In response to this post from yesterday, two passionate FrontBurnervians chastise their fellow contributor and say this is not the time for cynicism:
I hate other countries as much as the next guy, but this post is lame. There has been quite the appropriate response from our friends and allies, from letters of condolence from overseas to concrete offers of assistance from Canada and others. Only a real a–hole offers help to others (our tsunami aid) only to hold it over them later. Dude needs to shut up, help out, and save the politics for later.
And this:
I read with disbelief the email you posted. Had the US government or private American citizens sent $2 billion by December 28, 2 days after the tsunami? No. In fact, the U.S. government had pledged a whopping $15 million by that point, and private donations had just gotten started because the scale of the disaster had not yet become apparent. The government’s final pledge of $950 million did not come until February 9, six weeks after the disaster.
From the sound of reports coming in from Lousiana and Mississippi, at this point we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of the scale of this disaster. While I doubt any individual country is going to give $2 billion in relief pledges to the victims of this disaster, it is way to early to start playing the “see how bad everybody treats us” card.
