PR versus Actually Helping

A friend from Europe writes:

Bush and South Asia, that's typical.

He lacks that instinctive grasp of world affairs that other leaders have.

It took him days to react.

What he said after that made a lot of sense to me, but I had to translate every single sentence in my head. He says things like "the USA will lead" and says them like a babbling child, without any reflection of what he says and how it will be recepted by others.

The USA is good-hearted and generous, far more than most others. And Bush too incooperates that streak. But they are bad at communicating. (although it seems they are getting it fixed now in the second run)

The German government pledged 20 million EUR and hasn't increased that sum later -- but it made good PR work from day one.

In actions the USA are much more use to the people of South Asia than Germany is. And one would say it is that which counts. And I believe that is what should be said.

But Bush effortlessly made every effort to make it as difficult as possible to say that.

I don't see this as a situation of "doing good plus PR" trumps simply "doing good."

What good would it do for Bush to "pledge" a vast sum of money, just to keep the U.N. and the Europeans from calling us stingy? "America will give ... (drumroll) ... a millionbillion dollars!"

Most of the money "pledged" to Bam, Iran, after the earthquake last year hasn't left the station yet. Apparently, $1.1 billion was promised, and only $17.5 million has been sent. Private citizens see governments offering vast billion-dollar sums, and they think that everything is being taken care of, and they don't have to do anything as individuals. Yet the money never arrives. All the public relations moves have been made according to form, and the people of Bam still don't have roofs over their heads.

I call that failure.

What the U.S. does in this case is say, yes, we're going to help. Just naming a dollar figure is not "helping." There's a big bottleneck of relief supplies that have been donated, but can't reach the people. The Chicago Tribune today quoted Jan Egeland, the U.N.'s emergency aid coordinator:

"The immediate relief problem had more to do with logistics than with money. We see now as our biggest challenge not the availability of funds nor the availability of supplies that are in the pipeline, but the logistical constraints on getting it out to people."

John Budd, UNICEF spokesman in Jakarta, said "Getting aid into Aceh is very difficult. You can get to the Banda Aceh airport, but there are no trucks and no fuel to move it out of there." He said the airport at Medan was also receiving tons of aid, but noted that there was only one road from Medan to Banda Aceh and that it was very rough and took 12 hours to traverse."

I'm glad my friend makes the point that the U.S. aid will, in the long run, be more effective. I bet he hasn't heard Word One in the German media about the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier groups now at work delivering supplies by helicopter to the people who can't be reached any other way. Can Europe send a carrier group to Indonesia? Of course not. But then it has no way to get that 20 million Euros into the hands of the people who are dying.

I don't give a crap about PR. I want to help these people. The people who slam the U.S. for not taking the lead in disaster relief are the same ones who slam us for being "unilateral" at other times. You can't please some people and I don't lose a minute of sleep worrying what France thinks of us.

Here's how the U.N. "helps" in Afghanistan, according to one who has worked there for years. I got this off Roger Simon's site:

"....An enormous and highly profitable international aid apparatus has assembled in Kabul and has largely ignored the input of the Afghan people or their largely American liberators; the latter stand by in disbelief as taxpayers contributions to Afghanistan disappear into outfitting the extravagant needs of European aid community. The UN pays $400 a day (more than a year’s pay for an average Afghan ) plus a generous per diem. This enormous aid infestation has fostered rightful resentment. The UN and associated NGOs ran through years of aid funding in a matter of months. Now when money cannot be found for reconstruction, the UN issues reports criticizing the parsimonious Americans. Meanwhile, the UN and NGOs live like pashas. Hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for Afghans have been transformed into fleets of top-of the-line Toyota Landcruisers, villas and estates to house their workers complete with swimming pools, an endless supply of underpaid servants, luxurious furnishings (accented with looted antiquities,) the latest laptops, video equipment, cases of Johnny Walker Blue and the bling bling ...perks that might even seem excessive to Ken Lay are justifiable expenses charged off to the US. No accountability, no oversight. They don’t bother cooking the books, they don’t even keep the books!

Afghan citizens fear that vocal objections to this patronizing treatment will result in economic reprisals by the UN...."

I'd rather do it the U.S. way.