I recently sent out one with subject "The Ant & the Tsunami Victims: A Marxist Perspective" that included some personal comments on the U.S. being accused of being stingy.
 
Here's more to add to that:
 
I am becoming tired of the continuing attacks on this country, both direct and by innuendo from our own press and our “allies” so I am venting my frustration by listing a few facts related to the recent tsunami catastrophe and related "attitudes".
 
The tsunami occurred on a Sunday and by Tuesday, less than 72 hours later, some moron from the Red Cross complained that relief supplies were slow in coming, directly implicating the U.S. The idiot gave no credence to the fact that it takes 20 hours for a C-130 to fly from the U.S. to Bangkok.
 
Meanwhile, the do-gooders were shipping down-filled jackets to the tropics where temperatures are 30 degrees C and rice to people who had neither the water or fuel with which to cook it.  Rather than sending MREs, (meals-ready-to-eat) they also used valuable logistics resources to ship personal kits that contain soap, tampons, toothpaste etc., while people needed water, calories and protein.
 
In the interim, the U.S. dispatched military personnel from Okinawa and Guam, cut short a New Year port call by the USS Bonhomme Richard in Guam and deployed an aircraft carrier from Hong Kong and three warships that can produce 90,000 gallons of "fresh" water a  day. They also sent disaster assessment teams from the US. While the do-gooders assumed that all areas were affected equally, the U.S. determined that less than TWO percent of the deaths were in Thailand and that the greatest needs were in Aceh and Sri Lanka.
 
While Schroeder was running around from photo-op to photo-op, our President kept his head down for three days while establishing a coalition of four action-oriented partners,  Australia, Japan, India and the U.S. and thereby circumventing the inadequate bureaucracies of the UN and the EU. It should be noted that:
 
a) the former colonial powers in the region, Great Britain, Portugal and the Netherlands, are noticeable by their specific absence, and
 
b) the oil-rich Arab countries seem not to have volunteered anything to help their Muslim brothers and sisters who are suffering disproportionately from the disaster - over 50% of the deaths and some three million million homeless.
 
At the same time the U.S. was planning and moving key resources, (water generating plants, hospital ships, damage assessment teams etc), to the area based on real need, another moron, this one from the EU, called the industrialized countries "stingy" with an implication that the U.S. does not carry its full weight in the area of foreign aid and disaster relief. While it is true that the U.S. contributes a lower percentage of its GDP than does, say, Canada, please recognize these facts:
 
44% of ALL foreign aid/disaster relief over the past decade has come from a country that uses only 25% of the world's energy.
 
44% of ALL foreign aid/disaster relief over the past decade has come from a country with less than 5% of the world's population.
 
44% of ALL foreign aid/disaster relief over the past decade has come from a country that generates only a third of the world's GDP.
 
On these measures, one cannot say that the U.S. is "stingy".  Furthermore, these statistics do NOT recognize the huge amount of cash that is generated by the U.S. private sector in contributions to organizations such as the ungrateful Red Cross.  Individual Americans give far more to charities than the citizens of any other country, including the great economies of the EU, Japan and now China.
 
On the matter of the "paltry" initial allocation of "only" $35 million, the European press has, as usual where the U.S. is concerned,- taken this item TOTALLY out of context. The $35 million is to fund the initial administrative costs of the disaster assessment activities, although the foreign press makes it appear that this is the TOTAL allocation of aid. I should point out the EU, with a larger population than the US, allocated only $4 million while Australia, with a population of only 20 million allocated $12 million, - but this adds up to a big "so what".
 
We will ignore the "slings & arrows of outrageous fortune" directed at us by the press, jealous foreign politicians and incompetent bureaucracies and do what we always try to do - OUR VERY BEST.  
 
Although the world may not like it, the global bureaucracy known as the UN has done a disastrously poor job in:
 
The Sudan, (three million lives and still counting).
 
The Congo, (4.7 million lives and still counting).
 
Rwanda, (800,000 lives), to say nothing of Liberia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, Mozambique, etc.  The great EU, which does not even have a Foreign Minister and is merely an attempt to provide the leadership necessary to "sort-out" a European problem, should keep it's collective mouths shut and join the US by rolling up its shirt sleeves rather than ringing their hands saying, “Why doesn’t the US fix it?”
 
The United States will never be recognized for its contributions, we will only be criticized for our actions, our policies and our ideals.
 
Stingy, eh?  Really now!!!
 
And now there is news now those providing disaster assistance have been warned about potential problems from rebels in Indonesia.  Imagine that, doing good and at risk while doing so.   Also there are reports of relief supplies being hijacked by the rebels for their own purposes.  Rather than join in with the recovery effort it seems they'd prefer to complicate it.   Nice people...