Senator Leahy's Idea re Tsunami Relief

[cali]

Senator Leahy suggests that we release some of the unspent 18 billion dollars set aside for Iraqi reconstruction for relief efforts to the countries hit by the tsunami. He stated yesterday that he was appalled by the measly amount pledged by bushco. As he said, we spend more in Iraq every day before breakfast. (I'm paraphrasing from what I heard on Vermont Public Radio) I like the idea of taking some of the Iraqi reconstruction funds that are just sitting there- hey, what's a hundred million or so out of 18 billion?

[flpoljunkie]

1. How "stingy" we look when compared to Spain who's giving $68 million!

Which is no doubt a far bigger share of their GNP than Dubya is pledging from the United States for this unparalled natural disaster.

[Name removed]

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[cali]

4. I'm more than willing to take

the chance that some of the money or supplies allocated won't reach the victims. Most of it will. And where's your proof that these governments "are ruled by crooked "royal" families or phony democracies"? You want to see "caution before we send money to them"? What you'll see is needless death and suffering from preventable disease. Aren't you just a bundle of compassion.

[shadowknows69]

5. everyone in the country needs to write the WH a letter

saying we the American taxpayers demand that you spend our money to help people not kill people. Give some of that 18 bil to the relief effort or give it back to us and we'll donate it. I'll bet if they got a letter from 59 million people they'd do something.

[cali]

6. I think we should contact

our reps and senators about this, and press them to support the release of $100 million from the unspent (for almost two years now) Iraqi reconstruction funds.

[Atman]

13. $100 mil for two years...what's the interest on that?

Can we just donate the INTEREST, for Christ fucking sake?????

[Kolesar]

7. the newbie's posts on other threads today were just as unenlightened

He joined yesterday.

[Piperay]

19. Yeah

the post all have certain 'air' about them. x(

[jobycom]

8. Bullshit. The money needs to be there right now, not sometime after

our own corrupt government decides it's safe. If some of it gets skimmed off the top by corrupt officials, then fine, that's just the cost of doing business in some parts of the world. We just flood the region with enough cash to satisfy the crooks AND help the region.

This is such a typical Republican response. Reagan waited too long to respond to AIDS, and it got out of control. Bush Daddy waited too long to respond after Andrew, and it made people suffer. Bush Baby has waited too long to send our own troops proper equipment, and thousands of them have died. Bush Baby waited too long to develop any plan for controlling Iraq after his bloody slaughter there, and tens of thousands more have died in the violence Bush should have prepared for.

Our cheap-ass Republican government flushes billions down the toilet in corporate giveaways every year, and we're too god damned stingy to send a hundred million to a part of the world in desperate, immediate need of it? The death toll will triple as disease and famine and shock and depression set in, while we worry that some county supervisor may steal a thousand bucks or so. Next year a government panel will be appointed to determine whether we screwed up, and how many lives would have been saved, and Bush will again say "Well, no one really knew the full extent of the situation," and he'll retire and have an airport and aircraft carrier named after him while the Indian Ocean coastal regions struggle to recover from a holocaust equal to what Hitler brought onto the Jews.

I'm ashamed of this nation right now. I didn't think I could become more ashamed than I was after we invaded a nation at peace with us, but I was wrong. If we were the nation we once were, as recently as a few years ago, under Clinton, the people would rise up in revolt against the evil bastard in the White House. Instead people are debating whether the word "stingy" was too harsh as hundreds of thousands of people die.

Our flag shouldn't be red, white and blue, it should just be red, and the red should be dripping into a bloody poodle at the base of every flagpole. This is disgusting.

[KDLarsen]

9. Enjoy your stay..

.. don't let the door hit you on your way out.

[salin]

11. sorta like the US controlled CPA in Iraq?

where all sorts of reconstruction dollars are unaccounted for? Money that went more to US (bushcronyconnected) firms than those that employed Iraqis (which could have bought more economic secure friends on the ground in the beginning?) Sorta like that?

[KharmaTrain]

12. We're Not Talking Securities, We're Talking Food & Water

Right now millions have little to no potable water...their sanitation systems (what meager ones most had) have been destroyed as well as most of the basic infrastructures. This isn't politics, this is true human need, and there shouldn't be a price tag at this point to help in keeping these more people from perishing than is humanly possible.

Unfortuately, this regime props up a lot of these phony regimes you describe through direct World Bank scam loans and a kleptocracy with many of our multinational corporations...shouldn't that be where we investigate where the money goes rather than to a starving family in Aceh Badeh?

While I admire Sen. Lahey's gesture, I see it as posturing since there is no way such an idea would have been floated had the Democrats been in control, but then we wouldn't have been in a dead-end war for corporate profiteering.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

14. So you think an American or Western white person should be there

to dole it out?

[spanone]

15. Yea, let's give it to Halliburton so they can screw us.

You don't think we're being scammed in Iraq by Halliburton, Kellog, Brown & Root?

[miss_kitty]

16. well, this is definitely a country that would know all about crooked govt

[idiosyncratic]

17. Very astute observation. Thanks. n/t

[indepat]

10. America should only be as generous as we would like the world should Yel-

lowstone ever blow, IMHO.

[janx]

18. That guy is one of my all-time favorite senators.

He's right, but I have no illusion that such a thing will happen.

This whole thing has shown us, again, how utterly reckless the Iraq War undertaking was...now we're not able to help the tsunami victims as we should.

It's pathetic, and I think that is the crux of Senator Leahy's point.