It's for our own good

"Above and beyond the humanitarian considerations -- which would be compelling enough -- we have an enormous interest in seeing this succeed." stated Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz referring to Indonesia and the government's there in this CNN article on further aid to the Asian tsunami victims.

And I agree with him, 100 percent. The United States government has a history of doing things for ulterior motives, and that's not always a bad thing. In this case we want to make sure that we're viewed as the good guys, and when you're giving people close to a billion dollars (what's a few million here or there) in aid, expecting nothing in return, it's nice that they might feel a little better about the US. They better.

Of course, this all means that we actually give the money that we've pledged. It's one thing to pledge to give a few million dollars like most countries, but it's quite another to actually hand out the cash. It may seem a bit like we're buying goodwill, and that may be true, I don't know. But one thing is for sure, whatever the reason why we're giving money to help these people, it's a good thing.