Bigger than 9/11?

There are thousands of unaccounted for Americans who were vacationing in the Tsunami zone. I have seen reports of as many as 5,000 missing. If this is the case the Tsunami will be a bigger loss of American life than 9/11. Maybe Bush should consider further raising the bar.

I have railed that Bush took too long to take action. His response is slowly improving but it's still lacking. Especially considering that Bush declared Florida a national disaster and eligible for relief on the same day (Aug 13, 2004) as Hurricane Charley was still snaking across the panhandle. Within 3 days of the hurricane Bush was on the ground in Florida. Within 30 days of the disaster and just two weeks before the election Bush had sent 3.28 BILLION to Florida.

I guess that Indonesia's lack of electoral votes makes a difference.

But Dubya is finally coming around. After his stumble at the gate, he has sent former Presidents Clinton and Bush to lead the disaster relief fund-raising. He increased the aid to $350 million with much more to come. Navy ships arrived with desalination equipment, medical supplies, portable shelters, food and clothing. We have over 12,000 troops on the ground helping with the clean-up and retrieval effort. Bush personally wrote some condolence notes. All in all, not a bad first two weeks. 

But what's to come? The American people have raised millions, with some large amounts coming from liberal Hollywood celebs like Sandra Bullock and Leonardo DiCaprio). Rupert Murdoch, who despite the slant of Fox news, is actually left leaning in his contributions and donated $1 million as well. Bill and Melinda Gates, who give, very liberally, to liberals, also donated tons 'o cash. I haven't heard of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter donating millions.

Their websites, the closest I want to come to spending any time on these two idiots, are very telling about how they feel about humanitarian aid. Coulter just has a year-end liberal bash on her site with lots of banners for her, ahem, book. No mention of the tsunami. Rush is a little better. There are several articles about how the tsunami is a liberal plot but no link to donate money to victims. In fact he has a link to an anti-environmentalist book called 'Nature Kills.' Seriously.

Instead of compassionate and conservative he's stingy and callous.

Why is it important to swamp the tsunami victims with relief effort?, Because radical Islamists are quite adept at recruiting followers in times of turmoil. Many of the effected countries are already being torn apart by growing Muslim movements. Check out the t-shirt on the third guy from the left (click to enlarge).


We need to get in there and do the right thing.  The best way to win against the terrorists is to stop the flood of poverty, trauma and despair in developing nations. Send love, not bombs.