Awaiting a wave of relief

Dan Sernoffsky

On the day after Christmas, large parts of southern Asia were ravaged by massive tsunami generated by an undersea earthquake. The devastation has been wide-spread, and the loss of life is approaching — if it hasn’t already reached — 150,000.

In the 10 days since the tsunami struck, rescue and relief operations have been undertaken on an unprecedented scale. The United States has been in the forefront of those operations.

But, not surprisingly, the United States has also been singled out for criticism for any number of reasons.

• Jan Egeland, a Norwegian working out of that bastion of financial responsibility called the United Nations, excoriated the U.S. for being “stingy.”

• The anti-American left throughout the world is blaming the U.S. for hoarding capital and creating the poverty that led to the devastation of the tsunami.

• The pseudo-scientific global warming crowd is blaming the U.S. for causing the earthquake and tsunami in the first place.

• The American left is castigating President Bush for not immediately flying back to Washington from his Crawford, Texas, ranch to do more, and suggesting that the U.S. can mend all sorts of fences in the Muslim world, fences destroyed when the U.S. liberated Afghanistan and is now only a few weeks away from completing the liberation of Iraq.

Of course, no one, not even the most ardent haters of the United States, is going to suggest that the countries that were victimized by the natural disaster react as did Sri Lanka to Israel’s offer of help. Sri Lanka, a predominantly Muslim nation, outrightly rejected Israel’s offer because Israel is a Jewish state, and fueling the fires of anti-Semitism, regardless of consequences, is infinitely preferable to accepting humanitarian aid.

The amount of money the United States will be spending on humanitarian aid for southern Asia, no matter what Egeland says, is going to far outstrip what anyone else spends. Various dollar amounts have already been bandied about concerning how much the United States will be putting into the relief effort, but those amounts won’t come close to matching what is actually being spent.

For starters, the United States already has the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, along with something like 5,000 troops and assorted helicopters and other aircraft, on site to help. The cost of the military assistance is not included when the contributions are added up.

Neither, for that matter, is the money that private charities in the United States have been raising since the tsunami struck. The only money that Egeland and his ilk count is that spent by governments. It won’t be reported, but the myriad of religious-based and other charitable organizations in the U.S. will raise through private contributions will probably easily surpass the amounts pledged by most other governments.

But oddly enough, while the United States is once again rolling up its sleeves and reaching into its pockets to help others for no other reason than that it is the right thing to do, no other country has been quite as willing to lend a helping hand when the U.S. suffers a natural disaster. Where, when Hurricane Andrew struck, or Hurricane Camille, or when the Mississippi flooded, were Jan Egeland and his U.N. friends to call for humanitarian assistance? (Actually, most of them were probably too busy banking all their proceeds from the totally corrupt oil-for-food program in Saddam’s Iraq).

And, considering that the area is predominantly Muslim, where is the latest tape from Osama bin Laden calling for at least a temporary halt to jihad in favor of helping out his fellow believers? It was no less than a sitting U.S. Senator, after all, who paid homage to bin Laden. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash) suggested that bin Laden was popular because “He’s been out in these countries for decades building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health-care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven’t done that.” If that is indeed the case, it would seem he might consider exhorting his fellow Muslims to forget about spending money on weapons designed to destroy the “Great Satan” and instead spend money on disaster relief.

Still, what others say and do will matter little in the long run. Once again, the U.S. will supply most of the money and most of the help. And, once again, no one will care.

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Dan Sernoffsky is an award-winning sportswriter and political columnist for The Lebanon Daily News in Lebanon, Pa. A career journalist, he is a graduate of Ottawa University, Ottawa, Ks., and attended graduate school at Central Michigan University. The father of four grown children, he and his wife reside in Lebanon.

dsernoffsky@yahoo.com