Europe more dangerouse than USA? (gunshots vs terror threat)

indeed, when it comes to disaster aid, viritually all countries with some spare resources help, simply because the people need help.

 

for most of humanity i think there is a natural inclination to give assistance, after all cooperation is how we evolved to survive, even right wingnuts even if they deny it

 

Assistance is an admission of guilt by rich folk.. It does very little to solve the underlying problems and conflict. Gunboat diplomacy...I'm the big guy, you do what your told , is the root of many of the world conflicts. Eliminate this mentality....then solve the problems.

 

not nessecarly. if you mean assistance and donations to poor third-world countries youre right, but natural disasters for example are more of a general will to help.

 

Many of the "Natural Disasters " like Haiti were compounded by the effects of man made poverty and its inability to cope. Look at the history of Haiti and its repatriation of cash to France or its inability to sell agricultural products to the USA , then put this into perspective against the drop of disaster aid. The world is full of Haiti's. These Haiti type countries may become angry and export their anger.

 

On the contrary, bla bla bla.

 

I totally disagree with you on this one.

 

Commonly the areas really wrecked by disasters are often led by corrupt or dictatorship goverments, meaning that any earlier help in for of money goes mostly into their pockets.

isn't it even forbidden for another country to give money to a countrys' population? i haven't checked up, but i think it was something like that.

 

I realize that blaming the US for everyone else's problems is a popular international sport. But may we interrupt the game long enough for a reality check?

Haiti's most important agricultural trading partner is the United States. A considerable part of the agricultural exports from Haiti move to the United States and also an important proportion of the country's agricultural products import requirements originate in the United States. During 2006, U.S. agricultural exports to Haiti, including forest products increased over the previous year to US$215 millions. This value includes high in rice, vegetable oils, including soybean and consumer ready products such red meats and poultry and fresh fruits and processed vegetables. During the same period, Haitian agricultural exports to the United States remain slightly above the same period the year before to US$16 million. Cocoa, essential oils, fresh fruits (mango) and seafood, including lobster represented the bulk of the export, while coffee and value added forest products continue to grow slowly.

http://santodomingo.usembassy.gov/fas-e.html

Haiti's agricultural problems have very little to do with any supposed inability to sell to the US, and a lot with its declining ability to produce anything worth selling.

The role of agriculture in the economy has declined severely since the 1950s, when the sector employed 80 percent of the labor force, represented 50 percent of GDP, and contributed 90 percent of exports. Many factors have contributed to this decline. Some of the major ones included the continuing fragmentation of landholdings, low levels of agricultural technology, migration out of rural areas, insecure land tenure, a lack of capital investment, high commodity taxes, the low productivity of undernourished farmers, animal and plant diseases, and inadequate infrastructure. Neither the government nor the private sector invested much in rural ventures; in FY 1989 only 5 percent of the national budget went to the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Rural Development (Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Resources Naturelles et du Développement Rural—MARNDR). As Haiti entered the 1990s, however, the main challenge to agriculture was not economic, but ecological. Extreme deforestation, soil erosion, droughts, flooding, and the ravages of other natural disasters had all led to a critical environmental situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Haiti

A lot of those problems can be traced directly to government corruption, and/or incompetence (one leads to the other).

And no, that isn't the fault of the US either. Contrast Haiti's political, environmental and economic situation with the Dominican Republic, the country which makes up the other half of the island Hispaniola. It's also a US trading partner, and has the second or third most prosperous economy in the Caribbean area. If you look at this picture of the border between the two countries, it isn't hard to figure out which side is Haiti.

 

This reminds me of a song i loved when i was growing up:

"sympathy is what we need my friend and sympathy is what we need ....... cause there's not enough love to go around." Rare bird ...

 

Then I suppose the only honest and proper thing for us to do is drop all assistance to other countries.

 

Thats not a good idea...better is to understand how US or European or any major powers domestic interests, harm other societies.

"The same has taken place in Haiti, which the IMF forced open to imports of highly subsidized U.S. rice at the same time as it banned Haiti from subsidizing its own farmers. Between 1980 and 1997, rice imports grew from virtually zero to 200,000 tons a year, at the expense of domestically produced staples. As a result, Haitian farmers have been forced off their land to seek work in sweatshops, and people are worse off than ever: according to the IMF’s own figures, 50 percent of Haitian children younger than 5 suffer from malnutrition and per capita income has dropped from around $600 in 1980 to $369 today. "

 

Oh and by the way...referring back to the original thread...Im listening to the BBC World Service on the shortwave receiver and a bomber just blew himself up in Taksim Square. This is a major tourist attraction in a European city, Istanbul

 

It would be helpful if you posted your source, so we can judge its impartiality and honesty.

You've changed horses in the middle of the stream. You started out blaming Haiti's problems on its inability to export to the US, and you got called on it. So now you're blaming its problems on imports from the US, instead. Make up your mind....

You're completely ignoring everything I posted about Haiti's internal situation. It's so much simpler and easier to simply blame the US, and refuse to admit that Haiti might be responsible for its own problems. But explain to me why the Dominican Republic, which is also on the Island of Hispaniola, hasn't been destroyed by the very same American policies.

Once upon a time, it was Satan who got blamed for everything....today, it's the US. No one wants to admit to admit that some countries might be soiling their own nests.

By what mechanism did the IMF 'force' Haiti to lower its tariffs on rice to the lowest in the Caribbean region? And why would they have singled out Haiti? I call ********....

The fact is that American rice is filling a need in Haiti that its own farmers can no longer fill, due to all the reasons I listed in my last post.

Even websites which deplore the impact of American rice on Haiti are honest enough to admit that it isn't simply an evil plot by imperialist American capitalists:

There is a strong link between agricultural production and environmental degradation in Haiti. Unsustainable agricultural cultivation techniques that are designed to maximize crop yields with little regard for soil conservation are the norm in Haiti. As a result, soil erosion has become a very large problem in Haiti. The soil erosion problem has in turn decreased the productivity of the land. In order to meet the increasing food demands of the nation in the face of decreased agricultural productivity, Haitian farmers have employed even more land intensive, unsustainable cultivation techniques which have accelerated soil erosion. This vicious cycle has been on going for over 200 hundred years. In addition deforestation and decreased rainfall have had a profoundly negative impact on agriculture.

http://www1.american.edu/TED/haitirice.htm

In other words, much of Haiti's agricultural problem is due to the short-sightedness of its farming practices: the inability to look beyond immediate needs and short-term profits. It's like a cattle rancher who picks out his healthiest and fattest animals to sell every year, and leaves the rejects to breed -- then wonders why the quality of his herd diminishes steadily. I understand why people do such a thing, especially poor people. But that doesn't make it smart.

edit: I do agree the government subsidies for rice in this country are obscene and need to be dropped, for a host of reasons. But I doubt it would help Haitians much, if any; they're already too deep in the hole they've dug themselves. Eliminating American rice subsidies would simply make rice even more expensive for Haitians, because it wouldn't address the core problem: they're destroying their own agricultural capacity.

 

And I suppose that's somehow America's fault, too?