Republicans & Conservatives Archives

I’ve heard the total aid from us is about 14 million, with 4 million of that being sent immediately. That sounds reasonable. The EU is sending 4 million. Does anybody know how much was raised for Bam, Iran?

I would prefer his resignation, but an apology will do.

That’s the holiday spirit ;).

It might help if the $3 billion dollars we give to the UN right now were’nt used to fund prostitution, rape, and child pornography.

prostitution, rape, and child pornography.

Hey, happy holidays Eric. But the links you mention seem to indicate that this is not a serious or systemic problem. In fact, they both compare this to Abu Ghraib, which clearly suggests that just a few “bad apples” are involved.

Mr. Egeland, like many Eurocrats, is sincere but misinformed. I wouldn’t call for his resignation or even an apology, but rather that he become better informed.

His confusion comes from the mendacious way some people compile statistics and there are two parts to this deception. First is adjusting aid figures for GNP/population etc and the second is counting only government aid.

Adjusting for GNP seems reasonable and can be in some circumstances. U.S foreign aid is by far greater than that of any other country, but the U.S GNP is also much greater. One way to compare countries is to compare a percentage of GNP. Then America sinks to number 22 in aid giving.

Size does matter. You would be better off getting 1% of Bill Gates’ wealth than 100% of mine. The same goes for aid. The other thing is that it poorly measures performance over time. If one economy grows faster than another it could find its generosity questioned. Small rich countries that aren’t growing very fast always look the best by these measures. One more thing about comparisons based on GNP. The U.S. military is widely known as the best, fiercest and most expensive in the history of the world. But as a percentage of our GNP, it would not be in the top 50% of the world’s armed forces. That goes to show the usefulness of this statistic in isolation.

The more important factor Mr. Egeland misses is private generosity. Europeans give most of their help through governments. Americans do it through private giving. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation recently gave $42.5 million dollars to fight malaria in developing countries. This is a big, but not unique example. U.S. private giving is several times that of the government and dwarfs that of all government aid. No other country comes close to this kind of system.

The U.S. provides tax deductions to many private charities that are unavailable in most other countries. As our liberal friends always point out with tax cuts, a tax not paid is identical for budgetary purposes to a grant. I can’t figure out how much tax the U.S. treasury would have collected on the $42.5 million the Gates gave to fight malaria, but I would bet it was greater than the contribution any particular government gave to the same cause this year.

So I think we should forgive Mr. Egeland, but not let his statements go unchallenged.

the undersecontary comment about how stingy we are and about how we need taxes to increased funding for the aid, seem to be inapproated at the least,and very informed about the american tax payer,if anything it will add fuel to the fired about the un and the american less willing to support it in the near future.

Let’s not dwell on personalities. The fact that U.S. offered $15 million when it spends over $200 billion for war and who knows how much on tax cuts for fat-cats, is disgusting. It fills me with shame.

I think America should spend billions of dollars in a Marshall-Plan type project to rebuild the economies of the 10 devastated Asia nations. This will restore our good name in the world and do more to reduce terrorism than an “election” in Iraq.

See my aarticle at http://www.learningfountain.com/blog/archives/00000425.htm

William,

You should do some googling, the UN is complicit in hundreds of rapes, prostitution, and slave trafficing. Everywhere there is a UN presence, ‘sex’ providers are making a mint.

Paul,

The welfare route is a proven disaster. Let’s increase trade and globalization in order to improve the lives of third world citizens, not just hand their corrupt governments a billions of dollars.

Mr. ‘Stingy’ has backed down, sort of.

Paul

That is the problem of understanding that Mr. Egeland has. Government funds are not a good way to develop whole economies. Government foreign aid has had mixed success. Often it encourages kleptocracies that actually hinder development. The best way to develop is through investment, trade and private organizations.

The U.S. contribution may be called modest, but you know that it will be the largest contribution, including both private and government sources.

People are always calling for a new Marshall Plan, but lets put this in perspective. There is a good group of background articles at http://www.foreignaffairs.org/background/marshall-plan.

The Marshall plan was a great success and an act of generosity unique in human history. But it worked because it was rebuilding developing economies devastated by war. The people of Europe had the skills and habits needed to put them back in the place they would have been before. It was coupled with a generous (by the standards of the times) opening of American markets to European products and the extension of U.S military protection. It also extended American hegemony to Europe and Europeans accepted it because of their memories of a recent past of much worse political arrangements and the prospect of the oppression of Soviet communism not far to the east. In other words, its success was based on many factors including U.S. military power, economic might, investment, markets etc.

It that way, it much more resembles what we are doing in Iraq than it does what I think you would be proposing for Asia.

Now we have a person comparing the money spent in Florida to the money pledged for Asian countries.
Saying it is a drop in the bucket.
Compared - it is.
BUT
How much does it cost to build a shack in Sri Lanka? What is their GDP? We will help. We will give more than any other nation - does that mean we have to bring them up to the standards in Florida?
Do we have to rebuild their railroad, there hotels, all the businesses and homes?
Some of these countries don’t have money of their own to help their people?
Aren’t some of these countries where a lot of our jobs have gone to?
Does our government have to give money to our own companies that may have had factories destroyed when they make a killing off the products they sell back to us already?

Paul Siegel hit it on the nose.

Let’s see how many so-called Christians on the Right dig into their money-market funds and do what Christ has told them to do.

Typically, the only time right-wing Social Darwinists have any care about Life is before it is actually born - after that, they are usually Pro-Death, advocating the Death ‘Penalty’ (and you know what a big fan of capital punishment Jesus was!) and War at every turn.

Here are a few Links you crypto-fascists can cut-and-paste if you want to Walk The Walk; I just came from each of them - why don’t you dig out your Titatanium Cards and actually do something Christian for a change?

https://donate.care.org/05/170420990000/?source=170570020000

https://www.unicefusa.org/site/apps/ka/sd/donor.asp?c=duLRI8O0H&b=25934

http://www.icrc.org/Web/Forms/webforms.nsf/F_DON?OpenForm&ParentUNID=BA9B14845AF1638FC1256E2B00394093&action=Operations%20most%20in%20need

Captain

Already did it through the Red Cross.

Your post indicates a misunderstanding of conservatives, just as the UN official misunderstood how America works. And just as the U.S. will certainly turn out to be the biggest donor, conservative Americans will be doing their part.

Conservatives are generous. It is just that we think that we know how to spend our money better than governments do in most cases. There are some big things that only government can do. But for most others, there are private activities and private charities. Private activities are usually more efficient and effective. Which is better – to do something about a problem or to demand someone else do something?

“Already did it through the Red Cross.”

I gave a chunk of money to the Red Cross after 9/11, but they took too long a time getting it to the victims families. There were also incidences where they mismanaged the money, and of theft. Now, the only thing I now give to the Red Cross every month is my blood. For this disaster, I decided to give my money to Oxfam - they always do a good job, and seem very efficiently run.

“But for most others, there are private activities and private charities.”

But since neither have much scrutiny attending to their finances, you may end up giving money to an organization that breeds corruption and/or find many incidences of individual theft.

“Private activities are usually more efficient and effective.”

Sometimes, but it is important to remember that people are not required to give money to them.

“Which is better – to do something about a problem or to demand someone else do something?”

The government uses OUR tax dollars to do everything, therefore, demanding that they offer aid to those who need it in a disaster situation that will most likely lead to widespread famine and outbreaks of various diseases is not an unreasonable request, nor is it an incidence of being lazy and having others provide something without a shred of personal effort.

Seems the “stingy” remark was, in fact, effective:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32337-2004Dec28.html

Adrienne

My argument was not with how money is being spent, it was with Captain’s implicit assumption that conservatives were stingy. I saw this as an extension of the UN official’s statement that the U.S. was stingy. Neither assumption is bourn out. I am not aware of any reliable studies that show relative generosity based on politics. Generosity tends to rise in real terms as people get richer, but decline in percentage terms. Re the U.S. this is from one of the press releases.

United States has formed an international coalition to help coordinate relief efforts. The United States has made an initial pledge of $35 million. In addition, disaster experts, a Marine expeditionary unit, the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, and the Maritime pre-position squadron from Guam have been dispatched to the area.

In 2004 alone, the United States contributed $2.4 billion to emergency humanitarian efforts, representing 40 percent of the total world contribution to emergency aid this year.

I think we and our country are doing our parts in this tragedy.

P.S. I saw the Washpost article. The stingy remark made no difference except to piss people off and make the UN look bad. The article has a line in it, “Actions speak louder than words,” a top Bush aide said, describing the president’s view of his appropriate role.

We will probably end up giving a lot more in any case. It just takes time to figure out which pot the money comes from. The cost of the aircraft carrier group going to help the victims alone will be more than the total contributions of most other countries.

Find more about the U.S. and the disaster at http://usinfo.state.gov/sa/south_asia/tsunamis.html

I find the gentleman’s comment exccedingly arrogant, offensive and disingenuous considering the US is responsible for 40% of the total aid given by all governments in response to natural and/or other disasters. This does not even count the amounts raised by individuals and private charitable institutions in response to these events.
Democrat or Republican, private citizen or government agency,Americans are among the most generous in their response to the needs of others. I find ingratitude and fingerpointing in these circumstances to reveal the ignorance and bias of Mr. Egeland and archtypical of the attitude of UN officials in general.
By the way, perhaps the profits made by UN officials and others on “Oil for Food” could be put to good use helping to allieviate the misery of thousands here. Perhaps Mr Egeland should address his next remarks closer to home.

I find it interesting that Captainozone knows so much about Christians and yet, is not one (evident by his language). As to doing the “Christian” thing, let’s see Captainozone break out his credit card and make a significant donation at this time. Hmmm, let’s say 10% of his annual income. He can prove it by providing a copy of his tax return at the end of the year. Given his hateful rhetoric, I bet he has never broken out his own wallet, just everyone else’s. It is always easy to say somebody else should do something. When you start doing for others in a non-trivial way, then I’m willing to listen to your arguments.

Just a footnote to the bashing of the right-wing in America. Given that the religious right is credited with re-electing President Bush, when you look at the numbers, they give 35-40% more to charity than the secular left does. So the left likes to spend the money of others and is tight-fisted with their own money. Until that changes, you should be careful of who you accuse of “being stingy.”

No matter what we do people always complain. We give more for AIDS than all countries combine and still they protest it is not enough. We will give more than anyone in Asia too but they won’t be satified. As for the U.N., let them give the money they stole in the food for oil program and they could fund it all. I am tired of the U.S. being the doctors, police and schools of the world. We should close the borders, kick out the U.N., pull back all the aid and bases and watch the dominos fall. South Korea would be gone, Saudi would be gone, China would expand overnight. Africa would be barely populated from disease, famine and war and then maybe the wildlife could recover. Bosnia and Kosovo could go back to slaughtering hundreds of thousands of civilians. Yes the overpopulation problem would go away quickly. The great satan isn’t the U.S. but apathy and ignorance. Of all the things to complain about in the world, U.S. charity is not one of them.

Jesus loves you too, John. ;~}

(But Ah kent his Faither: an He’s no’ sae Forgiving; aiblins ye’d best Git Richt wi’ Him, gin ye ettle tae pass yersel’ ayont the Needle’s Ee…)

The U.N. needs to shut it’s mouth. The US is one of the most generous countries in the world. As far back as I can remember the US has gone to the aid of other countries when a disaster strikes.
I can not remember any other countries come to the aid of the US in a disaster.

Ron Brown, you have a pretty short and selective memory. How about the coalition of the willing in IRaq. Iraq was certainly a disaster for the U.S. and Bush has said the world came to our aid.

“I can not remember any other countries come to the aid of the US in a disaster.”

After 9/11 there was a substantial global effort to help the US. The support for the USA was overwhelming in its breadth. Every notable world leader expressed sorrow and pledged support within 24 hours of the disaster.

Every country had 9/11 Relief Funds, often through local chapters of the Red Cross, and that led to several billion dollars being raised to help the families of the 9/11 victims. I personally donated money to the Australian Red Cross 9/11 Relief Fund.

Local news channels encouraged people to dig deep and donate for weeks - literally weeks - after the disaster. It was the most publicised disaster in history. 9/11 received more media attention than the Bam earthquake, despite the greater loss of life in Bam.

Experts were flown in from France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and other countries to help find and rescue any survivors. These included experts who deal with earthquake disasters and know how to find victims still alive in the rubble.

Due to the large number of NY firefighters killed in the disaster, many countries sent their own firefighters to NY so the fire departments would not be understaffed and unable to cope with the normal everyday occurences of fire.

This was not an isolated example. The US receives care and assistance from the global community on a regular basis (eg, the Californian bushfires). It is a kick in the teeth when an ungrateful American then turns around and accuses the rest of the world of not helping the USA.

The US has given a total of 35 million dollars.
The EU had given even less.Recently several European governments were embarassed by the fact that ordinary citizens had contributed more than the pittance they offered.
35 million dollars is spent everyday before breakfast in Iraq.Why cant more funds be donated to help people who were affected by a disaster that killed almost 90,000 people?
The US certainly contributes more money annually to aid, than any other nation in the world,however this sum amounts to barely 0.2% of its GDP.
It really makes you wonder what sort of world we’re living in.

Let me just count:
US 35 million USD
EU Countries 410.6 million USD so far

That IS stingy from the US. And there are major EU countries still not included.

source: bbc

Besides, Norwegians give over 1 percent of their GDP to foreign aid, compared to measly 0.2 percent by the US. So mr Egeland has all the right in the world (including some EU countries) stingy.

News in that US has put it’s pledge 10-fold, now 350 millions USD. That’s more on the mark, and I’ll stop bashing this individual country. Thank you. More is still needed, though.

Does anyone know how much Mr. Egelund personally donated last year for foreign aid? I agree that our government could do more, but I also notice that no newscast talks about what percentage of GDP for foreign aid comes from private and corporate donations. I’ve looked for these figures to compare to what other countries private citizens donate, and it looks like the Japan, US and Spain are the leaders. I’d welcome any current info on this. Also, where do these funds go, and what are they spent on? Militarization, or food and education?
Do the people affected by these donations appreciate it? Do they even know where it’s coming from, or care? Is it really the responsibility of “rich” nations to provide such aid and how much of it goes to corrupt governments who are plotting ways to hurt the US and it’s form of government and way of life? When you see so many pictures and stories of people who hate the US and our foreign policy, who hate our people and our government, yet hold their hands out for money, it sort makes my stomach turn. I realize that we funnel money to 3rd world countries in hopes that it will curb terrorism but has this policy really worked or are we just the worlds most hated benefactor?
We are told to love thy neighbor, but it really tough when it only applies to “rich” countries. I think we should demand something in return. No, not money or goods, but due diligence, proof that they are using the aid for good not evil.

Besides, Norwegians give over 1 percent of their GDP to foreign aid, compared to measly 0.2 percent by the US. So mr Egeland has all the right in the world (including some EU countries) stingy.

How much does Norway have to spend on Defense? Exactly what percent of its GNP? These numbers you cite look compelling until you know the whole story.

I will give you a clue… Norway spends less than 1% of its GNP on Defense. You are comparing apples to oranges.

Later,

SurferH2O

I have a few comments to make:

1. Norway is one of the most generous countries on the planet. In 2003, Norway gave 0.92% of it’s GDP in aid, the US gave 0.14%. What the HECK does our generosity have to do with our spending on defense???

2. Norway has raised its pledge to US$180.6 million, which in per capita is 33.27 times more per Norwegian than the per capita amount per US citizen. For every $1 you give, we give $33.27 to the tsunami victims (in per capita).

3. On other conservative sites, I’ve read tripe about Quisling, and I think “What the h*** does he have to do with the tsunami disaster???”. Besides, it’s REALLY old “news” (60 years old), plus we HATED him deeply and we shot him to death. Also, he was installed by the Germans, we didn’t elect him. Some people are just so ignorant! Of course, these same people “forgot” about Benedict Arnold, the Rosenberg’s and that CIA agent who spilled his guts to a female Chinese agent.

4. I’m not saying that the US isn’t generous by donating $350 mill. to tsunami victims, and giving billions in aid each year. However, the US is not the MOST generous nation in the world.
I’ve heard that the US is the “leader” in donating to the tsunami victims, although Japan gives US$500 mill. to the disaster victims, leading in the amount of hard cash (total) donated. I’ve also seen Japan beating the US in overall aid given in a year. I believe it was on nationmaster.com, which is a statistical site. Here is the site:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_eco_aid_don

I see a lot of “my dad can beat up your dad” here. It is inappropriate for anyone to complain that somebody else is not giving enough. Notice that the countries and private citizens are “giving”. It is not a global tax that must be paid, it is a gift to the disaster nations. Rather than bashing any nation, Mr. Egeland should have simply expressed thanks. When I give to my kids and they respond by complaining that it is not enough, they end up with nothing. Remember everyone that the giving of aid is not mandatory. If the citizens of the disaster nations paid taxes to the nations that are providing aid, then they would have some expectation of support. They don’t pay taxes to any of the aid giving nations and so, they should EXPECT NOTHING. Remember it is a gift. In my house, we express thanks for a gift, big or small.

First and foremost, our military protects a large portion of the world. Norway’s doesn’t do jack squat. (For that matter, does Norway operate any military bases in the US? We have bases at Sola and Stavanger.) In addition, has anyone calculated how many millions of dollars PER DAY it costs to operate a navy carrier group? Y’know, like the one being used to aid in disaster relief? How many Norweigan naval vessels are out in the Indian Ocean?

The US is the FIRST nation to come to another’s aid. Whenever a disaster happens, who is there first? Answer: The United States of America. Jan Egeland, like all Socialists, needs to be fired.

SurferH2O,

Just a small correction here. The Norwegian defenece budget has loitered closer to 2% of
GNP in recent years, compared to just over 3%
for the US. Per. capita Norway is actually second
in place only to the US within NATO.

Regards…

Bill,

Sola Airport equals Stavanger Airport, Sola.

The US doesn’t have a military presence there today, but during the 50s SAC had a 15-20 men strong contigent stationed there to support bombers who frequently visited. This ended abruptly with the downing of Gary Powers in 1960.

Today it’s a COB-base (of 5 in total), primarily for US tankers and NATO E3 Sentrys and during the 80s F4s from the 108th TFW at McGuire ANG, NJ, were stationed there serveral times during NATO exercises up north.

What the US has in terms of military presence in Norway today, apart from joint NATO command and early warning facilities, is primarily the Norway Air-Landed Marine Expeditionary Brigade (NALMEB) and Norway Air Landed Marine Air Ground Task Force (NALMAGTAF), the Marine Corps only land-based prepositioned stock.

Regards,
Bjørnar

Jan Egelands remark was misunderstood by Bush,
it was not directed solely at the US and it was not an answer to the tsunami aid effort.

Noone in his or her right mind would dispute that
the US is a huge multifacetted contributer to foreign development aid, but at the same time it’s
also a huge contributer to the roots of the problem in the first place, for instance unfair trading rules for the 3rd world.

But Jan Egelands remark was fully justified on the basis of failure by the OECD countries to live up to the promises made to the UN about providing developing
aid to the poor countries. It’s been 35 years since the UN adapted the Paerson commision outline og a goal of 0.7% ODA per. GNP and still OECD averages around 0.23%. Infact, in the past 50 years there has been a considerable reduction of aid overall.

Regards,
Bjornar