Okay, I’m feeling a bit annoyed while I sit here watching CNN and Colin Powell standing in a press conference with Kofee Annan. I’m sorry to say that the United States has come in for some deserved criticism for being “stingy” in their pledge of money to help Southeast Asia after the quake and tsunami disaster. 35 million dollars was a shameful amount of money for the richest country in the world to offer, but even last night America was justifying this. However today, Powell announces that America will now give ten times that and now be the leaders along with the UN is rebuilding the Southeast Asian region.

My annoyance is that it rather looks like the American govt. have been guilted into actually giving the kind of money and aid they should have given in the first place. And now America will, with the UN, lead the aid effort over there. Funny that they want to be so close with the UN when they were content to trounce the wishes of the United Nations when they wanted to go to war for oil in Iraq. It seems to two faced to me.

Of course I think that the scale of the disaster needs a central response control, but I want that to be run by the UN and NOT the USA. The UN will be more trusted by the counties involved I think, rather than the US which I would think will be viewed with a rather large dose of mistrust and caution for their possible hidden political objectives. I’m sure there are people who will shoot me down for saying this, but I think that America needs to recognize that it can’t waltz on into this situation in John Wayne style and play the hero. Not only because that is impractical, but also because America’s international image has been so badly damaged in the last 4 years. The UN need to take a lead here, coordinating the international aid effort which is needed.

Unsurprisingly President Bush is getting beaten up in the worlds press for taking 3 (though it’s more like 4) days to actually come out and express sympathy for those caught up in the tragedy. He may not have meant it to look this way, but some people are wondering whether Bush was so slow to say anything because Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population in the world. By any standard, Bush embarrassed himself by not speaking about the tsunami for three days when every other world leader had spoken publicly about it within hours. At least if he couldn’t put figures on the table quickly should he not have said something to represent America’s emotional response?

The other thing that has annoyed me while watching coverage of the tsunami, is how new networks over here have been asking if a tsunami could happen here and how America should prepare. It seems more than a little callus in my opinion to say “what about us” so quickly when the death toll is still rising. That’s like me coming to you talking about how concerned I am for my granddad’s situation with MRSA and you then saying “What if I get MRSA, how prepared am I.”

Already the news networks here have started to inject yet more fear into the American flock by telling viewers that this is now a time of ‘easy pickings’ for al Queda and other terrorist networks who will start a hard drive to recruit the orphaned children in this disaster.

Frankly I am surprised that Bush hasn’t declared a war on tsunami’s!!

All of the Americans I know are ordinary decent people, all of them are clearly filled with compassion for those effected by the tsunami. Many of them are openly critical of the way America is acting on the international stage too. It’s knowing this country is full of people just like my American friends that makes me so mad I think, because there are a lot of people who see America represented purely by the foolish, selfish and arrogant asses that stand up and speak for the country.