Posted on 01/02/2005 2:52:31 PM PST by curator
Before leaving Sunday on a U.S. mission to tsunami-ravaged southern Asia, Secretary of State Colin Powell sharply rebutted criticism that the initial U.S. response to the disaster was slow and inadequate.
"I think that we have responded appropriately," he told CNN's "Late Edition," adding, "We're a little push-backy, I guess I can say, with respect to the claims that we didn't respond well. We did."
The United States has committed $350 million in relief funds, the largest contribution behind Japan's $500 million. (Full story)
The United Nations says a total of $2 billion has been promised.
The death toll from the December 26 tsunamis stood at more than 141,000 on Sunday.
World leaders including Powell and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will push for more contributions Thursday at a donor conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Thursday in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Joining Powell are Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother who helped oversee disaster relief following deadly hurricanes in his state; Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Brown; Andrew Natsios, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development; and James Kelly, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
They planned to fly to Bangkok Sunday, then to the Thai island of Phuket and on to Jakarta, Powell told CBS' "Face the Nation." He said the mission would "hopefully" stop in the destroyed Indonesian province of Aceh.
Before returning to the United States Friday, the delegation plans to stop in Sri Lanka, he said.
U.N. and regional leaders have praised the planned mission and U.S. support for the region.
[lots more]
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Now is the time when our leverage is at its greatest. The abhominable government of Thailand can count $. They could stop the under-age sex trade in a heartbeat if they wanted to. We should give them a BIG incentive.
I am OK with relief for the suffering, but we should not expend one dime to rebuild that hell-hole without a gold-plated guarantee from the the Thai government that the sex trade is stopped -- and we should verify!
Please don't write your own headlines.
re: the title - If you can't follow posting rules, maybe you should post somewhere else.
Look, you'll get no arguement from anyone here that the sex-trade is a good thing when it comes to the involvement of kids. On the other hand, you don't blackmail dying people's government, before they can have a square meal.
I'm no fan of Powell, but I do not agree with your attempt to link starvation prevention with government modification.
How many children would you be willing to die from starvation, so you could save young girls or boys from the sex-trade in the future. That's what it comes down to.
Why not use the leverage while it's there? The Thai's will go for it, I would guess.
It is not an either/or situation. We can aid those who are suffering without rebuilding the Thai child brothel industry. Moreover, we could demand tht the Thai's enforce the treaties they have agreed to, subject to the withholding of further aid.
This Sunami thing bothers me. I fail to see how any aid is going to help the victims who died in the Sunami. I get the impression that the aid is contingent upon the huge death toll that took place. Using death to solicit aid is not my idea of virtue. Responding to those solicitations in a political manner cheapens the whole process.
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