Cheap, Smelly Americans

By dave742

This paper takes a quick look at an issue brought up by Robert Spencer in one of his
books regarding the “generosity” that the West shows to the Muslim world. (Mr.
Spencer is a writer on the fringe right of the political spectrum who focuses on Islamic
terrorism and jihad. He is the founder of the Jihadwatch (from here on – JW) website.)
As an example of this “generosity”, Mr. Spencer brings up the 2004 tsunami that
occurred off the coast of Indonesia, and makes the claim that the West responded with
generous donations of aid, while at the same time Muslim countries were stingy in
donating aid to their fellow Muslims:

“When a tsunami devastated Muslim Indonesia and other South Asian countries in 2004,
Western states pledged millions: the United States sent $950 million, Great Britain
almost $800 million (including aid from nongovernmental organizations), Germany over
$670 million, Canada $400 million, France about $300 million, Norway $175 million, and
so on. The European Union also kicked in $628 million aside from the individual
contributions of its member states, making Europe‟s contribution two billion. The West‟s
contributions weren‟t merely financial, the United States and Australian armed forces
were the first responders to bring aid to people in need. This Western generosity,
however, has gone largely unnoticed. What of oil-rich Muslim nations? Qatar sent $25
million. After criticism of their initial paltry responses, Saudi Arabia sent $300 million,
Kuwait $100 million, and the United Arab Emirates $20 million. So much for the solidarity
of the umma.”1

First, let‟s look at the following sentence of the above quote:

“The West‟s contributions weren‟t merely financial, the United States and Australian
armed forces were the first responders to bring aid to people in need.”

1
Spencer, Robert, Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing,
2007), p. 15
1
It is true that the US did use its military to bring aid to the affected area in the days
following the tsunami, but there is more to this story than that. In reality, the partnership
between the US and Australia (which also included Japan and India, as we shall see),
was more of a political ploy than a humanitarian gesture.

In the first three days following the tsunami, President Bush was not heard from. He
was too busy vacationing in Crawford, Texas, to bother with dead brown people. By the
time he made his first public appearance, this is what the situation looked like:

“The official death toll, based on figures provided by each affected country, is about
77,000…More than 500,000 are reported injured and 161,200 homeless across the
Indian Ocean. The federation has so far been unable to assess the total number of
missing people.”2

The same article as above mentioned that “the Red Cross said staff on the ground
are coordinating its relief efforts with the United Nations.” This is not a surprise,
since all international relief efforts are handled through the UN, and a visit to the UN
ReliefWeb website will show how routine this is.3 So what did President Bush say
when he finally got around to addressing the disaster? Other than the standard
remarks about being shocked and saddened over the event, the sole purpose of his
short speech (which was 416 words and took about 3 minutes to give) was to
announce the following:

“Secretary Powell is working hard. He has spoken with his counterparts in Japan,
India, Australia, as well as other nations who are helping with the response in order to
begin building an international coalition for immediate humanitarian relief and long-
term recovery and reconstruction efforts. Based on these discussions, we've
established a regional core group with India, Japan and Australia to help coordinate
relief efforts. I'm confident more nations will join this core group in short order. Under
Secretary of State Mark Grossman will lead a U.S. task force to work with these

2
AP Worldstream, “International Red Cross fears quake, tsunami death toll could top 100,000,” December 29,
2004, by Sam Cage
3
Home page: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/doc100?OpenForm
2
 partners to help coordinate interagency response in our own government and to
encourage other nations to participate in the relief efforts.”4

The point of Bush‟s speech was to announce to the world that instead of working
through the UN like every other country in the world does for every humanitarian
relief effort that occurs anywhere in the world, the US had instead decided that they
would bypass the UN and coordinate the relief effort themselves. Bush said that
Australia, Japan, and India were already partners, and that he was “confident more
nations will join this core group in short order.” His first official act in response to the
disaster, then, was to try and use it as a tool to undermine the UN as part of the US‟s
endless quest to delegitimize them. The disaster was used as just another political
tool for our “generous” nation.

Mr. Spencer says that the US was working with Australia as “first responders,” but
Japan and India were also part of the “core group.” Mr. Spencer decided to leave out
non-Western countries. This is not unique to right wing extremists. Even when AFP
reported the story, although they listed all four countries in the body of the article,
they left India out of the title.5 Funny.

Bush‟s plan was recognized for what it was, a political ploy, and in the end it did not
work. The very next day in the UK the former International Development Secretary
Clare Short said:

"I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate
sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we
have got and the one that needs building up."6

The stunt was criticized everywhere:

4
http://geneva.usmission.gov/press2004/1230tsunami.htm
5
AFP, “Australia Boosts Tsunami Aid, Signals Joint Effort with US, Japan,” 28 Dec 2004. See:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1309981/posts
6
Press Association, “Bush ‘Undermining UN With Aid Coalition’,” 30 Dec., 2004, by Jamie Lyons
3
 “The U.S. move to launch the four-member „core group‟ has drawn criticism within
Europe. The French media has accused Washington of supplanting and sidelining
the United Nations…India's decision to join the „core group‟ has drawn flak from
within the country too.”7

Although Bush was “confident more nations will join this core group in short order,”
no other nations were interested in participating in the political stunt, and were
instead more focused on trying to help people. Bush got the message, as was
reported only 3 days later:

“Observers noted that Bush made no reference to the aid coalition, consisting of the
United States, Japan, India and Australia he had touted last week as a „core group‟
that would attract other donor nations. Diplomatic sources in Washington said the
initiative had not, in fact, attracted other countries and was likely to be played down.”8

As a result of the rest of the world deciding to stick with the UN and not the US, the
“core group” was dissolved a little over a week after it was formed:

“The United Nations said Thursday it was assuming leadership of a U.S.-led core
group of countries guiding the massive operation to provide relief to Indian Ocean
tsunami survivors. Jan Egeland, the U.N. emergency humanitarian coordinator, said
that the core group of the United States, Japan, India and Australia was phasing out
and joining the U.N. relief operation.”9

This incident is not reflective of the “generosity” of the US, but an example of how
even in times of disaster, all the US thinks about is increasing its power.

Now let‟s look at the rest of Mr. Spencer‟s paragraph. He gives values for 10 different
countries and the aid package that each of those countries pledged for the tsunami
effort. (Mr. Spencer first uses the word “pledged,” but then uses the word “sent” three

7
IPS, “Tsunami Impact: US-Led ‘Core Group’ on Aid Bypasses the UN,” 5 Jan. 2005, by Praful Bidwai
8
UPI, “Analysis: The Money and Politics of Global Aid,” 3 Jan., 2005, by Roland Flamini. Copy here:
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-126664573/analysis-money-and-politics.html
9
Deutsche Presse-Agentur, “UN Takes over US-Led Tsunami Relief Group,” 6 Jan. 2005
4
times. Pledging money and actually sending it are two different things. The totals he
gives are money that was pledged). Let‟s put these values in a table form:

Table 1:

Aid
Country Donated
In millions
1) United States 950
2) UK 800
3) Germany 670
4) Canada 400
5) France 300
6) Saudi Arabia 300
7) Norway 175
8) Kuwait 100
9) Qatar 25
10) UAE 20

I have color coded the table. The US is in blood-red, EU countries are in yellow, and
Islamic countries are in blue. The table is not complete, however. Mr. Spencer also
mentions that the EU as a whole donated 628 million, which is in addition to what each
EU country gave individually. In order to account for this money, I will include what each
of the EU countries contributed to the 628 million dollar EU contribution. The EU makes
donations to humanitarian aid mainly through the European Commission Humanitarian
Aid (ECHO). The amount that each country contributes to ECHO is proportional to that
countries GDP relative to the total EU GDP. For example, Germany‟s GDP is 2,918,000
(in this paper all my GDP numbers will be in millions of dollars, so Germany‟s GDP is
2.18 trillion – all GDP numbers are 2008 estimates from the CIA Factbook). The total
EU GDP is 15,721,422 (15.7 trillion). Germany‟s percentage of the EU GDP is
2,918,000/15,721,422=18.56%. Germany‟s portion of the ECHO contribution to the
tsunami is therefore 18.56% of 628 million, or 117 million. Using similar calculations,
France‟s contribution is 85 million (France GDP=2,128,000), and the UK contribution is
107 million (UK GDP=2,674,000). Adding these values to the values contributed by the
5
individual countries, we get the following table which encompasses all the information
given by Mr. Spencer:

Table 2:

Aid
Country Donated
In millions
1) United States 950
2) UK 907
3) Germany 787
4) Canada 400
5) France 385
6) Saudi Arabia 300
7) Norway 186
8) Kuwait 100
9) Qatar 25
10) UAE 20

At this point we need to look at a couple of Mr. Spencer‟s data points. For the UK, he
gives a total (not including the EU ECHO contributions) of 800 million, which he says
is “including aid from nongovernmental organizations.” The problem is that if you
want to make a fair comparison, you cannot include charitable donations from one
country, and not include them for the rest. Why does Mr. Spencer feel the need to
include charitable donations only in the case of the UK? The reference he gives for
the UK value contains the following paragraph:

“In addition to the £300m donated to the DEC, other British charities have raised
£50m and the government has promised £75m on top of the resources it provided for
the aid effort.”10

The DEC is “an umbrella group of 12 aid agencies.” So of the total amount raised of
£425m, £350m was from charities, and £75m was from the UK government. Using
dollars (the exchange rate at the times was about $1.87 per UK pound), we get

10
BBC, “Tsunami appeal finishes at £300m,” 26 Feb 2005, available here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4298515.stm
6
$654.5 million from charities and $140.25 million from the UK government, for a total
of $794.75 million, which Mr. Spencer rounds up to $800 million. Since we would like
to make a fair comparison, we should only use government pledges. Just because
Mr. Spencer didn‟t like the value for the UK government aid pledge, he cannot simply
add the charity number for that country only. This is dishonest. The correct number
for the UK should be $140.25 million, plus the UK portion of the ECHO donation,
which comes to $247.25 million.

For France, Mr. Spencer gives a value of “about $300 million.” He gives no reference
for this value. In the first 30 days after the tsunami hit, there was a bidding game
going on amongst many nations to see who could out-give the other. France raised
its total a few times initially, but then said publically that it would no longer play the
bidding game.11 The article reporting this said that the French had pledged 50 million
Euros, or $66 million dollars, up until that point. An AP report from the day before
gave a value of $103 million.12 I find no announcement of a higher figure after this
date. I do not know where Mr. Spencer got his total of $300 million, as he didn‟t give
a source. Including France‟s ECHO contribution, the French total (using the higher
AP value) comes to $188 million. This is the correct value.

The next problem is with the value given by Mr. Spencer for Saudi Arabia. The
sentence by Mr. Spencer that contains the total for all the Muslim countries in his
comparison comes from one Christian Science Monitor article.13 Mr. Spencer gives a
value of $100 million for Kuwait, and the article says that “initially Kuwait offered $1
million on the day of the tsunami, then doubled it. A few days later, the contribution
increased to $10 million and has now soared to $100 million.” Mr. Spencer, then,
gives the correct value for Kuwait. Mr. Spencer then gives a value of $20 million for

11
“Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said Friday that France would not be drawn into "this bidding game" to provide
relief aid for countries hit by the Asian tsunami… The French government has pledged *euro+50 million (US$66
million) in relief aid.” AP Worldstream, “France avoids 'bidding game' over relief aid for tsunami-hit countries,
Barnier says,” January 7, 2005
12
AP, “Government Pledges for Tsunami Victims,” 6 Jan 2005
13
Christian Science Monitor, “After slow start, Arab countries crank up tsunami relief,” 12 Jan 2005, available here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0112/p04s01-wome.html
7
the United Arab Emirates, and the article states “the United Arab Emirates raised its
donation from $2 million to $20 million last week.” Correct again. Mr. Spencer then
gives a value of $300 million for Saudi Arabia. The article says:

“Saudi Arabia raised its contribution from $10 million to $30 million, with another $101
million from public donations. The Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank has
allocated $10 million in emergency relief as part of a broader aid package.”

I have no idea how Mr. Spencer came up with a value of $300 million for Saudi
Arabia from this reference. Even by adding all these values, we come up with only
$141 million. And as we mentioned with the UK, adding donations from charities to a
government pledge is incorrect. As far as the Saudi Bank, not all the money from the
Islamic Development Bank is from Saudi Arabia. If you look at the Islamic
Development Bank Annual Report of 2009 in Annex 5, you see that the percentage
of subscribed capital owned by Saudi Arabia is 24.44%.14 So let‟s attribute 24.44% of
the 10 million donated by the Islamic Development bank as coming from Saudi
Arabia (this is similar to how we calculated EU contributions from member countries).
The amount of the $10 million from the Islamic Development Bank that comes from
Saudi Arabia is $2,440,000. The correct total for Saudi Arabia is $32.44 million. It‟s
strange that Mr. Spencer would inflate the number for a Muslim country.

The next issue is with Canada. For his value of 400 million, Mr. Spencer uses for a
reference a link from the Canadian International Development Agency, which
manages Canada‟s development assistance program. Mr. Spencer‟s link is no longer
active, since this data is updated frequently. A currently active website gives a value
of $425 million15, which is the same value that was announced at a Council of
Europe Parliamentary Assembly meeting on 27 Jan 200516. Maybe Mr. Spencer is

14 th
Islamic Development Bank, 34 Annual Report, 1429H – 2008, Annex 5, p. 86, available here:
http://www.isdb.org/irj/go/km/docs/documents/IDBDevelopments/Internet/English/IDB/CM/Publications/Annual
_Reports/34th/AnnualReport_34.pdf
15
http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida/acdi-cida.nsf/eng/NAT-220113753-MHQ
16
“Our government is matching most of these private donations; it has pledged 425 million dollars over the next
five years.” http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/Records/2005/E/0501271500EADI.htm
8
unaware, however, than Canadian dollars are different than American dollars. Using
an AP article from when this value was announced17, this works out to $345 US
dollars. This is the correct value.

Here, then, is a table using Mr. Spencer‟s information with the correct values:

Table 3:

Aid Donated
Country
In millions
1) United States 950
2) Germany 787
3) Canada 345
4) UK 247
5) France 188
6) Norway 186
7) Kuwait 100
8) Saudi Arabia 32.4
9) Qatar 25
10) UAE 20

Now comes the part that is difficult for many Americans to understand: you cannot
determine the relative generosity of nations by comparing the total amount of money
that nations donate to a specific cause! There are two reasons for this.

First, these nations have different numbers of people in them!! For example, the US
has 307 million people, and Qatar has 833 thousand. The US has over 350 times as
many citizens as Qatar does. Now think real hard. Does it make sense to compare
what these countries give as a whole, when one has over 350 times as many
people? Let‟s say you gave $200 to charity last year. A proportionately equivalent
situation would be the following: What would you say if I along with 9 of my friends
gave $210 total, and we called you cheap for only giving $200? I know what I would
say: go to hell! More people should give more money to charity. This is not a difficult
concept to understand.

17
AP Worldstream, “Canada boosts tsunami relief pledge to US$345 million,” 10 Jan 2005, available here:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-104272523.html
9
Second, people in different countries make different amounts of money!! For
example, the GDP per capita in Saudi Arabia is $20,500, and in the US it is $46,900.
If someone is making twice as much money as you are, they should give more
money to charity. Bill Gates should give a lot more money to charity than the average
American. This also is not a difficult concept to understand. (This concept works in
reverse for Kuwait and Qatar, since their GDP per capita is larger than in the US. In
both of these countries, an individual should give more than an American individual
should).

Both of these factors are routinely taken into account when making financial
comparisons such as donation amounts by calculating the amount of the donation as
a percentage of a particular nations total GDP.18 When the UN made the goals for its
Millennium Project, they asked rich countries to donate 0.7% of their GDP to
development assistance.19 Instead of asking for a percentage of a nations GDP, the
UN could have followed the example of Mr. Spencer, and asked for a specific value
from all nations, regardless of population or wealth. Do you know why they didn‟t do
this? Because they are not asinine.

To make any real comparison of aid donation between countries, you do it by

calculating the donation as a percentage of that country‟s GDP. So let‟s do that using
the correct values that we found in Table 3, and express them as a percentage of
those nations GDP. I will use the value of how much each nation donates per million
dollars of those nations GDP:

18
For a discussion of this and also a discussion of how cheap and smelly Americans are, see;
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2676
19
UN Development Project, an in-depth look, available here: http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/press/07.htm
10
Table 4:

Dollars of
aid per GDP in
Country million millions of
dollars of dollars
GDP
1) Norway 675.38 275,400
2) Kuwait 670.69 149,100
3) Qatar 274.73 91,000
4) Germany 269.71 2,918,000
5) Canada 265.38 1,300,000
6) UAE 108.70 184,000
7) UK 92.37 2,674,000
8) France 88.35 2,128,000
9) United States 63.11 14,260,000
10) Saudi Arabia 56.20 576,500

Wow! The order looks a lot different now! Kuwait gave over ten times as much as the
United States when expressed as a percentage of GDP. The US comes out near the
bottom, only squeaking by Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait challenged Norway for the top
spot. Not the picture that Mr. Spencer painted.

Now that we know the correct way to look at this type of data, the next step is to get
better data. The Reuters Alertnet website has a list of the top 40 biggest donors to
the tsunami relief effort.20 This list of the top 40 includes both individual countries and
multilateral aid. Thirty six of the 40 are individual countries, and 4 (the European
Commission, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and the Islamic
Development Bank) are multilateral aid. For the air from the European Commission,
we already discussed how to allocate the total amounts to the individual countries.
For the EC amount, you can allocate the total using the individual countries GDP as
a percentage of the total EU GDP. For the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), we can
use the values in their annual report, as we did above. For the Asian Development

20
See http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/aidtracker/fulldonors.htm
11
Bank (ADB), we can use the values from their website which gives the percentage of
“subscribed capital” for each nation.21 For instance, the value for the US is 15.57%.
So 15.57% of the value contributed by the ADB can be allocated to the US. Finally,
the money for the World Bank (WB) comes from something called the “Multi-Donor
Fund for Aceh and Nias,” which has 15 donor nations. 22 The World Bank money can
be allocated using the percentages obtained from this website.

After allocating the money from the 4 multilateral aid donations (for all nations I used
the value for “aid allocated,” and not “aid promised”) to the appropriate country, and
then calculating the donation as a percentage of that nations‟ GDP, the 36 nations in
the Reuters website are ranked as follows (see next page):

21
See http://www.adb.org/About/membership.asp
22
See
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/INDONESIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:
21140670~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:226309,00.html
12
 Table 5:

Dollars of
Dollars of
aid
aid per GDP in
donated
Country million millions of
in
dollars of dollars
thousands
GDP
of dollars
1) Australia 990.21 795,038 802,900
2) Norway 695.39 192,136 276,300
3) Kuwait 585.70 87,562 149,500
4) New Zealand 566.67 66,073 116,600
5) Netherlands 561.85 378,405 673,500
6) Qatar 488.23 44,697 91,550
7) Denmark 474.77 96,901 204,100
8) Luxembourg 399.73 15,777 37,470
9) Finland 375.85 72,914 194,000
10) Sweden 344.99 119,055 345,100
11) UK 282.54 631,763 2,236,000
12) Canada 223.53 291,260 1,303,000
13) Ireland 206.24 38,980 189,000
14) Germany 182.41 533,549 2,925,000
15) United Arab Emirates 173.91 35,877 206,300
16) Austria 166.26 55,066 331,200
17) Belgium 160.61 62,672 390,200
18) Japan 154.40 670,089 4,340,000
19) Saudi Arabia 153.99 85,912 557,900
20) Singapore 145.49 34,611 237,900
21) France 142.94 304,900 2,133,000
22) Italy 138.41 252,884 1,827,000
23) Greece 126.55 43,509 343,800
24) Portugal 105.44 25,021 237,300
25) Taiwan 95.77 68,348 713,700
26) Switzerland 90.76 28,870 318,100
27) Czech Republic 84.52 22,382 264,800
28) United States 68.13 983,756 14,440,000
29) South Korea 66.22 88,601 1,338,000
30) Spain 64.03 89,774 1,402,000
31) Turkey 47.68 43,095 903,900
32) Hong Kong 23.95 7,360 307,300
**33) India** 21.65 71,516 3,304,000
34) China 16.56 132,376 7,992,000
35) Russia 15.50 35,200 2,271,000
36) Mexico 2.17 3,400 1,567,000
13
Using the Reuters values, the US is behind all 4 Muslim countries used by Mr. Spencer
in his comparison, and the US comes ahead of only one Muslim country; Turkey (I
guess Turkey has been partially Westernized). The US also came ahead of only one EU
country; Spain. I highlighted India because they were expected to receive money from
the international community as a result of the tsunami, since they were impacted by it.
The fact that they refused all money and actually donated to other countries makes
them a special case. Of course nobody expected them to give much under those
circumstances.

So the US came in 28th out of 36 countries (35 if we exclude India). I am not impressed
with the generosity of the US.

This, however, is not the whole story. In the table above, I allocated the multilateral aid
from the EU, IDB, ADB, and WB only to those nations that are included in the Reuters
chart, which are the top 36 nations. However, some nations that are not in the top 40
biggest donors, and therefore not in Reuters list, gave a substantial sum of money
(relative to GDP) even if you only consider their contribution to the multilateral aid
organizations, and ignore any individual contribution that they might have given. For
example, Uzbekistan accounts for 0.02% of the amount given by the IDB, which is
$45,860 (which becomes $45,755 after accounting for rounding errors). Uzbekistan also
accounts for 0.672% of the amount given by the ADB, which works out to $5,113,248
(after rounding is $5,112,941). The ADB is also a donor to the World Bank Multi-Donor
Fund, and Uzbekistan‟s portion of the World Bank amount is $48,164. The total amount
given by Uzbekistan through multilateral aid, then, is $5,207,167. Again, this ignores
any individual aid Uzbekistan may have given (if they did give any individually, it
certainly would not have been large enough to end up on Reuters top 40 list). This
amount given by Uzbekistan turns out to be larger (as a percentage of GDP) than the
amount given by the US.

In the following table, I have added the contribution of certain countries through their
donations to multilateral aid organizations on the Reuters list, and compared them to the
total values for the 36 countries shown in Table 5 above.

14
 Table 6:

Dollars of Dollars Dollars

Dollars
aid of aid of aid
of aid
donated GDP in per donated GDP in
per
Country in millions of Country million in millions of
million
thousand dollars dollars thousan dollars
dollars
s of of ds of
of GDP
dollars GDP dollars
1) Australia 990.21 795,038 802,900 29) Singapore 145.49 34,611 237,900
2) Norway 695.39 192,136 276,300 30) France 142.94 304,900 2,133,000
3) Kuwait 585.70 87,562 149,500 31) Palau 140.49 23 164
4) New Zealand 566.67 66,073 116,600 32) Italy 138.41 252,884 1,827,000
5) Netherlands 561.85 378,405 673,500 33) Brunei 137.68 2,696 19,580
6) Nauru 512.01 60 30,721 34) Micronesia 129.08 31 238
7) Tuvalu 512.01 15 7,680 36) Greece 126.55 43,509 343,800
8) Qatar 488.23 44,697 91,550 37) Cook Islands 125.91 23 183
9) Denmark 474.77 96,901 204,100 38) Armenia 121.67 2,289 18,810
10) Luxembourg 399.73 15,777 37,470 39) Georgia 121.47 2,618 21,560
11) Finland 375.85 72,914 194,000 40) Portugal 105.44 25,021 237,300
12) Sweden 344.99 119,055 345,100 **41) Maldives** 97.50 168 1,723
13) UK 282.54 631,763 2,236,000 42) Taiwan 95.77 68,348 713,700
14) Libya 255.84 22,443 87,720 43) Comoros 92.50 69 742
15) Canada 223.53 291,260 1,303,000 44) Switzerland 90.76 28,870 318,100
16) Mauritania 220.71 1,396 6,323 CzechRepublic 84.52 22,382 264,800
17) Kyrgyz Republic 208.42 2,426 11,640 46) Ginea Bissau 76.60 69 896
18) Bhutan 207.30 732 3,533 **47) Myanmar** 75.45 4,170 55,270
19) Ireland 206.24 38,980 189,000 48) Uzbekistan 68.13 5,207 71,840
20) Germany 182.41 533,549 2,925,000 49) United States 68.13 983,756 14,440,000
United Arab Emirates 173.91 35,877 206,300 50) South Korea 66.22 88,601 1,338,000
22) Marshall Islands 171.95 23 134 51) Spain 64.03 89,774 1,402,000
23) Tajikistan 171.73 2,265 13,190 52) Turkey 47.68 43,095 903,900
24) Austria 166.26 55,066 331,200 53) Hong Kong 23.95 7,360 307,300
25) Belgium 160.61 62,672 390,200 **54) India** 21.65 71,516 3,304,000
26) Japan 154.40 670,089 4,340,000 55) China 16.56 132,376 7,992,000
27) Saudi Arabia 153.99 85,912 557,900 56) Russia 15.50 35,200 2,271,000
28) Fiji Islands 145.60 522 3,587 57) Mexico 2.17 3,400 1,567,000

Now there are 13 Islamic countries that gave more than the US. The US comes in
49th place when only 36 countries were compared. Quite a feat. Maldives, an Islamic

15
country, gave more than the US, and they were impacted by the tsunami. Even when
they are impacted by the natural disaster, some countries still contribute more than
the US does. Unbelievable.

The Reuters data is not the best for one major reason. Their data includes donations
in the form of debt relief and other non-direct aid. 23 As was made clear in the media
at the time of the tsunami, debt relief in particular not only does nothing for the
victims, but may actually harm the nations receiving the debt relief:

“Analysts have said that disaster-hit countries could face higher debt costs in the
future if payments, frozen under a moratorium, pile up then later come due once debt
relief is lifted. In addition, a delay in payments, especially if commercial debt is
included in the moratorium, could cause downgrades by debt ratings agencies that
would raise the cost of future borrowing. „It is one of those gestures that sounds
good, but when you look at it more carefully it turns out not to be worth it. ... Costs
outweigh the benefits,‟ said Tim Condon, head of Asian financial market research at
ING Financial Markets, Singapore.”24

From the NYT:

“The proposal by Britain to grant tsunami-affected countries an international debt

moratorium is wrong-headed…The proposal is wrong-headed because the losses
have been primarily human rather than economic.”25

The problem is that debt relief does nothing for the victims. If you are hit by a natural
disaster, and half your family is dead, the other half are injured, and you have no
food or access to doctors, having a rich country tell the government of your country
that they don‟t have to pay their debt for 5 years is not much help for you. What

23
See http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/aidtracker/methodology.htm
24
Turkish Daily News, “Tsunami Debt Relief Could Prove Costly to Asia Over Long Term,” 8 Jan 2005
25
New York Times, “Tsunami aid and beyond: II: Debt relief? No. A disaster force? Yes,” 6 Jan 2005, See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/opinion/06iht-edbow_ed3_.html?_r=1 See also:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/jan/09/development.politics and
http://www.br.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=565&fArticleId=2364869
16
victims need is direct aid.26 The Australian Prime Minister at the time, John Howard,
said that he “believes direct aid is the best way to assist countries affected by the
Indian Ocean tsunami. The Australian Government has resisted moves by the Group
of Seven to place a moratorium on debt repayments from Indonesia and Sri Lanka,
and other tsunami-stricken nations. Howard believes many countries may view the
debt relief as aid, and withdraw direct financial aid” (Howard is paraphrased in the
article). 27

The best source by far for comparing direct aid is the UN ReliefWeb Financial
Tracking Service, which compiles humanitarian aid from every nation in the world for
every disaster that the UN responds to.28 This source does not keep track of aid such
as debt relief, which matters little to the victims. They track direct aid, which is mostly
given as cash. I used their pdf that was compiled for the tsunami 29 to calculate the
amount of aid given by every country in the world (I included the values for donations
given by each countries Red Cross or Red Crescent societies, so a partial measure
of private donations is included in the values below).

Another issue with the most data is the difference between money pledged and
money paid. Sometimes countries pledge a certain amount of money, but don‟t end
up paying what they promised.30 The UN Reliefweb site tracks money that was
actually paid.

26
Even direct aid can be used as a way for rich countries to pursue their political interests, and are not always strict
humanitarian gestures. See: http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/240/45056.html
27
The Australian Financial Review, “Moratorium no substitute for direct aid: PM,” 12 Jan 2005
28
See http://ocha.unog.ch/fts/pageloader.aspx
29
See http://ocha.unog.ch/fts/reports/daily/ocha_R10_E14794_asof___0912130205.pdf
30
See The Times (London), “Millions pledged for tsunami go unpaid,” 29 March 2006, by : Rory Watson and
Angela Jameson. See: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article698345.ece
17
 $ of aid / $ of aid
$ aid $ of aid
million GDP (in / GDP in
Country (in Country in
dollars millions) million millions
thousand) thousand
GDP GDP
1) Malta 1186.68 11,786 9,930 42) Saudi Arabia 37.88 21,132 557,900
2) Palau 420.82 69 164 43) Slovenia 33.49 1,992 59,490
3) Cook Islands 320.46 59 183 44) Spain 32.91 46,136 1,402,000
4) Norway 319.64 88,318 276,300 45) Samoa 28.76 29 1,021
5) Cyprus 296.36 6,745 22,760 46) Slovakia 26.28 3,148 119,800
6) UK 287.84 643,608 2,236,000 47) Barbados 24.84 133 5,367
7) Qatar 275.63 25,233 91,550 48) Czech Rep. 23.48 6,218 264,800
8) Monaco 272.89 266 976 49) Libya 23.22 2,037 87,720
9) Sweden 266.22 91,874 345,100 50) Andorra 22.24 81 3,660
10) U. A. E. 259.54 53,543 206,300 51) Lithuania 21.29 1,349 63,370
11) New Zealand 243.81 28,428 116,600 52) Hungary 21.03 4,136 196,700
12) Denmark 225.09 45,940 204,100 53) Timor Leste 19.79 50 2,526
13) Curacao (Neth.) 198.41 556 2,800 54) Thailand 19.56 10,730 548,700
14) Finland 186.34 36,149 194,000 55) Romania 18.02 4,901 272,000
15) Liechtenstein 176.93 736 4,160 56) Nigeria 17.85 6,001 336,200
16) Luxembourg 167.59 6,615 39,470 57) Kazakhstan 17.08 3,010 176,200
17) Ireland 166.97 31,557 189,000 58) Latvia 16.94 660 38,950
18) Micronesia 162.47 39 238 59) Mauritania 16.02 101 6,323
19) Japan 118.18 512,882 4,340,000 60) Croatia 15.33 1,266 82,580
20) Fiji 110.00 395 3,587 **61) Malaysia** 15.28 5,888 385,200
21) Iceland 104.70 1,347 12,870 62) Unites States 15.01 216,815 14,440,000
22) Greece 102.28 35,165 343,800 63) Belize 14.46 37 2,542
23) Switzerland 91.36 29,062 318,100 64) Poland 14.43 9,675 670,700
24) Canada 90.06 117,346 1,303,000 65) Mali 13.55 200 14,750
25) Liberia 87.22 134 1,531 66) Bulgaria 13.14 1,235 93,980
26) Netherlands 85.99 57,917 673,500 67) Azerbaijan 12.86 1,000 77,790
27) Trinidad 72.56 2,111 29,090 68) Mauritius 10.98 169 15,430
28) Belgium 72.45 28,270 390,200 69) Bosnia 10.31 307 29,770
29) Australia 69.09 55,472 802,900 70) Senegal 9.14 199 21,780
30) Kuwait 66.96 10,010 149,500 71) Eq. Guinea 8.91 205 23,000
31) Papua N. G. 62.57 824 13,170 72) Vanuatu 8.74 9 991
32) Hong Kong 61.74 18,971 307,300 73) Algeria 8.72 2,036 233,500
33) Germany 55.42 162,098 2,925,000 74) Turkey 8.48 7,662 903,900
34) Austria 51.47 17,047 331,200 75) Macedonia 8.46 159 18,830
35) Portugal 50.22 11,917 237,300 76) China 8.36 66,783 7,992,000
36) Albania 48.61 630 12,960 **77) S. Africa** 7.65 3,768 492,200
37) Italy 44.79 81,836 1,827,000 78) Israel 7.23 1,470 203,400
38) Guyana 41.54 124 2,973 79) Laos 7.14 100 14,010
39) France 41.38 88,273 2,133,000 80) India 6.96 23,000 3,304,000
40) Singapore 39.00 9,278 237,900 81) Russia 6.21 14,094 2,271,000
41) Estonia 38.82 1,088 28,030 82) Taiwan 5.95 4,250 713,700

18
The United States comes in 62nd place in the world, behind 10 Muslim countries. One of
those Muslim countries, Malaysia, gave more money than the US did, and they were
affected by the tsunami. Once again, a Muslim country suffers from a natural disaster,
and they still donate more than the US. Israel (who is also colored in red because the
US is a puppet state of Israel) came in 78th. US = cheap.

Earlier, we mentioned the UN Millennium Goals, one of which is that all members of the
OECD Development Assistance Committee should donate 0.7% of their GDP for
development assistance for poor countries. There are currently 23 members of the
Committee, which include the US, Korea, Australia, Japan, Canada, and European
countries.31 Among these nations, the US ranks 21st out of 22 (Korea is not included
because they are a new member).32 Norway is in first place, donating 0.93% of their
GDP. As a comparison, Saudi Arabia donates 4% of its GDP, which is over 4 times
more than the most generous Western nation, and 18 times more than the US.33

Let‟s look at how Muslim countries donated financial aid in response to another natural
disaster; hurricane Katrina on the Gulf coast of the US. In my opinion, the international
community should not have donated a dime to the US in response to this event. The US
is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, and it does not need money from other
nations. (This would be just as true if a natural disaster hit Kuwait – they also would not
need help from the rest of the world).The respectable thing for the US to do in response
to the aid offers would have been to reject them, just as India did when they were
offered money after the tsunami. The US, obviously, does not have the integrity that
India does, and they accepted the offers of financial aid. Pathetic.

Here is what some Muslim countries donated to the US in response to Katrina:

31
For a list, see here: http://www.oecd.org/document/38/0,3343,en_2649_34603_1893350_1_1_1_1,00.html
32
See: http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/press/action7_oecd05.htm
33
The Washington Times, “’Saudi Generosity’,” 13 Jan 2005
19
Maldives: $25,000, which corresponds to $14.51 of aid per million dollars of GDP, which
is almost as much money as the US donated in response to the tunami. 34

Gabon: $500,000, which, relative to GDP, is 57% more than what the US gave in
response to the tsunami

Djibouti: $50,000, 76% more than what the US gave. 35

Bahrain: $5 million. 12 times more than what the US gave.

UAE: $100 million. 32 times more than what the US gave.36

Kuwait: $100 million. 44 times what the US gave.

Qatar: $100 million. 72 times what the US gave.

Freakin‟ Djibouti gives more to the US than the US gave for tsunami aid. Unbelievable.
As for Saudi Arabia, they did not donate a large amount through their government, but
helped in other ways:

“Saudi Arabia has promised nearly $5.3 million in funds from Saudi Refining Inc., a
Houston-based subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, and from the Arab Gulf Programme for
United Nations Development Organizations.”37

Also:

34
AP, “A look at what Katrina aid other countries have offered U.S.,” 6 Sept 2005. A copy is duplicated in this
document: http://www.hamdenctrotary.org/IMupload%5Cnewsletter%5C20050918_newsletter.pdf See this same
reference for all the countries in this list.
35
Also see: “Cash from Djibouti, the US will accept… Djibouti, whose per capita GDP is one thirtieth of that of the
US, has pledged £30,000. Afghanistan said it was offering £55,000, tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka had come up with
£13,000, poverty-stricken Bangladesh has offered £540,000…” The Times (London), “Poor and isolated nations rally
to offer aid,” 9 Sept 2005 by Giles Whittell and Jane Macartney
36
For Kuwait, Qatar, and UAE, also see The Washington Times, “Global Katrina aid more than $800 million,” 22
Sept 2005: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/sep/22/20050922-111323-8400r/
37
Ibid
20
 “Starting in January, shrimp boat owners on the Alabama coast will receive vouchers for
free diesel fuel, about $1.2 million worth in all, paid for through the world's largest oil
producer, the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. „I know, Saudi Arabia. It seems kind of strange. But
they've been very kind and gracious to us,‟ said Ernie Anderson, president of the
Organized Seafood Association of Alabama, which will administer the Saudi gift. „We all
hope this will kick-start the economy down here.‟ Through their government-owned oil
conglomerate, the Saudis have quietly donated „tens of millions‟ of dollars worth of
goods to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.”38

Once again: Muslim countries are generous, the US is cheap.

Here is a true story of generosity:

“Some 200 Ugandan women who earn $1.20 per day breaking rocks into gravel in
Kampala have donated $900 to the U.S. victims of Hurricane Katrina.”39

The 200 Ugandan women donated $4.50 per person to Katrina relief when they make
only $1.20 per day, which means they donated 3 and ¾ days pay. And the pathetic US
accepts this money! It makes me so proud. If the people of the US gave as much as
these Ugandan women, we would have donated $480 per person for tsunami relief, or
147 billion as a whole. This sounds like a ridiculously large number, but it is nothing
compared to what the US spends on wars. But killing people is more important to the
US than helping them.

38
AP, “Saudi Arabia's Katrina aid to fill tanks for Alabama shrimpers,” 3- Dec 2005
39
UPI, “Ugandan women donate to Katrina relief,” 24 Nov 2005. Copy is here:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2005/11/24/Ugandan-women-donate-to-Katrina-relief/UPI-77591132849617/
21