The battle of hearts and minds: disaster relief

Juan Cole is a damned bright guy, and few would argue. His new thoughts on the tsunami that shattered an entire region of earth is unique and insightful.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton has to take the lead on American statesmanship while Smirk is on vacation (as always), clearin' brush and fishin'.

[Edited on Dec 29, 2004 by Samebeat]

Yawn.

While this is the kind of response I expect from your ilk -- you should read the article. Nobody can argue that if we're going to "win the war on terrorism," the proverbial psychological battle is more important than anything. The Bush Admin says as much themselves...

We have the opportunity to take the lead and win the "hearts and minds" of people all around the world (and relatively cheaply I might add). All the while, doing a good and humanitarian thing -- or -- continue to act like we always do.

edit - modified an adverb

[Edited on Dec 29, 2004 by Samebeat]

I think we should get a group of people together to study the indigenous building practices of the regions and then we can organize a group of people to go help build new homes.

Bush is a duche, if at any time we can keep him from going to other places and representing us I think we should rejoice.
Would you really rather he went in place of Clinton?

Good call, SPS. It's probably best that he doesn't make an appearance over there.

I don't know if any of you remember, but the seeds of distrust for America came long before 9/11 or Iraq II, way back when bush went on his first "fuck you Europe" tour in mid 2001.

dude.......enemas are in aisle 5.

take a chill pill already .

last I heard the 35 million was only the INITIAL offer from the US Government...many millions more to come from NGO's and private donations..besides the fact that the US already has two carrier battlegroups steaming into the region to help with the relief effort , is in the process of setting up a command center in Thailand, and dedicating resources from Guam and Japan to further the distribution of materials needed in the theatre. Do you think that there is no cost involved with doing any of this? Those costs are all independent of any other INITIAL aid being given by State or USAID to the people affected by this tragedy.

Bush reluctantly agreed to video conference ?...I call bullshit, you nor any one else outside the White House has the abilty to really know that.....and his vacation ? So What. He would do no more good hunkered in a basement sit -room in the White House than where he is now. yeah right he should fly immediately into a country up to it's ass in dissarray and confusion , just so he can fart the magic fairy dust of goodwill and all will be better? Not Hardly.

I like Bush about as much as scabies, but to expect him to drop everything to go kiss some babies in SE Asia is ridiculous and quite foolish from a security standpoint...(anything happens to him and Darth Vader is next in line), as if a few dollars and his mere presence is going to change years of Wahabist indoctrination.

one of the administration's first statements about the disaster was to criticize clinton for grandstanding.

remember kids, if clinton does or says anything the right wing will automatically take the opposing position (except stock, he'll blame it on the french).

Bush is indeed a douche, but so far the white house response to this disaster seems about the norm to me, so I can't really lay anything on him for this situation. The 15 mil was indeed a starting point, and much more money will be doled out by the US after all is said and done. It's not as simple as writing a blank check.

Personally it was the spyplane incident in early 2001 that did it for me. It was so obvious that GWB was looking for an external enemy.

It doesn't seem like money is going to solve the majority of the problems with the disaster. Perhaps we would have been better off just sending troops there to help plan and rebuild.

Oh wait, they're pretty much all committed already. N/m, money it is!

Well, it's not a faith based initiative...

"Can't buy me love, everybody tells me so........."



I dont really care if the recipients of aid change their minds about the US. From what I've seen, it hasn't made much of a difference anyway. I mean, how much aid did we give to France after WWII? Gee, that paid off. We give Jordan and Egypt enormous amounts of foreign aid each year, and America's approval ratings there are rock-bottom.

[Edited on Dec 29, 2004 by stockula]

I haven't many posts; please bear with me, since I respect so many of you.

Bush's M.O. is to hide in the face of national and golbal crisis. His administration is geared towards "The Plan for the New American Century," or oil. We know these facts.

"Our" war in Iraq costs 193 million dollars a day. Our President belatedly offered 35 million for tsunami relief.
In short, we're F'ed.

This is indicative of our country's attitude towards Muslims in general. I agree that we need to be reaffirming our support in any way possible for conventional (? non extremist?) Muslims. Too many people both in the US and abroad (myself included) feel that we are lumping all Muslims in with "the terrorists," and therefore alienate the people we need most if we hope for peace in the Middle East.

And fatback is right: we're F'ed.

Kinda curious to see how $35 Mill compares to how much the US spends on earthquake research.

The administration is clueless about how to deal with other countries other than bombing the fuck out of them.

Two things about winning hearts and minds, in my opinion:

I don't see it working, because extremists always tend to be as extreme as possible, and it's easier to break a thing than to fix it. It would be easy for some muslim extremists to just say, "Oh, well, this is a hollow attempt by the west which does not make up for the shit they've pulled for decades." As long as we're bombing brown folks, nothing positive we do will have any play with the extremists.

Second, even if it did work, the fuck of it is, that shouldn't be the driving factor; PR. It should be "whatever we can do to help". Not "whatever we can do to help that will best serve our goals." I think this is important because everyone seems to be turning this into a criticism of the Bush administration on the basis of a failed "hearts and minds" opportunity, not on the basis of "it's the bloody right thing to do."

Bush is an ass, don't get me wrong. But I don't feel this is a valid criticism. If we do decide to help, it should be on the basis of the most good we can do for the poor fuckers who are suffering. Not what is best to win over some fuckers who never will like us. While some of these extremists groups may or may not have a very valid reason to hate the USA, hatred is not a reasonable thing.

Do you just choose to ignore all the news reports that say total U.S. aid will definitely top $1 billion?

Now that the US has upped the amount of aid, this is kind of a moot point, but I found it interesting that Pfizer donated $35 million in respnse to the tragedy. that's right one of our commercial companies manages to pony up as much $$$ as the US gov't.

The US Government has pledged 350 million.

And exactly how much has France pledged ?

Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.

My point was that at the time, we were only pledging $35 mil, but private companies were matching out government. Reread my first sentence. We are still spending $67 million per day on our war in Iraq, and this is something that will have more far-reaching consequences.