U.S. Does Little to Aid Global Catastrophes - Comments

Also I agree with a lot of the below comments sure America home of the brave land of the free we do have our helping hands extended and maybe we did more in the past but so did other countries. Maybe it's their turn to take the brunt of it. At least be thankful for what we ARE doing to help, it's not like we are completley standing around like doofs. Plus you have to look at the morals of the world, world leaders, country alliances, how they have changed over time in not just America but every where and consider the feelings or opinions that those countries and those surrounding it have towards ours.

And America isn't the last super power from what I've studied America is in third place with like Canada and China up front.

Plus why does this fall on Americas shoulders other countries could help and do more and some are but why not yell at the ones who aren't. Sometimes countries really need to fight for themselves on their own two fee you know. America became the home of the brave land of the free all on it's own, some times things have to happen like that. The worlds not perfect people can't always pick you up when your down, people try as best they can but it can't always be the same. Maybe America needs to catch it's breath after running around everywhere all at once to pick up fallen people, keep it's citizens happy, deal with political and for reals warfare, and collaborate with other countries while in debt. [/end rant]

True and false in some sense. People are telling America they need to be more involved in the world other people are saying America needs to just mind it's business and not try to be on a high horse freeing every land.

And the citizens are also split about the decisions. We cant give people help if we can barley help ourselves.

I wouldn't say this was the first instance of genocide.
In fact, I'd argue the people of Europe invading Native American land was the first. The amount of Native Americans killed and tortured was horrendous. As much as America would like to think it's doing good causes, it needs to looks at itself and realise the near genocide it caused 300 years ago.

You had best check your facts, because the last time I looked, the Armenian Genocide was provoked by the terrorist actions of an Armenian rebel group in the province of Van....
As to your article as a whole, my sentiments are the same as the past few posts before me. The U.S. cannot be expected to police the entirety of the globe. There's no future in it. Case and point: we went into Iraq, disposed of a completely insane dictator, his two even more insane sons, set up a system of democracy, and then got vilified by the entire world for our actions.
And yes, we are stretched very thin right now. Our economy is tanking, we have a completely inept president who doesn't seem to care, and we're too busy arguing over things that don't really matter in the broad spectrum to concentrate any of our efforts anyplace else.

The U.S. needs to worry about our own problems first, and stop giving out money and resources to countries that would NEVER do it for us. As a matter of fact, we help them and then they turn on us and attack us. Their country, their problem.

I think right now, our own problems are just a bit too much for us to stretch out resources and money any further. Granted, however, I do realize that we might be able to do a bit more at the moment, and probably don't because most of us are either wrapped up in the immature 'left vs. right' verbal slaughter, or just want to get our own problems (which are growing steadily worse) out of the way before tackling anything else.

I do realize, though, that we are not the only ones facing problems. I'm sure many others countries are, too, so I'm not going to try to pretend we're the only ones. Just... lay off us for awhile, please? We've just got to wait until the political thrashing amongst the more immature citizens and government officials eases up a bit, and maybe then we can get stuff done.

I agree with zazoo. I think that we should give help to some extent, but i also think we need to help ourselves more than anything

Gaah! I just wish people would stop overlooking the fact that we shouldn't be the Mother of All Countries and come to the rescue with every damn problem. We can't go everywhere at once, and we have our own problems to deal with too, not that we aren't dealing with others RIGHT NOW as we are discussing this. And others as in the Afganistan trouble thats been on the news lately.

I have a few problems with the article...the first being the idea that genocide against the Armenians was "the first." How convenient to forget America's own genocide, our outright slaughter, of many Native American tribes! Although the term genocide was not coined until after the Holocaust, it has been going on for far, far longer. And why do you jump from the Armenians, to the Holocaust, to the 2000s, as if nothing else happened? What about Cambodia, Bosnia/Sarajevo, and Rwanda?

I do however, (mostly) agree with your point that the US does not do enough. After Rwanda, we joined many other countries in promising genocide "NEVER AGAIN," and yet we have failed time and time again...in Cambodia, in Rwanda, in Darfur, in Uganda...we have stood by, not just as Americans, but as a global community, and watched our fellow human beings suffer needlessly as we have only done what is comfortable. I do not think it is our job as Americans, but as PEOPLE. We go around every day, living our privileged lives in an industrialized, first world country, and easily forget how lucky we are, and how small our own problems are in comparison to the child soldiers in Africa, the thousands of women who are raped by the own government in Sudan, and the millions who starve around the world. This is not to say we do nothing; there are many organizations dedicated to improving conditions, but in many cases, what we are doing is honorable, but not enough. We commend ourselves for helping, giving money, but forget that if money were really the solution all the problems could have been fixed by now. GLOBAL action is needed, and that is where I correct you. It's not America's job, it is the job of all able global citizens. It is our job as human beings.

I'm sorry Tracey Sullivan but I can't help but think that your comment concerning this was a bit out of line.
Okay so maybe us Brits get the wrong information but to be honest you live in America as you quite clearly stated, and you don't know what information we get. We all know that America has come to the aid of many, upon many countries but to be honest what do you expect? America is the biggest most powerful country in the world and it has shown before that it can handle it's own problems as well as other peoples. America also isn't the only country that helps. The UK does too as well as Australia and most other wealthier countries. These poor smaller countries need help and who is anyone to deny that from them? There shouldn't be blame put on them for always asking for help.
You mentioned that no one is help with the BP oil spill. I think you'll find that America DENIED help from the UK for that so before you go blaming anyone for not helping your country when your in trouble maybe it would be good if they accepted help! Atleast UK wasn't too proud to accept help in WW2.
Also America isn't the only country in the recession. And you're not the only country that helped with Haiti either.
The author of this article has said that the point wasn't to call out America but just making the point that if they could help other people and themselves at one point how come, all of a sudden it's too much for them and they're tired of people asking them for help.
I think you should really think about what you are getting yourself into before commenting on something like this. I don't claim to know all the facts but you should maybe do that little bit more research before attacking other countries on here.
Sorry for the long post, I got a bit wound up.

Do we have to do everything? Really? Because it seems like thats what the world wants from us anymore! You act like we dont have our own problems. We are at war already, we dont need to start another one. Or what about the fact that our economy is basically crap right now? Where are we going to get the money to ship our troops over there when a lot of Americans are below the poverty line? When we have problems no one steps in to help us, do we complain? No. We solve it. Like the massive oil spill thats killing all kinds of wild life, costing people their jobs, raising gas prices, killed people. NO ONE is helping us with that, even though it's a known fact we do not have it under control. We can only do so much, and all the world does is take. We've been dragged into wars we never wanted anything to do with: the World Wars (WW2 was caused with us getting the sh*tty end of the stick when we try to help people. supplying China with guns so Japan didnt take over what happens next? Pearle Harbor.), and the War on Terrorism and the American people's lives are effected by it and we suffer. People from other countries THINK you know, but unless you are AMERICAN or live in AMERICA, you have no idea. How can you live and UK and tell US how OUR country is? Your automatically ruled out, your countries only show the bad anyway!
EXAMPLE
America huge help in Haiti relief BUT not raising the taxes on their citizens so they can rebuild Port-Au-Prince!
Im tired of defending my country because I shouldnt have to. We do all we can, and it's frustrating when people demand more. Can't there be a war America was not brought into? Can't we have a f*ucking break already? People are greedy, why does America have to fix things. We aren't parents, we shouldn't be held responsible for other people. 'U.S does little to aid global catastrophes'? if that isn't a slap in the face I dont know what is. We have a rather LARGE list of successful aid in global catastrophes lets take a look shall we: SPANISH AMERICAN WAR: America went to war with Spain to gain independence for Cuba, but also helped the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam. WORLD WAR 1- America's large army, strong navy, and plentiful supplies helped the allies defeat Germany and other central powers. After the world war? The Great Depression. Help? none, foreign trade with America was almost non-existent. WORLD WAR 2- America establishes air and sea patrol to warn the British when German submarines were near. What happens? German submarines attack American ships. Japan wants to take over China, Americans AID China and refuse to supply Japan with war materials. December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor. America is brought into the war. after the war America is in debt. Not to mention helping out Haiti, flying them over to America. And thats only SOME of the things we done for the world. I am truly sick of this, our history should speak for itself, we shouldn't have to do this. Whenever I'm on here I always see SOMEONE bashing America and I can't take it anymore.

It's simple, Don't put you two cents in if your not an American, because You. Dont. Know. And you couldn't possibly know. And I think we do enough as it is, even America needs help sometimes, but we dont get that now do we? No we dont. If we do help them, it will just be added to the many things we also helped with.

vOh jeez, did I [i]once[/i] say it'd be easy?
Of course it wouldn't be easy. Look how teeth-pulling getting healthcare reform done was, and by the end of it it was just a convoluted mess of non-reform. But I guess that's the way the dice rolls in corporatist democracy, which is pretty damn sucky.
People are trying. And then other people are being paid filthy amounts to stop them succeeding.


But on your point on the Middle East; even if there was a decent exit strategy, which would work out vaguely fine...could you honestly say America even take it? Given that [i]lots[/i] of corporations make a fair bit of moolah out of the military efforts in Iraq and the coalition in Aghanistan? Especially now there's several [i]trillions[/i] worth of minerals up for potential grabs?

That's the problem of "winning" the Cold War. America Victorious! America is the last superpower and is depicted to the rest of the goddamn world as this Land of the Free and Home of the fucking Brave. You're shown to be relentlessly cheerful, honest decent folks with strong moral codes - not to mention being pretty/handsome/clever blah blah blah. Why the hell else would these "tiny countries" look to America for help?

Who - exactly - are they going to look to?

I still think that the whole world should band together and help each other, get over their fucking shitty, insignificant differences and realise we are all humans, pathetic little parasitical humans clinging to a dirtclod of a planet orbiting a relatively titchy Sun in a universe so vast and large it's barely worth thinking about.

After all, since life is meaningless and our existence is meaningless and nothing that we do will make a vast difference to the universe at large, why not make life better for us all? Why not make things easier and get rid of the bullshit and sail towards sanity together in metaphorical boats.

i completely agree with audrey t it's not our job to fix the world. we try, i mean if we could fix every problem we would but right now, america is in deep crap and we're trying to fix ourselves so what i have to say is: fix your own problems for once. stop asking us to fix everything. we can't. we're not God, we don't have a magic wand and there isn't some sort of world lottery we can win, the rest of the world can fend for themselves for once. we're humanitarians and look how much we've given to haiti. that was the american people digging into their own pockets and we're in a recession we don't have much but we help all we can. we just can't do everything.

v Yeah, I agree with you here. Any country facing any issues, it's not going to be "easy" to fix. Especially in countries where some form of democracy is involved and there's always a million sides tearing away at any plan to "fix" things. There's going to be opposition and roadblocks, which is just one of the byproducts of giving everyone a say. So, yeah, I do think your comment is, at best, flippant (as you said), [b]Sheepy[/b]. Kind of like someone saying to the parent of a misbehaved child, "Well, obviously your child needs discipline." We all know that's easier said than done; and "discipline your child" isn't a plan, it's not going to be very helpful for the parent and, well, it's stating the obvious.

So saying economic reform, bank regulation, and telling us to avoid a war we're already a part of (there's no going back into the future to change that, so that's really just a moot point), isn't an actual solution. It's just very vague brainstorming. How do we go about economic reform? How do we place regulations on banks? Now that we're in the Middle East, how can we work on getting out in a way that's safe for both our soldiers and which doesn't reverse all the progress we've made there - therefore making our time, money, and lives lost a complete waste?

v I'd like to know how exactly America could fix its problems so easily. I honestly think it would be really difficult. Don't you think people are trying?

To be annoying and flippant, if America wasn't so stuck in its ways it'd solve a lot of its own problems. See also: Campaign finance reform, banking regulation, not going to war with no exit strategy whatsoever next time...

They do help, however. They give a lot of money to other countries. Granted, proportional to their GNP it's not as much as a fair few other countries...but it's still a fair bit. If they cleaned up their act a little they'd be in a better position to aid people.

But other countries can do their part too; they're not as big or powerful as the US, but given the financial disparity between most European countries and most African countries, for example, I'm sure the more economically-developed states could all do a tad more to lend a hand.

Your title is misleading.

yes, Lonely Angel. I couldn't have summarized the point of my article better haha

Ok I'm not going to claim that I know a whole lot about what is going on in the world right now or what is not so bare with me a little here.
I don't know whether it's to do with where you live in the world but I don't think that it's fair for people to assume that it is just America that gets the slack for not helping out in other countries. I live in the UK and I think it's pretty safe to say that we get enough of it too. America isn't the only place that is spreading out the resouces and money. Look at Iraq; we can't pull our men out because then we leave them unprotected and it makes us look like we no longer care but we can't keep them there because they are being killed. I realise the same is happening for America but, don't just think that it's just American's coming to everyones aid and helping out.
The point that I picked up from skimming the article was that America were able to help out another country while having things going on in their country before and so why can't they do it now? Why are other courties unable to do that now too? What has changed that we are now finding it all the more difficult?
Correct me if I'm wrong but that's what I got from this.