US increases aid
The US government has increased its pledge to $350 million to aid in the tsunami disaster recovery.
Why couldn't this have been the story the day after the tsunami? I had little doubt that we would eventually kick in a lot more, but we should have been out in front of everybody. I still say we should announce that we will build the tsunami warning system that the region lacks. We are in a battle for the hearts and minds of the world.
At least somebody in the Bush administration "gets it." Maybe this is why that same person is leaving government.
"If nations are poor, if they don't see hope, if they're riddled by
disease, if no one is helping them, then radicalism takes over, they lose faith
in democracy and they start turning in other directions," he said. "This is an
investment not only in the welfare of these people, which in and of itself is a
good thing to do; it's an investment in our own national security."
- Colin Powell
6 Comments:
This is the same prinicple we stood on when we rebuilt Europe after WWII with the Marshall Plan.
An old boss of mine once said that the best way to stop terrorism is to go to nations like Afghanistan and Iraq or (pick country) and instead of dropping bombs, give everyone a washer/dryer, chevy, tv/dvd system. I say open up factories, give people living wages and something to work for. But we barely have that in America.
The greatest threat to the future of America is poverty in the rest of the world. Comfortable people have no reason to revolt.
Of course, there is only so much we can do about it. But some good PR would be nice.
damn right, we kick ass. but to ignore the fact that we have a major image problem is folly. i know (knew) we'd do the right thing. i was born in the same town as george c marshall! but most of the rest of the world, for reasons partially our own fault, doubt our intentions. here is a chance to recover some squandered good will, and we hesitated. just for a second, but we hesitated.
I think you're both right but the problem is no matter what we do, someone will spin it to make the US look bad just because. We could have immidiately turned around and said we're sending all of our floating hospitals, some troops to bring order and relief, food, clothing, medicine, and dropping $350mil - and someone would have said "is that all?" or "what about the homeless in this country?"
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