Actually, *you* were the one that singled out the United States. The undersecretary's statements referred to the United States and other Developed Industrial countries of the world, including Britain.
"In a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York, Egeland called for a major international response -- and went so far as to call the U.S. government and others "stingy" on foreign aid in general. "If, actually, the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of the gross national income, I think that is stingy, really," he said. "I don't think that is very generous." " ""The 0.2 percent of U.S. gross national product represented by foreign aid obligations the past two years, however, is among the smallest amounts in the last half-century. The United States is the largest international economic aid donor in dollar terms but is the smallest contributor among the major donor governments when calculated as a percent of gross national income," said the report, which is posted on the U.S. State Department's Web site." "Egeland, at the U.N. news conference, said the cost of the devastation will "probably be many billions of dollars. However, we cannot fathom the cost of these poor societies and the nameless fishermen and fishing villages that have just been wiped out." "The important thing is that we give and that we as citizens also demand that our countries give generously to those who have been so hard hit."" Feel free to refute those facts and thus debunk the notion that the initial offers by developed industrial countries, INCLUDING the United States was 'stingy' given the scale of the disaster. This thread is turning into a poster child for Americans working overtime to push some Postive PR to counteract those that claim the US is Arrogant, Imperialistic and Elitist by complaining that the US isn't getting enough good PR by providing aid in the world's most horrible natural disaster in recent memory. Keep up the good work. Yup. -Gel -----Original Message----- From: William Bowen But what I _do_ think is that it is a royal pain in the ass that every time the US opens its checkbook, we get shat upon for doing so. I think it is unconscionable that there are governments (including ours) that will withhold aid based on the other participants or the recipients. I don't like the attitude that those receiving aid (from many sources) would single out a particular source and say, "not you." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Special thanks to the CF Community Suite Silver Sponsor - New Atlanta http://www.newatlanta.com Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:141100 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
