DU Owes the President--and America--An Apology!

FROM DU: I Heard On the Radio This Morning About the Victims Of the Peruvian Earthquake...

I wondered why the US wasn't sending in helicopters and rescue teams. I was only half awake, which is the only excuse I have for not remembering:

1. Helicopters, rescue teams? All our troops and equipment are in Iraq.

2. Send help? Would George Bush send help? (hedgehog)

"They're brown people, aren't they...heh heh"

That's probably the first thing Bush Asshole thought when he heard about the earthquake. I bet no one even asks us for help anymore... like we have anything left to help with. (desertrose)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1619185

Here Is the TRUTH:

*Death Toll Hits 450 In Peru Earthquake

President Alan Garcia flew by helicopter to Ica, a city of 120,000 where a quarter of the buildings collapsed, and declared a state of emergency.... "There has been a good international response even without Peru asking for it, and they've been very generous," Garcia said during a stop in Pisco, where so many buildings fell that streets were covered with small mountains of adobe bricks and broken furniture.

The help includes several million dollars in cash from the U.N., Red Cross, European Union and United States, as well as tents, water, medicine and other supplies. The US Navy Ship Comfort, equipped with a medical staff of 800 and 12 operating rooms, is currently in Ecuador and could quickly sail to Peru if asked, U.S. officials said.

In Washington, President George W. Bush offered condolences. One American also died in the quake, according to the State Department.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-08-15-peru-quake_N.htm

*Operation USA Responds To Peru Earthquake

Operation USA, a 28-year-old international relief agency based in Los Angeles, is responding to the 8.0 earthquake that shook the coast of Peru, just 100 miles from the capital city of Lima, on August 15. Early reports estimate that hundreds have died and thousands are homeless with significant structural damage in a wide area of Peru. These numbers are expected to rise as rescue workers regain access to the hardest hit areas.

Operation USA is requesting the public's assistance in providing financial support and asking U.S. corporations to provide bulk, uniform quantities of appropriate medical, nutritional, hygiene and shelter supplies, as well as tents, blankets, water purification and power generation equipment. To determine the most appropriate way to deliver aid, Operation USA is currently contacting local grassroots organizations to identify the most urgent needs.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EKOI-7663QN?OpenDocument

*Pentagon Sends Medical Team to Peru

A team of soldiers and airmen from a U.S. base in Honduras was scrambling Friday to move a mobile medical unit to Pisco, Peru, to provide medical relief to victims of the earthquake that killed more than 500.

An Army lieutenant colonel was leading the 30-member team -- which included a surgeon, anesthesiologist and nurse -- and was expected to be equipped and in the zone where most of the devastation occurred in time to begin performing surgeries Friday night or at the latest Saturday morning, said Army Lt. Erika Yepsen of the Joint Task Force Bravo in Soto Cano, Honduras.

As it happened, Yepsen said, the unit had held an exercise at the base in Honduras Monday, a so-called "mass casualty drill," and was poised to depart at midday Friday.
"They can be treating patients within two hours of arrival," she said.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,146300,00.html

*Israel Offers Help To Peru After Quake

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Friday sent a telegram to Peruvian President Alan Garcia offering Israel's assistance the day after a magnitude-8 earthquake devastated the southern coast, killing at least 510 people.

Peres also instructed his advisors to examine specific ways in which Israel would be able to help the earthquake victims if required.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry transferred 20,000 dollars to the Israeli Embassy in Lima for the purchase of blankets and tents for the earthquake victims.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557466850&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

DU owes the President, America--and everyone else in the West who has helped--an apology. Of course Israel is on the list (they help so much all around the world, and often are the first to do so, that it is almost tiresome to list them...)

I don't know what kind of stupid stereotypes and asinine assumptions DU is working off of, but the Democrats better learn to lie much more cleverly in this age of the Internet! (And I only picked the first few stories, out of the many that were listed, on an easy search...)