The Tsunami Politics

San Diego, CA. The violent earthquake that recently swelled and churned the vast and mighty Indian Ocean into one of the world’s most catastrophic disasters, causing over 160,000 deaths, displacing over 5 million people, literally wiping villages off the map and causing seemingly infinite property damage in several countries has also shed some light upon some more subtle, yet noteworthy matters. As the overwhelming response to this calamity unfolds, the same plays out of the same playbook are once again being implemented for nothing less than political gain.

Mother of all politics
Early on, President Bush was stung by torrents of criticisms for not acting fast enough – at least condoling with the families and nations who lost so much. His initial response was rather timid, offering a measly $3.5 million dollars, a fraction of the $25 million dollars which India, with 9,500 dead of its own, offered to Sri Lanka. He later raised the amount first to 15 million, then to 35 million dollars and later, ten times that sum. Bushes response appeared half-hearted when compared to the global outpouring of support extended to the United States after September 11, 2001.

It would seem odd for a deeply religious person like President Bush to not act on his own to immediately offer his condolences without being mired with the ‘national interest’ component of the decision. But, this tragedy is pregnant with national security considerations and there is certainly more at stake politically than merely rebuilding an already impoverished region of the world. The U.S. in particular, has a keen interest in the reconstruction of Indonesia, a nation believed to be a haven for Al-Queda terrorist sects.

Actually, the Bush Administration has had an eye on Al-Queda’s influence in Indonesia for some time. As the financial desperation of the ravaged area mounts, the U.S. has growing concern of economic terrorists establishing a strong hold.

Thus, it was not surprising that the president did not waste time kicking into high gear the PR machinery. First, he announced that the U.S. will be sending a much bigger amount than what was initially offered. Then he sent his brother Jebb Bush along with Secretary Powell to assess the damage. More important than the money, the U.S. has mobilized two aircraft carrier-groups, with a total of 12 ships and 41 helicopters, besides many more fixed-wing warplanes for relief work in South-east Asia. One of them, the USS Abraham Lincoln, was the same carrier from which President George W. Bush had triumphantly announced victory in the war in Iraq in 2003.

The Jakarta Summit, convened by the leaders of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), presents the U.S. with an opportunity to assert its global ‘’leadership’’ — albeit on the cheap, with an assistance offer of 350 million U.S. dollars, lower than Japan’s commitment of 500 million U.S. dollars - and less than the funds collectively pledged by Europe.

The U.S. move to launch the four-member ‘’core group’’ (United States, India, Japan and Australia), however, has drawn criticism within Europe and reopened the wounds created by the Iraqi invasion. The French media has accused Washington of supplanting and sidelining the United Nations.

In Britain, former International Development Secretary Clare Short said: “I think this initiative ... sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the U.N. when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up.’’
Politics of Charity

It started with a fairly benign statement from the United Nations’ Jan Egeland with his “stingy” remark and the New York Times’ criticism of the United States and it got the charity ball rolling.

U.S. charities have reported raising more than $337 million so far for emergency relief in countries devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami, in what some are calling the greatest outpouring of donations for a foreign disaster in American history.

The rapidly mounting private contributions could soon dwarf the $350 million in aid committed by the U.S. government, fundraisers said. The American Red Cross alone has raised nearly $150 million foresees the need for $250 million more.

One organization, “Doctors without Borders” announced through its website that it had collected enough donations and asked donors to re-channel the money somewhere else. Worldwide, the total aid money now amounts to over $3 billion dollars – still small when compared to the $10 billions raised for the families of the September 11 victims.

Just before this disaster, three successive typhoons battered the Philippines killing almost a thousand people, displacing hundreds of thousands, and causing untold destruction and misery among the people of Quezon Province, the Bicol Region, and Nueva Ecija. Not a single tourist or foreigner died and the world hardly paused to even yawn. The Filipino community in San Diego was silent, none of its hundreds of organizations came out to solicit donations. Today, emails from Filipino addresses are blazing the net asking for donations to the tsunami victims – even for small donations.

Yes, the tsunami tragedy is a bigger tragedy but should miseries and destruction be measured by its greatness? Or should we Filipino Americans think first of our own brothers back home and let the world take care of the bigger one? And if we are to be part of that bigger effort, shouldn’t we be also asking them to help our cause?

As a taxpayer, I don’t like our government to be involved in giving international monetary aid because this is normally done in furtherance of its foreign policy and there are strings attached. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution authorizes the government to dole out these kinds of moneys – not even Congress or the President. Tax monies are supposed to be for the benefit of its people – not charity! Look around you and see countless homeless citizens, neglected veterans, bad roads, rotting/inadequate school buildings, etc. – these are where these monies should be spent.
Having said that, we as Christians in our own individual capacities have the duty to be charitable.

Doomsayers Politics
Tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes, mudslides, AIDS, famine, global warming, wars, resurgence of eradicated diseases – don’t they sound like the characters and events in the last chapter in the Bible?

Indeed, after the huge earthquake doomsayers had a field day quoting verses in the Bible that spells the end game of this world - as we know it. Pundits have started dissecting the Revelation, the letters of the prophet Isaiah, the Deuteronomy and others looking for the key phrases that spell doom.

Some even suggested that the Muslims are being punished for all the miseries it has inflicted Christendom. That George W. Bush is the Anti-Christ that will unite the world before the much-dreaded tribulation and second coming.

Still to the environmentalists, the earthquake and tsunami apparently had something to do with global warming, caused of course by greedy American motorists. Then there was also the rumor that the US military base at Diego Garcia was forewarned of the impending disaster and presumably because of some CIA-approved plot to undermine Islamic movements in Indonesia and Thailand did nothing about it.

I guess all of these make up for a good sequel to Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” or a Jerry Bruckheimer’s movie!
Iraq Politics

The year two-thousand and four will always be remembered for this great human tragedy but to many, the greatest disaster of 2004 was not the Indonesian tsunami but the continuing conflict in Iraq, the bloody endgame of the 9/11 disaster. The upper estimate of deaths in Iraq, 100,000, is eerily similar to that for the tsunami. While the one disaster rates as an act of God and the other an act of man, to whit the President of the United States, to the hapless Iraqis the difference must seem notional. They must feel as impotent in the face of falling bombs and the continuing tidal wave of destruction. The bodies of their loved ones must seem just as dead.

The relief operation certainly offers Bush a chance to earn some goodwill particularly in that part of the world predominantly Muslims, after the globally unpopular occupation of Iraq and Washington’s political isolation because of its Middle East policy. It is also an opportunity to try to move beyond the frustration of Iraq and pre-emption and the Bush Administration’s tensions with the Islamic world. It is an example of an area where the US... can work in a cause that no one can argue with.