Here is some Food For Thought !
This sort of puts a totally different slant on the victims of the recent
tsunami. You will understand why the letters, "U.N.," could be redefined as
"Useless Numbskulls." Read all the way through to see.
The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest Vol: 7 Issue: 4 - Tuesday, January 04,
2005 - Plain Text "Natural Disasters? Blame America!"
There are over six billion people living on our planet. Of that six
billion, almost two billion are Muslims. That's roughly a third of the
total population of the earth.
The earthquake that triggered the killer tsunami was centered just off the
coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Indonesia is the world's most
populous Muslim country. It was also the most severely devastated by the
wave. Nearly 100,000 of the victims of the December 26 catastrophe were
Indonesian Muslims. The vast majority of the victims were either Muslims,
Buddhists or Hindu. Got all that? Good.
Now, to the United Nations. The United Nations consists of 186 countries.
The most powerful voting bloc is the fifty-seven Islamic countries that
generally vote with one voice, especially when the United States or Israel
are voting the other way.
The United Nations' head of humanitarian relief, Jan Egeland, criticized the
West for being stingy. He didn't specifically mention America, but he cited
the exact percentage of the U.S. GDP that is budgeted for foreign aid, so
there is little doubt of who the 'stingy West' was, at least in Egeland's
mind. Egeland slammed the United States for not raising taxes so that
America could give a greater percentage of its GDP to the UN to distribute
as part of the UN's foreign aid package.
Editorials in the Washington Post, the New York Times and other liberal
newspapers echoed Egeland's charge, with the New York Times calling
America's $350 million in direct government aid 'miserly'.
The United States makes up some six percent of the world's total population,
but we pay a quarter of the United Nation's total budget. The United States
pays forty percent of the world's total disaster relief aid, and sixty
percent of the world's total food donations.
The $2.4 billion (that's BILLION) dollars Washington spent in emergency aid
in 2003 represented 40 percent of the total amount of emergency assistance
from all bilateral donors provided that year. Evidently, that isn't enough.
It didn't take long for these same liberal elitists to turn Mother Nature
into an American right-wing hater of Islam. Not only had America's
imperialistic self-enrichment policies created the natural disaster, but
also cold-hearted Muslim-hating President Bush wouldn't leave his ranch in
Texas...which by the way, is his home--not a vacation destination--and only
offered a 'stingy' initial monetary donation.
While these elitist journalist were assailing President Bush and expounding
the mantra that America should be giving more money to the devastated region
in a token gesture that would 'show Islam that America didn't hate Muslims',
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was still on his vacation skiing in Jackson
Hole, Wyoming. He returned to New York four days later.
The wave struck on Sunday, and it took only until Monday before the U.S.
announced its $350 million in initial aid, sent the USS Abraham Lincoln into
the region, including helicopters, and C-130 transport planes, sent hundreds
of tons of pre-packaged emergency aid supplies, and deployed some 14,000
American troops to help with the recovery and cleanup. In Indonesia, U.S.
helicopters flew at least 30 sorties, delivering 60,000 pounds of water and
supplies, from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln along a 120-mile stretch of Sumatra island's ravaged
coastline.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the richest nations in the Islamic world, donated a
paltry $10 million each. The United Arab Emirates donated some $20 million
to relieve the suffering of their Islamic 'brothers'. Egypt's contribution
so far is $104,000.00. (Egypt gets $2 BILLION in U.S. foreign aid annually).
Assessment: Did anybody notice that the majority of the private donations
came from those evil corporate types the left so loves to loathe? Pfizer
donated $10 million in cash and $25 million in drugs. (That is more than
oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined). General Motors pledged $2
million in cash, agreed to match employee donations dollar for dollar, and
is sending vehicles to transport food and medical supplies to the region.
Other corporate donors include Nike Inc., American Express, General
Electric, First Data Corp., Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Exxon-Mobil, Citigroup,
Marriott International and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
On the other hand, where are all the Hollywood liberals? Activist actors
such as Ben Affleck, Susan Sarandon, Al Franken, P. Diddy, and Barbra
Streisand have not been heard from. Where is George Soros, the world's
richest left wing liberal? Actress Sandra Bullock donated one million
dollars, but Bullock is neither an activist nor a liberal. (She also
donated one million following September 11). Super-rich liberals like Bono
and Bruce Springsteen are promising to hold another 'aid concert' to collect
money (not theirs) for the victims.
America, as noted at the outset, represents six percent of the global
population. But in any catastrophe, it gets one hundred percent of the
blame. The UN's nose is out of joint because the Bush administration
refuses to funnel its aid through the UN's various aid agencies. Kofi Annan
wants to use the catastrophe to shore up the UN's sagging image in the wake
of the Oil-For-Food thefts from Iraq.
The United States wants to ensure the aid doesn't end up lining the pockets
of UN officials. So the U.S. is 'too stingy' and gets another black eye.
Where is the rest of the Islamic world? There are fifty-seven Islamic
nations, and the world's biggest Islamic nation is the one that took the
hardest hit. But it is the United States--the world's largest donor
nation--that is grabbing all the headlines for being 'stingy'.
To put things in perspective, I saw a news photo yesterday of one of the
Indonesian victims. He was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the face of
Osama bin Laden.
