Posted on 05/15/2005 3:24:38 AM PDT by finnigan2
Remember the tsunami? Big story, 300,000 dead; America and other rich countries too "stingy" in their response; government ministers from every capital on earth announcing on CNN every 10 minutes more and more millions and gazillions. It was in all the papers for a week or two, but not a lot of water under the bridge since then, and as a result this interesting statistic may not have caught your eye:
Five hundred containers, representing one-quarter of all aid sent to Sri Lanka since the tsunami hit on Dec. 26, are still sitting on the dock in Colombo, unclaimed or unprocessed.
At the Indonesian port of Medan, 1,500 containers of aid are still sitting on the dock.
Four months ago, did you chip in to the tsunami relief effort? Did your company? A Scottish subsidiary of the Body Shop donated a 40-foot container of "Lemon Squidgit" and other premium soap, which arrived at Medan in January and has languished there ever since because of "incomplete paperwork,'' according to Indonesian customs officials.
Well, those soapy Scots were winging it -- like so many of us, eager to help but too naive to understand that, no matter the scale of devastation visited upon a hapless developing nation, its obstructionist bureaucracy will emerge from the rubble unscathed. Yet, among the exhaustive examples of wasted Western generosity unearthed by the Financial Times, what struck me was not the free-lancers but the permanent floating crap game of international high-rollers who couldn't penetrate the labyrinth of Indonesian paperwork.
Diageo sent eight 20-foot containers of drinking water via the Red Cross. "We sent it directly to the Red Cross in order to get around the red tape," explained its Sydney office. It arrived in Medan in January and it's still there. The Indonesian Red Cross lost the paperwork.
UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, sent 14 ambulances to Indonesia, and they took two months to clear customs. Terrible as it was in its awesome fury, the tsunami was in the end transnational business as usual.
Which brings me to the John Bolton nomination process, which is taking so long you'd think the U.S. Senate was run by Indonesian customs inspectors. Writing of near-Ambassador Bolton's difficulty getting his paperwork stamped by the Foreign Relations Committee, National Review's Cliff May observed that "the real debate is between those who think the U.N. needs reform -- and those who think the U.S. needs reform.''
Very true. Sen. George Voinovich, one of those "maverick Republicans" the press goes goo-goo over, seems to believe, as Cliff May puts it, "that the problem is more American 'unilateralism' than U.N. corruption, immorality, anti-Americanism and ineptitude."
On the face of it, this shouldn't be a difficult choice, even for as uncurious a squish as Voinovich. Whatever one feels about it, the United States manages to function. The U.N. apparatus doesn't. Indeed, the United States does the U.N.'s job better than the U.N. does. The part of the tsunami aid operation that worked was the first few days, when America, Australia and a handful of other nations improvised instant and effective emergency relief operations that did things like, you know, save lives, rescue people, restore water supply, etc. Then the poseurs of the transnational bureaucracy took over, held press conferences demanding that stingy Westerners needed to give more and more and more, and the usual incompetence and corruption followed.
But none of that matters. As the grotesque charade Voinovich and his Democrat chums have inflicted on us demonstrates, all that the so-called "multilateralists" require is that we be polite and deferential to the transnational establishment regardless of how useless it is. What matters in global diplomacy is that you pledge support rather than give any. Thus, Bolton would have no problem getting nominated as U.N. ambassador if he were more like Paul Martin.
Who? Well, he's prime minister of Canada. And in January, after the tsunami hit, he flew into Sri Lanka to pledge millions and millions and millions in aid. Not like that heartless George W. Bush back at the ranch in Texas. Why, Prime Minister Martin walked along the ravaged coast of Kalumnai and was, reported Canada's CTV network, "visibly shaken." President Bush might well have been shaken, but he wasn't visible, and in the international compassion league, that's what counts. So Martin boldly committed Canada to giving $425 million to tsunami relief. "Mr. Paul Martin Has Set A Great Example For The Rest Of The World Leaders!" raved the LankaWeb news service.
You know how much of that $425 million has been spent so far? Fifty thousand dollars -- Canadian. That's about 40 grand in U.S. dollars. The rest isn't tied up in Indonesian bureaucracy, it's back in Ottawa. But, unlike horrible "unilateralist" America, Canada enjoys a reputation as the perfect global citizen, renowned for its commitment to the U.N. and multilateralism. And on the beaches of Sri Lanka, that and a buck'll get you a strawberry daiquiri. Canada's contribution to tsunami relief is objectively useless and rhetorically fraudulent.
This is the way the transnational jet-set works when the entire world is in complete agreement and acting in perfect harmony. Unlike more "controversial" issues like the mass slaughter in Sudan, no Security Council member is pro-tsunami. And yet even when the entire planet is on the same side, the 24/7 lavishly funded U.N. humanitarian infrastructure can't get its act together.
When rent-a-quote senators claim to be pro-U.N. or multilateralist, the tsunami operation is what they have in mind -- that when something bad happens the United States should commit to working through the approved transnational bureaucracies and throw even more "resources" at them, even though nothing will happen (Sri Lanka), millions will be stolen (Oil for Food), children will get raped (U.N. peacekeeping operations) and hundreds of thousands will die (Sudan).
John Bolton's sin is to have spoken the truth about the international system rather than the myths to which photo-oppers like the Canadian prime minister defer. As a consequence, he's being treated like a container of Western aid being processed by Indonesian customs. Customs Inspector Joe Biden and Junior Clerk Voinovich spent two months trying to come up with reasons why Bolton's paperwork is inadequate and demanding to know why he hasn't filled out his RU1-2. An RU1-2 is the official international bureaucrat's form reassuring the global community that he'll continue to peddle all the polite fictions, no matter how self-evidently risible they are. John Bolton isn't one, too. That's why we need him.
If they really wanted to get around all the red tape, they should have just sent it directly to Hamas.
Homerun, even on the Steyn scale.
I think it's good that all the free stuff isn't flowing in to the tsunami stricken areas. The economic devastation caused by that could be worse than the initial disaster, and longer lasting.
The article is on its way to Senator Voinovich.
Ironically, the Senator's web site would not let me submit the message with out supplying the very vital and relevant prefix, Mr., Mrs., etc. This fits in very nicely with the points Steyn makes in the article.
Sounds like the military did the only real work.
I'm amazed that people are still willing to be known as democrats. A situation only made possible by the willing accomplices in the media. If there was a large enough Steyn on being democrat, there wouldn't be very many of them.
ping
It is the International Red Cross and RED CRESCENT society. Thus, do you think that Indonesia, a self-proclaimed Muslim nation, is going to allow the Red Cross to take any credit in tsunami relief in their misbegotten excuse of a nation?
Watch sloth and heathen folly, bring all your works to naught." - Kipling knew a thing or two.
Regards,
Great stuff.
Bolton's sin is telling truth about system
Chicago Sun Times ^ | May 15, 2005 | Mark Steyn
Your comment nails it.
The Indonesian "inspectors" were just expecting a 100 percent kickback on the value of these donations. Its pretty common in this part of the world.
To all the people here in FR who I've argued with about the ineffectuality and spinelessness of the RNC (I didn't keep track of the names, but you know who you are):
We can't expect the RNC to make this connection (between tsunami-relief-mismanagement and anti-Bolton-obstructionism), but once the connection has been made, they should pick up on it (I don't think Steyn would mind) and go public with it, in a big way.
But does anybody here seriously believe the RNC will murmur a word about this?
I just got a fund-raising letter from the RNC and I sent them back a long letter, the upshot of which is this:
Not one more dime, until you grow a spine.
(What the heck did we win the election for, if the RATS get their way on everything???????)
Five hundred containers, representing one-quarter of all aid sent to Sri Lanka since the tsunami hit on Dec. 26, are still sitting on the dock in Colombo, unclaimed or unprocessed.
If it's true that 500 containers represent a fourth of all aid, then the rest of the aid amounts to 1,500 containers.
At the Indonesian port of Medan, 1,500 containers of aid are still sitting on the dock.
Incredible.
I work for a major corporation and there are still idiots in my office trying to 'raise money for the tsunami victims' every Wednesday. Nobody pays attention to them anymore.
I want to start a fund to raise money for the 'victims of liberalism.' Anybody have a good slogan in mind that I could use?
Glad I didn't waste my money giving 'aid' to the Tsunami victims.
That is the main reason I don't blindly give money to mega-charities. My biggest charity contribution is to Friends of MS, and that's old clothes and household items that they sell in their thrift shop. Something tells me that my small, consistent, non-monetary charity contributions go further to help folks than a healthy monthly check to a mega-charity.
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