30 December 2004

Imagine September the 11th ... Times 30.

That's what the death and destruction of the tsunamis left behind.

Famine, pestilence, disease and death await the "lucky" survivors unless massive amounts of aid gets through quickly.

Just like the war in Iraq, the Bush administration has tried to deal with this on the cheap, and then found that the problem requires several orders of magnitude more money and effort than they at first thought. Meanwhile, tens of thousands will die needlessly. Yup, that's our Bush!

The United States thoroughly embarrassed itself by initially pledging a paltry $15 million in aid. Bush has now "adjusted" that to $35 million, or about the cost of a medium-sized city park restoration. Nice.

Some perspective on this:
US aid pledged so far: $35 million.
Estimated cost of Bush's crowning ceremony in January: $40-50 million, not counting security.
Daily cost of the War on Iraq: $177 million. That's each and every day.

The good and decent people of America and other countries are, I'm sure, doing their best to step up and fill in for our government's lack of leadership. And I salute this selflessness on the part of so many. But it doesn't even begin to make up for the fact that the government should be leading the way, with its superior resources and abilities. I haven't been this ashamed of my country since ... well since November.

Sigh.

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