U.S. Ups Pakistan Flood Aid to $150 Million (and we can't help our own or unemployed)

[DainBramaged]

What the fuck is wrong with us? Pakistan doesn't have the money to fix it's infrastructure to prevent these monumental disasters, but it can build atomic weapons? Tennessee got slammed with flooding, and did the residents there get $150 million in Federal 'Aid" and never have to pay it back?


Sorry, this just pisses me off.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/19/world/main6786310.shtml

The United States will increase its aid to flood-ravaged Pakistan to $150 million, U.S. Sen. John Kerry said Thursday, stressing that Washington did not want Islamist extremism to increase on the back of the crisis.

The floods have affected 20 million people and about one-fifth of Pakistan's territory, straining its civilian government as it struggles against al Qaeda and Taliban violence. Aid groups and the United Nations have complained foreign donors have not been quick or generous enough given the scale of the disaster.

The United States has deployed 18 Army helicopters to hard-hit areas and given other aid worth $90 million.

U.S. Sen. John Kerry, who is visiting Pakistan to see the flood damage, said that would increase to $150 million. The figure is expected to be announced at a U.N. general assembly meeting in New York on Thursday.

Many need help now, but unlike in previous disasters, relief for Pakistan has been much slower to come, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.

"Although governments have been coming forward with increasing generosity, the public response has not been the immediate outpouring of generosity that we've seen for Haiti and the tsunami five years ago," the U.N. Under Secretary John Holmes said.