WARNING: This diary is a rant. The author is still in a state of shock over the mind-boggling loss of human life that has occurred recently in South East Asia.
According to the BBC, Red Cross officials have now stated that the death toll from the tsunami that resulted from the 9.0 earthquake in the Pacific Rim could be as high as 100,000. The BBC additionally reports that children may account for over one third of these deaths, and that many children are still at risk from disease. To put this into perspective, imagine just under one half of the residents of the city of Lincoln, Nebraska died from a natural disaster. Or one fifteenth of the residents of Manhattan. Or a little under one-half of the residents of McLennan County, Texas, which contains Crawford, Texas, the hometown of President George W. Bush.
Such a tragedy in this country would elicit an immediate response worldwide, both with messages of condolence from world leaders and offers of aid and assistance.
But in this country, for some reason I still can't fathom, this breath-taking loss of human life elicits partisan bickering, and questions among our countrymen over who gives more to charity, liberals or conservatives. This tragic loss of human life, on a scale that dwarfs even our own horrible losses on September 11, serves only to provide opportunities for radical right-wing radio talk show hosts to once again bash the United Nations, simply because one of its functionaries dared - quite correctly - to label the $15 million of chump change our country initially donated to the humanitarian relief efforts "stingy". And, what is completely reprehensible, these deaths have provided some Americans with the opportunity to toot our own collective horns about what a great and giving people we are.
Take Mona Charen, commentator for the Washington Times, who proudly proclaims that:
"...the United States is the world's largest food aid donor by far. In 2004, the United States provided $826,469,172 -- almost a billion dollars -- to the United Nations World Food Program. The next largest donor, the European Union, contributed $187,102,068. This, even though the European Union has a total population of 453 million, compared with the United States' 281 million and a larger gross domestic product than the U.S."
Just in case you're wondering if the United States wins in the giving contest, the answer is why yes we do:
"Japan was third on the list, giving $126,906,097, and the United Kingdom was fourth, with donations totaling $109,247,050. Iran gave $40,000. The Saudi Kingdom gave $3,345,325 -- about the cost of one trip to Paris for the Crown Prince. And Kuwait, the OPEC fund and the Russian Federation gave nothing."
Anyone up for a rousing chorus of "we will, we will rock you"?
Not to be outdone by the likes of the Washington Times, our own President felt the need to hop on the "Love America, Dammit!" bandwagon, by citing in his press conference today this little nugget, as reported by the Washington Post :
"I felt like the person who made that statement was very misguided and ill-informed," Bush said. He said the United States this year has provided $2.4 billion in food, cash and humanitarian relief for disasters around the world, 40 percent of the total given by all nations. "We're a very generous, kind-hearted nation, and, you know, what you're beginning to see is a typical response from America," Bush said. "First of all, we provide immediate cash relief to the tune of about $35 million. And then there will be an assessment of the damage so that the next tranche of relief will be spent wisely."
The Washington Post also reported that the President "...did not give a figure for the projected total amount of U.S. aid."
One would have hoped for a more mature response from the President of the United States. One would have hoped that, in the face of this massive human tragedy, our country would not have to be shamed into upping the ante in the poker game of giving that this bizarre response to human suffering has become. One would have hoped to see the George W. Bush of September 11th, the truly fearless leader of our country who recognized that there are no Democrats and Republicans, or liberals and conservatives, in the face of such heart-wrenching disaster. Gone is that George W. Bush, and in his place we now have a lame duck, second-term President, who in the absence of any pressure to run for re-election has forgotten what it means to be both a conservative and to also be compassionate.
In this Epiphany season, in the days immediately following Christmas, our country has turned into a nation of political operative Scrooges, who mete out aid for suffering people only when it serves our own self-interest.
May God have pity on the United States of America.