Comments on: What happened to Katrina foreign aid?

What happened to Katrina foreign aid?

js003 — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 21:38:23 -0800

Katrina: Money for Nothing? The United States received hundreds of millions in foreign aid last year, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. But what happened to the money?

By: lupus_yonderboy

lupus_yonderboy — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 22:11:00 -0800

My God. My God. I keep thinking that this government can't do any worse and then they manage to go one level deeper. I'm sure they're going to use thermonuclear weapons before this is all over... it's about the only bad thing they haven't done yet.

By: HighTechUnderpants

HighTechUnderpants — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 22:39:02 -0800

Wow. That's truly apalling. How anyone can stand by this administration is beyond me. It is the worst collection of bunglers, dissemblers, and liars ever collected in Washington, and that's saying something. Can we impeach them yet? And furthermore, how has it taken so long for this to come to light? Kudos to FP for finally reporting it, but geez...the media these days is bordering on useless. I'm going to go drink myself to sleep.

By: vhsiv

vhsiv — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 22:42:23 -0800

By late October, the State Department had allocated $66 million of the $126 million in international assistance to FEMA, which then granted it to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), the nonprofit aid arm of the United Methodist Church. With the funds, UMCOR established Katrina Aid Today, a consortium of nine national aid agencies dedicated to case-management work for Katrina evacuees. But to date, only $13 million has actually been disbursed, and it has been allocated almost exclusively to salaries and training for case workers, not to evacuees. Modern charity is a racket, at least here in the U.S. As with the Health insurance racket, most of the money goes to cover administrative overhead. Quite frankly, I'm not surprised. The donor countries should ask for some accountability. Also note the Faith-Based NGO that State gave the funds to. Accountability, most definitely.

By: PsychoKick

PsychoKick — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 22:50:35 -0800

This sort of misuse of foreign aid is something that would be expected from petty third-world dictatorships, not from the most powerful free nation on earth. How far have we fallen.

By: Kickstart70

Kickstart70 — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 23:13:11 -0800

I really need to find an image of Uncle Sam jumping over a shark.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 23:35:05 -0800

I'd like to say I'm outraged, but I'm hardly even surprised. I still have a lot of respect for civil servants, but the upper echelons of the government consist of little more than gangsters collecting protection money.

By: sergeant sandwich

sergeant sandwich — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 02:38:25 -0800

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 02:55:42 -0800

I am actually suprised. Good for the countries smart enough not to send the money to the government, but private charaties

By: i_am_a_Jedi

i_am_a_Jedi — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 04:47:04 -0800

Wow. Just when I think that my opinion of the government cannot get any worse. Actually, at this point I wouldn't be surprised if they engineered some way to give that money to Corporate America. That's probably in the next budget or something.

By: caddis

caddis — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 05:06:21 -0800

People love to complain about how aid to Africa gets wasted. If the US can't get it right with all of its resources and organization, how is a struggling African nation supposed to get it right. This is a nice little situation to throw back into the face of the next politician who claims we should stop sending aid to other countries because it just gets wasted.

By: rough ashlar

rough ashlar — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 06:07:42 -0800

How anyone can stand by this administration is beyond me. posted by HighTechUnderpants at 10:39 PM PST Too bad PP has left, but if you are looking for people to ask why they support the US Government I'd suggest going to freerepublic or littlegreenfootballs.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 06:59:31 -0800

We should collect links and stories like this one - obvious objective indicia of the administrations disasters, and head over to LGF, freerepublic, etc en masse and post stories there that ask them how given A, B, C facts, they can still support the administration.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 07:02:12 -0800

caddis nails it - except for the bizzarro world spin. They'll say, if even we can't get it right, we shouldn't expect these other countries to get it right, so we shouldn't bother sending the money. The possibility that other countries might actually be less corrupt is lost on them.

By: mischief

mischief — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 08:28:07 -0800

"if you are looking for people to ask why they support the US Government..." Just stay right here on MeFi and state that this situation is the nature of bureaucratic bumbling, regardless of who control the executive and legislative branches. The faith around here in a government that could actually work is as misguided as a christian's faith in god. "How far have we fallen." You say that like the US was once more creditable than now. Heh, quit watching "Leave It To Beaver".

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 08:29:07 -0800

i_am_a_Jedi: Actually, at this point I wouldn't be surprised if they engineered some way to give that money to Corporate America. I wish this were the joke it's supposed to be IAAJ, but they did give a big chunk of it to a Methodist organization (oh sorry I meant "faith based organization") and I am sure the government contracts for the rebuilding of New Orleans are going to be given out as effectively as the ones for the rebuilding of Iraq. (Cheney: Hello Haliburton, This is Santa and more Christmas is coming your way!!!)

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 08:52:10 -0800

"The faith around here in a government that could actually work is as misguided as a christian's faith in god." Hey! I resemble that remark! ...sorta. but still.. y'know.. Hey! I, uh, kinda resent that remark too! Yeah! ...I think. ...oh the hell with it. Where's a bodhi tree?

By: X4ster

X4ster — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 09:33:31 -0800

js003 , Thank's for posting this. A year ago while I was in Mississippi I read the report that 60 foreign nations had contributed relief aid to the US for the Katrina disaster. I wondered then why there was almost no media reporting of that assistance, and have been wondering since then what became of that aid. The total combined financial aid from the "non-Christian" countries was reported as several hundreds of millions of dollars. There have been a number of stories with unreliable reports that aid from other countries was declined for various reasons. Supposedly the truckloads of supplies dispatched from Mexico within hours of Katrina's landfall were declined for dubious reasons.

By: notswedish

notswedish — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 09:43:12 -0800

Granted the bureaucratic mess is ridiculous, but also condsider that the total cash donations were $126 million. The administration, after much hemming and hawing, has pledged $110 billion by itself. The foreign aid amounts to about 0.1% of the total money that the gov't must allocate. So it may just not be high on their priority list. (Not that I'm apologizing for their bungling of the $110 billion, the large majority of which still has not been allocated.)

By: mischief

mischief — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 09:53:53 -0800

"the large majority of which still has not been allocated" They're still designing the bureaucracy to handle it.

By: Secret Life of Gravy

Secret Life of Gravy — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 10:14:30 -0800

This sort of misuse of foreign aid is something that would be expected from petty third-world dictatorships, not from the most powerful free nation on earth. That is exactly what I was thinking as I read the article. It is comparable to cases where charities drop food supplies to areas run by warlords, but the food never reaches those who need it because the warlords want the masses to starve-- starving people are easier to dominate. The New York Times Sunday Magazine had a very dispiriting article a few weeks ago about how all the great rebuilding plans for New Orleans have just quietly evaporated. At the moment there is no plan and there are no funds-- just individuals trying to figure out how to make their homes inhabitable without any assistance from the government. Bush's pledge for federal assistance to rebuild the city of New Orleans was --surprise!-- just empty rhetoric.

By: bardic

bardic — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 10:57:44 -0800

Two quick things America can do to improve both its internal and national standing: 1) Bring Hezbollah to NOLA for reconstruction (seriously) 2) Put Saddam back in charge of Iraq (seriously)

By: 1adam12

1adam12 — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 11:13:16 -0800

I'm wondering, since I haven't gotten to this part of the law in my classes yet: a man gives you $100 and tells you to give it to someone "deserving." You pocket $95 for your costs in finding such a person, and then burn the remaining $5 when you decide that no such person exists or can be easily found. Are you guilty of anything? It's not breach of contract because gratuitous promises can't be enforced, but it smells like criminality to me.

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 15:23:06 -0800

A New Orleans man who said he rescued more than 200 residents after commandeering a boat during the flood after Hurricane Katrina is being sued by the boat's owner for taking it "without receiving permission."

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 15:34:00 -0800

what bardic said. All this administration knows how & wants to do is spin, and enrich their cronies and themselves. The people hit by 4 hurricanes in Florida in 2004 were helped immediately and extensively.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:53:15 -0800

It is plainly obvious that the American people have lost control of their government. I hope y'all choose to elect better representatives for yourselves this fall. You guys have got to quit thinking on party lines, and start getting good people into office.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 12:59:55 -0800

Perfect Storm for the Poor

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 17:26:30 -0800

Links like homunculus', above, are why I always vote for parties that are more concerned for social welfare than corporate welfare. When half your impoverished are deeply impoverished — what'd the stat say, less than $9K a year for a family of four?! — in a nation that is otherwise so amazingly wealthy, there's something very wrong. That the top one-fifth earn more than half the available income, while that bottom fifth are literally homeless and starving, is just the icing on the cake.

By: QIbHom

QIbHom — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 22:10:44 -0800

Even I, a non-Christian, can name Christian charities that actually do something besides pay people. You'd think those folks running the government who call themselves Christians would have heard of the same groups. This is so embarassing. Everything about Katrina and the reponse to it is embarassing. If we let those vicious, immoral people who hijacked the Republican party steal another election, I guess we deserve more Katrinas.