We ARE fucking Stingy

And while I can and will criticize Bush for his appalling wait to say one damn thing about the humanitarian disaster along the rim of the Northern Indian Ocean, I am not going to single he and his Administration out as being solely parsimonious when it comes to foreign assistance.

The problem is bipartisan, both Republicans and Democrats in a nation as wealthy as ours do damn little to assist the poor both within our own nation and without. As a percentage of GNP the United States is one of the stingiest nations on earth, perhaps the stingiest when it comes to humanitarian aid and assistance.

As pointed out by Champollion $35 Million (and of course there will be more) is shockingly cheap when compared to the $147 BILLION already spent in Iraq and an additional $80 Billion to come. And for that nearly QUARTER OF A TRILLION we have reaped little but death, destruction and almost certainly in the end failure. Our now 22 months in Iraq has managed to kill more than 100,000 Iraqis and more than 1,300 American Soldiers (with tens of thousands of permanently wounded on top of it). We have not, and likely will not, build any kind of stability into that region no matter what Bush and Holy Joe Lieberman proclaim. No matter what we build there it is hardly worth the blood and treasure spent.

Meanwhile, as the cost of our military action skyrockets to unbelievable levels, as this site says...

Two days before Christmas, the media reported that unprecedented U.S. deficits -- caused substantially by the Iraq war, which most of the world hates, and by Bush's tax cuts for wealthy Americans -- had led the Bush administration to cut substantially its previously agreed contributions to world food programs. By going back on its commitments, the Bush administration forced numerous aid agencies to suspend ongoing programs in many impoverished nations -- including, ironically as it would turn out, Indonesia.

...

Contrast Bush's behavior to that of the world on Sept. 11, 2001, when the United States lost 3,000 people to terrorist attacks. The expressions of grief, support and solidarity from world leaders -- including Asian leaders -- were both abundant and public.

At every step of the way, however, the official U.S. response to this disaster has been seen as grudging. That's not good, especially at a time when much of the world reviles the United States for its unilateral actions in Iraq that have taken such a horrific toll on civilians.

As Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Washington Post, "When that many human beings die -- at the hands of terrorists or nature -- you've got to show that this matters to you, that you care." By its niggling contributions and by Bush's silence, the United States has strongly suggested to the world that it doesn't care all that much.

In this country, we are now seeing popping up on places like FoxNews and right-wing radio all sorts of excuses and justifications.

The United States likes to portray itself as this great "humanitarian" nation, and at times this view is justified. However, as was pointed out by others, as we have become richer, we have become less charitable with our wealth.

The United States has a soft-power (it's perceived benevolence and humanitarianism in the cause of liberty and individual human rights) that for most of our post-World War II history has served us to our great benefit. However, twice we have neglected it in favor of our military arm pushing our policies through overt (as opposed to covert) actions, Vietnam and Iraq. Twice now it has burned us and burned us badly. Even more than LBJ and Nixon, Bush is spending our soft-power like water and the reaction to the disaster in Southeast Asia is just the latest example, always they lay low and try to excuse themselves later.

We are paying the price for this now, and will pay the price even more substantially later.

Bluntly, as the nation possessing far more military and economic power than any nation that ever existed and lacking any real contestant but one we project out and fabricate for the future (i.e. China) we have less need for modern-day Metternichs (Kissingers) and more Kelloggs in our foreign policy.

UPDATE:

The New York Times Editorial Board is of the same opinion (if only they were of "the Bobo").

Mr. Egeland was right on target. We hope Secretary of State Colin Powell was privately embarrassed when, two days into a catastrophic disaster that hit 12 of the world's poorer countries and will cost billions of dollars to meliorate, he held a press conference to say that America, the world's richest nation, would contribute $15 million. That's less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities.

The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million, and we applaud Mr. Bush's turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid. According to a poll, most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent.

...

Making things worse, we often pledge more money than we actually deliver. Victims of the earthquake in Bam, Iran, a year ago are still living in tents because aid, including ours, has not materialized in the amounts pledged. And back in 2002, Mr. Bush announced his Millennium Challenge account to give African countries development assistance of up to $5 billion a year, but the account has yet to disperse a single dollar.

Thanks to the NY Times Editorial (there's a rarity) for elucidating something that one will not hear on ANY broadcast network.