Bush Outlines U.S. Tsunami Relief Efforts (radio address)

[Rose Siding]

snip>
"In this time of grief for so many around the world, Americans have come together to pray for the victims and families of the tsunami disaster," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

"We think especially of the children who have been lost, and the survivors searching for their families. And we offer our sustained compassion and generosity as the people of the devastated region begin to rebuild."

The administration's pledge of $350 million — which Bush called only an "initial commitment" and is essentially a line of credit that can be spent as American relief officials identify needs — ranks fourth behind Australia, Japan and Germany.
...
"We are rushing food, medicine, and other vital supplies to the region," Bush said. "We are focusing efforts on helping the women and children who need special attention, including protection from the evil of human trafficking."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20050108/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

[RC]

1. Helping the women and children, huh?

Men don't need help? Or does he think mostly women and children survive, like in most wars, 'cause the men out there doing the fighting?

[arikara]

2. Other vital supplies being helicopters and guns for the armies

over there so that they can spread "democracy" while the population is devastated. Filling the coffers of the chimp's base is an added bonus.

Chimpy was very slow to realize the potential of this disaster but he's making up for lost time now.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

3. Bush is using the disaster to re-establish U.S. military presence

in an area that we're not wanted by the local populace. Under the pretext of establishing a "temporary" logistics base for relief supplies at Utapao Air Base in Thailand (used extensively during the Vietnam War), the Pentagon will now be able to bring it the equipment and personnel to establish an anchor base from which to project U.S. military power throughout Southeast Asia.

It's part of the "Leave no crisis behind" program whereby Bush uses every calamity (9-11, the tsunami, "WMD") to forward the neo-con agenda of global domination.

[Rose Siding]

That's dead on. Blumenthal writes...

US support for Indonesia's army is compromising its relief effort
...
Now the White House spokesman reassured the country that Bush was "clearing some brush this morning; I think he has some friends coming in ... that he enjoys hosting; he's doing some biking and exercising ... taking walks with the first lady..." The spokesman said US aid would be increased to $35m, and added a jibe at Clinton: "The president wanted to be fully briefed on our efforts. He didn't want to make a symbolic statement about 'we feel your pain'. "

For Bush, the war on terrorism is the alpha and omega of foreign policy, and it did not occur to him or to his national security team that the tsunami disaster, devastating Muslim regions, provided an opportunity for the US to demonstrate humanitarian motives. In this crisis, his advisers acted in character: Vice-president Cheney was duck-hunting on the plantation of a Republican donor; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, suggested nothing to disturb her boss; and Colin Powell, the secretary of state, defended Bush as "not stingy".
...
Bush administration policy has been conflicted, confused and negligent. The leading neoconservative at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, has tried to overthrow US restrictions on aid to, and relations with, the Indonesian military. The neoconservative thrust is undeterred by the military's obstruction of the FBI investigation into the murder of two US businessmen in 2002, killings that appear to implicate the military. When the state department issued a human rights report on Indonesia's abysmal record, its spokesman replied: "The US government does not have the moral authority to assess or act as a judge of other countries, including Indonesia, on human rights, especially after the abuse scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison."

On his tour of Banda Aceh, Powell made no determined effort to restore the cease-fire. Meanwhile, GAM reports that the Indonesia military is using the catastrophe to launch a new offensive. "The Indonesians get the message when you have no high-level condemnation of what they're doing," Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch told me. A renewed effort by Wolfowitz against sanctions is expected soon.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tsunami/story/0,15671,1384245,00.html

[rockedthevoteinMA]

4. from the article

Bush's brother has already given the president an initial readout of the trip, which Florida Gov. Jeb Bush led along with Powell at Bush's request.

why was BigHead Jeb leading this trip? :wtf: