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

On the contrary. We've bought lots of friends over the years, if you're talking about getting cooperation from other nations by making it profitable and in their best interests.

I don't think we've spent much time or money actually trying to buy off our enemies, though....

And it seems to me that mostly what Bush accomplished with his John Wayne/Dirty Harry act was to piss off countries that had been our friends and natural allies for years.

When it comes to stuff like disaster aid, I'd like to think we do that because we can - and because we think it's the right thing to do - rather than out of some vain hope it's going to make everyone love us.

 

so the spanish were so weak minded that they were overly influenced by what they considered savages?

or, were they there to rip off the native peoples?

 

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