An etherealgirl's Adventures in Cyberland

Saturday, September 03, 2005

mayor daley shocked as feds reject aid

story here:

A visibly angry Mayor Daley said the city had offered emergency, medical and technical help to the federal government as early as Sunday to assist people in the areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, but as of Friday, the only things the feds said they wanted was a single tank truck.

That truck, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency requested to support an Illinois-based medical team, was en route Friday.


In the last few days I have been reading belligerent statements in some rightwing blogs about the lack of assistance coming from the rest of the world. As usual, nothing could be further from the truth:

France, Cuba, Venezuela among those offering aid.

The United States, which has the world's largest economy, lags behind other rich nations in the percentage of its giving to nations in Africa, the world's poorest continent.

By Friday, offers had been received from Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belgium, Britain, Canada, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Greece, Georgia, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates.


Why the hold up in accepting aid? Why the hold up in getting those poor people rescued in the first place? Why did the delays occur long enough to allow the situation to devolve into the additional crisis of having to deal with looters?

It just really doesn't make any sense at all.

Posted by etherealfire :: 10:42 PM :: 0 Comments:

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