No, but at the very least we could talk about how we're consolidating supplies we have in the Phillipines or gathering water supplies for deployment when needed. We didn't say anything until this afternoon.

so just because you didn't see it in the news you assume nothing is happening?

No, I think he is saying that we should be making an overt effort to show our peaceful, humanitarian side. Go out of our way to give specific actions, step up as a potential leader in the recovery effort (although we may be shot down because of mistrust etc.), and generally make a big deal out of what we are willing/going to do to help.

I'd hate to think that we would look at this as ONLY a P.R. situation, but nonetheless, it is a P.R. situation, and lately, we could use some good P.R.

I agree with Al. Not to mention, wouldn't the President have to speak to Congress, etc??

Also if the President had jumped up this morning and said "we'll send $5 million" when we could have sent more people would be upset that we were "only" sending 5 million. I think it's smart to weigh more information before coming out with a bunch of crap that they might not need.

Heck, I asked my HR department if we can do something here to collect stuff like tents, tarps, and blankets and the lady replied "We have to wait til next week when my boss gets back."

the government budgets money every year for humanitarian assistance

the big issue is getting host country permission to come in. you can't send in your people to wander around some country without permission unless you go to war. I still have my government passport as a memento from my army days. It was only used for official travel, and in my unit it was a requirement to keep it from expiring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_In...ean_earthquake

Uh, what is up with that little "message" at the top?

So if I understand you, then it is political? You are saying that regardless of the fact we are doing the right thing at the right time we have not been "shouting it from the mountain tops" and broadcast it to the world to know how great and wonderful we are?

To me the ulitmate in helping is just to help and not use it as a tool to win friends. I really don't care if France "thinks" we sent enough help or not. We did and will. I really don't care if the Middle East thinks we did not do enough, we did more then them 10X over.

See IMHO, it makes no difference what we do. Many in the world will think we are bad and/or we could have done more. It won't make any difference if their very own country did nothing to help (or sent in two small planes). Due to our wealth others will always think we did not do enough. And that is fine with me. We need to go help and do it to help those in need. Not to impress anyone.

Thank you!

Some people don't like us, so we should just ignore what everyone thinks of us? I look at this less as tooting our own horn and more as living up to our repsonsibility as the world's best and most successful countriy to help others in times of crisis. If we do say something, those that hate us will continue to do so. If we don't say anything, the ranks of those that hate us will continue to increase.

If they were just a couple of miles out they probably didn't feel anything, or at the very most, just a swell. Tsunamis don't start as a wave out in the ocean, they travel until the depth reaches a certain level (depending on the size of the wave) and then turn into a wave. The ocean was actually the safest place to be, provided you were not on top of the earthquake or too close to land.

And crap, can't we leave out the US bashing for once? I swear that there is no amount that we could do that would please some people. Either we don't act fast enough, or we react too quickly without knowing enough, etc. etc. Give it a break, guys.

Actually, the deeper the water, the safer they would have been. The wave reaches its height as the water gets shallow near land. The boats nearest land would be thrown ashore or otherwise displaced. Boats out in the middle of the ocean would probably only notice a swell.

THE US HAS DONE A GREAT JOB WITH THE HUMANATARIAN AID, AND WILL HELP MILLIONS, BUT WE DIDNT SPIN IT WELL ENOUGH AND GET THE PR MACHINE ROLLING.

Duran has officially endorced P. Diddy for president in '08

Isn't that what I said?

I may be wrong about being over the epicenter, but I just don't know anything about that. Seems like a bad place to be because of the gases that would rise, and affect the boyancy of a boat.

Sure gets old. I'm sure Bush will soon get blamed for the whole thing... that's coming next.

Bush backed out of the Kyoto Protocol.

Oh, yea. You were right. And here I was thinking it was a result of NAFTA

Fuck it. As long as we get so more OUTSOURCING contracts from the countries affected.....

Well I think it is a debate for another thread if we have the "responsibility" to help those in need. I think we should help those in need, but if it is a responsibility is questionable. However, I do agree we should help. And as I have said we will help more then all the other countries in the world combined.

Where we differ is who we tell we are helping. You seem to be questioning how we have "broadcast" what we are doing. Well it seems to make more sense to use all resources to evaluate the need and get things rolling. This is not the time for "press releases", PR or trying to create headlines. There will be time for that. And I have no doubt that months and even years from now Bush, Congress or others will spout out how much we helped, the millions of $$ in aid we send, the supplies, transportation, etc, etc. But right now all efforts should go toward helping.

And personally, I think we will win more friends in the end by making friends of those we help. I don't think you make a lot of friends in the headlines. But if we help Asia and Africa in their time of need, hopefully they will not forget. But we also should not help in the hopes of getting something in return. We should simply help, let them say "thank you" and move on.

Looks like the death toll is holding 'steady' at 23,000.

23,700

instead of bickering, why don't each of you donate something to one of the support organisations who will help the relief efforts.

www.unicef.org
www.doctorswithoutborders.org
www.mercycorps.org

those are 3 off the top of my head, I am sure there are many others.

Three animations of how Tsunamis spread across a large ocean expanse.

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami/Mov/andr1.mov
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/animations/Aonae.all.mpg
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami-hazard/vasily.mpg

Each one is about 8MB in size. The first one, you will need Quicktime to play it. The 3rd one is probably the best at detailing how the wave moves across the open ocean rather uneventfully, and then rises as it hit the coastal shelf as kvrdave so accurately explained. Amazing stuff.

Tremendous loss of life. Hopefully, they will initiate a coastal warning system after this in the Indian Ocean like they have in Japan and the Alaskan region.

I'm not sure it would be considered cost-effective by the affected countries due to the infrequency of this type of event.

Even the U.S. only has a couple of states (Alaska, Hawaii, Washington) that even have sirens, and that's only because of previous occurrences with a good likelihood of repeating.

Well, the area across the Indian Ocean from India is one of the most seismically active areas in the world. I'm sure some thought will go into a system, given the tens of thousands of people who lost their lives, or at least for the tourist factor. Who's going to want to vacation there now?