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The silence is deafening

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  • The silence is deafening

    Chuck, I think other nations believe that since we are so powerful, successful, and wealthy, that we can do it by ourselves. And, we can. I'd rather our friends stay silent than make some disingenuous offer they won't or can't follow through on. Besides, all they want from us is our cash. Even when we helped after the Tsunami, the people there wanted us to drop off the cash and run. Many people complained that our military helped save their sorry a**es. Tom.

  • #2
    The silence is deafening

    Chuck, Don't be so certain that the rest of the world is not responding. I suspect that you read, watch and listen to American media that, naturally and understandably, reports on the catastrophe, not on the world response to it, but that does not mean that the there is no response. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but here in Canada the media coverage has been relentless. The Canadian Red Cross immediately set up a fund to help out and many of the media have set up links to it on their Web sites. The Canadian government has already said that it will provide any assistance that it can. The US government asked Canada to do an inventory of drugs that could be sent down to help out with the health crisis in the hurricane affected areas. That inventory has already been done and relayed. The Canadian government is prepared to send the Disaster Assistance Response Team that it sent to help out after the Tsunami. That team costs $10 million just to mobilize. We have a lot of jazz clubs in Toronto that always have some New Orleans-based players up performing. Some of them now have no place to go and there's already been a benefit concert organized to help them. Here's a link to an article that lists only part of the Canadian response: http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/ne...ntent=n083157A I suspect that similar efforts are under way in the rest of the world but I read a combination of American and Canadian media and our media are more focused on the Canadian response than on the rest of the world's response. I understand why American media focus on the American disaster, and that is as it should be. But when people elsewhere in the world do respond and then hear comments such as yours they mistake it for a lack of gratitude. Joel

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    • #3
      The silence is deafening

      On a side note, has anyone heard from CTIBODOE? I know he was from that area.

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      • #4
        The silence is deafening

        Here's an article in London's Financial Times. http://tinyurl.com/9ychj Apparently, some countries in Europe are going to release some of their petrol (er, gas) stocks if needed. And I've seen other articles talking about some of the positive promises from other countries. Here's one example: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168129,00.html and another: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168002,00.html So we'll see. Brian

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        • #5
          The silence is deafening

          This out of a U.S. State Department press release:
          Countries that have offered assistance include Canada, France, Honduras, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said during a September 1 press briefing. Many more countries have offered assistance, and many have offered condolences, he said.
          Source: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/di...wf-latest.html A Word Vision Canada press release outlining what it is doing is located at: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/a.../01/c5341.html

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          • #6
            The silence is deafening

            Still more on outside help. I found this article in a U.S. news (SFGate.com, although it came from an Associated Press story so it was probably in a few of newspapers.) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...w140304D15.DTL

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            • #7
              The silence is deafening

              More on the Canadian effort: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...hub=TopStories And before I start hearing screams about why did the foreign community take so long to send help, take a look at a transcript of a press conference given on Friday Sept. 2, already a few days after Katrina, by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. (It's posted on the State Department's site: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/52478.htm ) A few choice quotes:
              ...
              QUESTION: Madame Secretary, no offer has been turned down, but according to FEMA, from them at least, no offer has been accepted yet. I mean, what good is it to have, you know, nearly 60 countries step forward and offer assistance and apparently, at least as far as FEMA is concerned, they haven't been able to accept any of those offers?
              SECRETARY RICE: Well, as we are speaking or perhaps just a little bit before we were speaking, there is a group that is working. Harry Thomas, who is the Executive Secretary here at the State Department and is the person who is in charge of coordinating this international effort, he is working with FEMA to go through the list, to see what might be used in the short term.
              Obviously, in some cases, in places like New Orleans, it's a matter of access; but, to see which of the offers can be taken up immediately, which others might need to be taken up somewhat later, but we are matching those offers now to the needs on the ground.
              ...
              QUESTION: Can you confirm that you had a phone conversation with the French Foreign Minister about help that France would like to give to Louisiana? And could you give me the answer, please?
              SECRETARY RICE: I did talk to the French Foreign Minister, to Mr. Douste-Blazy, this afternoon. And he talked about some pre-positioned equipment that they had not far from the United States. And I said to him what I've been saying to everyone, which is that we are working very closely with the Department of Homeland Security to match up what is available with what is needed, and that I WOULD GET BACK TO HIM [the emphasis is mine, JK]. But I did, indeed, speak with him today.
              "I would get back to him"? I WOULD GET BACK TO HIM! People are dying. The world is begging to help and they are being put off by the American government. The Canadian Prime Minister had a telephone call scheduled with President Bush for last Thursday. It had been set up long before Katrina and the topic was supposed to be a trade dispute. That topic was obviously dropped and they talked exclusively about Katrina. Prime Minister Martin said to President Bush, in effect, tell us what you need and if we've got it, you've got it. I'm not sure of the chronology, but the senior officer in our military, General Hillier, also called up the U.S. Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and said basically the same thing. What response did they get? They were told "we're still assessing our needs. We'll get back to you." The Canadian military realized that it couldn't just snap its fingers, get everything together and get it down there, so, rather than wait for the U.S. government to figure out what it needs, our military has already started loading three navy ships and one coast guard ship with electrical transformers and other supplies. It's also assembled a team of 1,000 people, military engineers who, among other things, can help to restore power, along with a team of divers. They should be ready to sail by Tuesday at the latest. (The article linked to above says that the divers will be flying out rather than waiting for the ships.) A Canadian military plane has already flown down there to transport a team from the Canadian Red Cross to help its American counterpart. One request that Canada did get was for the Vancouver Urban Search and Rescue team, which is Canada's only urban search and rescue team and is world-class. They flew down there last Wednesday and then were ordered by the state police to sit on their backsides for a couple of days because the police could not protect them in the midst of the violence that's going on. The Vancouver USAR has since begun work. I just read today (in the article linked to above) that the U.S. government has finally requested some stuff from Canada and that's going to be airlifted down tomorrow rather than waiting for the ships that will be heading out Tuesday.

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              • #8
                The silence is deafening

                Being preoccupied with some of the usual, unusual, normal and some abnormal craziness that goes on at my work, I have not spent much time with the news coverage lately. However, I do specifically remember hearing a quick LA local news broadcast (LA style, filled to the tee with hype and glamor) sound bite reporting that countries from all over the world are offering support. I remember thinking, as an American, that this is very cool to hear, (considering there can be so much anti-US negativitiy in the network news at times). BTW, I usually get my news from the Internet, radio, cable and rarely do I watch the networked television news stations. Yesterday, I watched 'The McLaughlin Group' and some of the panelist painted a picture of President Bush being preoccupied with other commitments along with the surging price of oil, suggesting that this further distracted him from the disaster at hand. Another panelist then countered that Bush had a few off days but will have a big comeback later this week. Then I watched 'Meet the Press' earleir this moring with Tim Russert and he had the Homeland Security dude on and was grilling him with a documented news article that eerily predicted this very disater 4 years ago. As George Harrison's song goes 'It's All Too Much'.

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                • #9
                  The silence is deafening

                  Hi Joe, I lived in Covington, north of Lake Pontchartrain, past tense on purpose, house is fine, only one tree resting on it and a stinky fridge(neighbor who stayed behind is taking care of this...his new job). I recently married in July have a great family, had a great Job which I had no intention of leaving for any reason within my control, a nice place to live, shrimp in the freezer and and evacuated my new family to Little Rock last Sunday. I have been in Atlanta for last few days, I have two adult children who live here and a son stationed in the UK. I was working for a national corp whose hq was in Jefferson Parish and employed approx 550 people there. I have been in touch with 2 layers of management above me and have no guarantee of anything except no guaranteed pay. I just sold a waterfront camp in Slidell on July 5 (long sigh). What's next? Don't expect any dust to settle on this keyboard. Am ready, able to contract on site or remote, your Box or my timeshare, or will take the right permanent opportunity, as this is a life changing event for the whole country (in case anyone hasn't realised this yet). The first essentials I loaded, was first... the new desktop, the laptop and all my reference books. So, I'm fine and some company, somewhere is getting ready to benefit from the storm. Thanks

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                  • #10
                    The silence is deafening

                    For good local info for New Orleans area go to wwltv.com

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                    • #11
                      The silence is deafening

                      Your own government seems to be blocking aid from your "friends". Here in Australia there is also much complaining about the US government not allowing australian diplomats access to affected areas to retrieve/assist stranded australian tourists.

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                      • #12
                        The silence is deafening

                        Well, it was about time. Just like the calvary, my company almost seemed to come too late. It took em a week, to decide to keep us. I still have a great job if it wasn't one of those you don't have anything to worry about your job speeches. To be fair, neither seemed to come soon enough, but there is the confusion of war, especially when no one seemed to know the 5 P's of management: Prior, Planning, Prevents, Poor, Performance. No Plan=No Performance. But, all branches of government share the blame, and so do a good portion of the people who stayed behind who were able to leave...bad decisions. The real culprit was money and will stay money. Everything costs money. The decision of where to spend that money killed all those people, from the people who died, to all local politicians, then to all national politians. Remember the cold war? In this country the only Prior Planning that was done, was for the Branches of Government and that money was spent in secret. I made the decision to spend the money to leave my home. I get to live with the consequences of that decision. My company, had they waited another 24 hours to spend some more money on me, would have had to live with their consequences (wouldn't have been a big deal for them, but a little more expensive).

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                        • #13
                          The silence is deafening

                          I heard that Cuba and Venezuela offered assistance too. Now, before you go dismissing these offers as simple propaganda efforts, let's not forget that these countries have physical proximity to the affected areas. In addition, the offers that I heard were for resources that it seemed to me were well within these countries capabilities, and would have been very useful too. There were no offers of "Unobtanium", or ski-doo suits. The world sees suffering and responded appropriately. The problem isn't a lack of offers, or mismatched resources to needs. The problem was a lack of preparedness at the outset, a serious lack of urgency at the highest levels, followed up by proud refusals to be helped in a time of need. Those are all home-grown issues.

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                          • #14
                            The silence is deafening

                            Brian, Stick to "waxing philosophical" and avoid geography if possible. Caracas is about 2,000 miles from both New Orleans and Mobile. To put it in perspective, both Montreal and even Calgary are closer to the Gulf coast than that. I know that everything is on a bigger scale up there but I'll bet that even a Canadian wouldn't say that Montreal is in the proximity of Biloxi. Mike

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                            • #15
                              The silence is deafening

                              Last year when the Tsunami hit Asia the United Sates, many other nations and many charities mobilized within 24 hours to aid the victims of the storm. Now, nearly 3 days after what is considered the worst disaster on U.S. soil the silence from our "friends" is deafening.

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