Tsunami disaster

[seraphim]

Does anyone else see the U.S and Britains over eager willingness to help with the disaster as a cynical attempt to sway world opinion after the debacle that was the Iraq conflict?

[h&s]

Of course. The ammount of money pledged by the US to help in SE Asia, while being in good will, is dispicible. They have pledged the equivalent of the cost of just 1 and a half days of occupying Iraq. That is just a few hours worth of Pentagon spending. Just shows where their priorities are...

[Big_Don]

It seems that all governments are being attacked for failing to react quickly enough. Both in Canada and the US the criticism is the same. It should be pointed out that the majority of the criticism comes from those who oppose the government politically, they ought to be ashamed of their blatant politicking. As for the slow reaction, more than 24 hours after the disaster, local authorities were estimating deaths at less than 10,000. It was only in the third or fourth day that the numbers escalated to the horrific levels we see now. Good luck and Godspeed to those trusted to deliver aid to the victims.

[Pawn Power]

The U$ can donate all the cash it wants but it will not take away from the fact that it has created its own disaster. Over 100,000 people have been killed in Iraq since U$ occupation. And unlike a natural disaster, this one could have been completly prevented.
Makes one sick :angry:

[Zombad]

I don't dispute that many countries are donating because they do actually care about those lost and affected by this terrible tradegy. However I can't help being cynical about the reasons outright for the donations. Those from the capitalist nations (inparticular by america) are just a western attempt to show that they 'care' about south east asia. All they care about are the cheap exploited labour they have probably lost.

[h&s]

Originally posted by Revolution is the [email protected] 5 2005, 04:43 PM
And unlike a natural disaster, this one could have been completly prevented.
Makes one sick :angry:
Don't think that the Tsunami disaster could not have been prevented. I'm not saying that no one would have dies, but the death count could have been much lower. For example, when the first wave hit Indonesia an Indian boy working in Singapore heard about it on the news and straight away phoned his family in India. That family warned their whole village, and not one of them died as a result. You'd think that officials in Indonesia would bother to warn other countries, but they didn't.
A meeting of marine geographers met in SE Asia in June, and concluded that a Tsunami early warning system was needed. An early warning system would have given those in Indonesia half an hours warning, and those in India four hours warning.
Of course no government would want to spend that much money on its people though....