Stealing from the Starving. The United States Government is accepting foreign aid for victims of hurricane Katrina. Disgusting.
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Just after the extent of the damage started to be understood, I happened to be listening to talk radio in British Columbia (Canada) via the Internet because a spokesman for a BC organization that advocates that his province join the U.S. as a state had alerted me that he'd be appearing that day, and I heard a Canadian wonder aloud if any foreign country would help the U.S. recover from this disaster. He publicly expressed doubt, and made plain that he appreciated the fact that the U.S. helps many other countries with their disasters, and resented the world's standing by to let the U.S. handle its own disasters — and he isn't even an American! (But it's precisely because so many people in Canada identify with us that AnnexationBC.com and others advocate they join the U.S.)
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I thought at the time, "We don't need help from anybody" and foreign aid should be reserved to the people across the Third World who desperately do need help. But, lo and behold, offers of assistance have in fact poured in, to the surprise of many and disgust of at least one: me.
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Some offers were manifestly phony, like Fidel Castro's proffer of "1,100 doctors and 26 tons of medicine and equipment." He knew there was essentially no chance the U.S. would accept any such offer. He also knew that actually letting 1,100 doctors go to the U.S. could prove hugely embarrassing, since the chance that none would defect was essentially nonexistent. Dozens or even hundreds might refuse to return to Cuba.
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But other offers were sincere, and were in the form of money, which the Bush Administration eagerly grabbed. You know how they love money!
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We are the richest country in the history of the world, yet the Bush Administration ("Slime R Us") is actually taking money from some of the poorest countries on Earth, money that should be going to people, especially children, in the Third World who are dying from starvation and preventable disease but do not have a rich Uncle Sam close at hand to take care of them. According to The Boston Globe today:

The State Department has announced it has accepted nearly a billion dollars in pledges of foreign aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, including hundreds of millions in cash to be donated directly to the federal government as well as planeloads of ready-to-eat meals, tents and baby formula.

The assistance is beginning to pour in from countries large and small, a week after President Bush said on ABC's "Good Morning America" that he had not asked for foreign assistance and didn't think the United States needed it. * * *

The United Nations also was expected to boost Katrina aid, with its humanitarian chief saying the world body's current assistance level would be increased as more international aid arrives. * * *

More than 95 countries have come forward with offers, and about 50 have been accepted. In addition to pledges from the oil-rich Middle East, donors include some of the world's poorest countries, including Afghanistan, Djibouti and Sri Lanka.

Disgusting. Supremely disgusting. At least 24,000 children die each day in the Third World, yet Third World countries are sending aid to the richest nation in the history of the world? That's insane! Any decent U.S. Administration would say "Thank you very much, but we are a very rich country and can take care of our needs ourselves. Please take whatever you were going to give to us and instead devote it to the starving of the world, who really do need it." But the Bush Administration isn't decent. And it doesn't even have any pride! What kind of loser would demean the United States by accepting foreign aid?! It's humiliating.
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We can see here, again, that George Bush is not really President of the United States. He says the U.S. doesn't need foreign aid; the State Department accepts it anyway. Who's in charge?
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For any country to rush foreign aid to the richest country in the history of the world instead of to starving children in the Third World is obscene. For 95 countries to do so, and for such offers to be accepted from 50, exceeds obscene. I have no words powerful enuf to express the vileness of that crime. Has the world gone mad?
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,895.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:51 AM