| I can think of few pursuits more trivial than arguing over who's the most generous. If I was Bush, I'd remind myself that I have too much dignity to respond to such drivel. |
One-upping the United States, France said Thursday it is the No. 1 donor for the Asian disaster — pledging 42 million euro ($57 million) — following barbs from Washington about the extent of French generosity.These folks are not our friends! Wonder how much the people of France are donating? Check out Amazon...
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's boast that France was vaulting to "the head of all the contributors" appeared to respond to comments from Andrew Natsios, chief of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which distributes American aid. In a FOX News interview this week, Natsios said France tends not to be a world leader in foreign aid and often packages its help as loans, which he suggested were inappropriate in emergencies. "The aid program in France is not that big," he said. "They do not tend to be dominant figures in the aid. The British are, the European Union is, the Japanese are, we are, the Canadians are."
In Paris, France's Foreign Ministry shot down those aspersions. Spokesman Herve Ladsous said French aid for tsunami victims "is clearly donations and not loans." He also said France gives more development aid than all other members of the Group of Eight industrial nations — which includes the United States — when measured as a proportion of its economic output. "The figures speak for themselves," said Ladsous. France allotted .41 percent of its gross national income to development aid in 2003, nearly triple the .15 percent from the United States, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But the United States led in dollar terms, donating US$16.2 billion (euro 11.9 billion) to France's US$7.2 billion (euro5.3 billion) — which ranked third among G-8 nations, OECD figures show. Japan ranked second.
| We also put in billions in direct food aid (not counted), and more in military-provided aid (not counted). Funny, a lot of what we do never gets counted. |