money problem part of this tragedy. Now it's logistics...getting the right people and the right supplies to the right places. Hope it doesn't all turn into a Chinese fire drill of mayhem while everybody brags of the dollar amount they donated, the lefties in the press keeping score.