On the US Relief Effort to Haiti

As everyone knows, earlier this week a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the tiny island nation of Haiti. Nearly the entire country was destroyed. Hospitals and orphanages collapsed with everyone inside. Countless people were rendered homeless. The last estimates I personally saw pegged the deathtoll at between 44000 and 50000, a number certain to rise as disease spreads and the injured succumb to their wounds. This horriffic disiaster is made even worse by the fact that Haiti is one of, if not the, porrest countries in the Western Hemisphere.
Naturally, immediately following the quake, nations across the globe pledged aid to Haiti. China pledged US $1 million. Germany offered US $2.17 million. The US, however, gave 100 million, sent is a Special Ops team to secure the international airport to provide a staging ground for the relief effort, and sent in 5000 Marines to act as the security force for the devastated nation. Additionally, the USS Carl Vincent, a Marine assault carrier is serving as an emergency hospital for those that need to be evacuated.
As is typical of such catastrophies, the US is providing the single greatest monetary and aid contribution, while simultaneously providing the majority of the support and logistics network needed to distribute this aid. The relief effort would not be nearly as large, nor as effective, without US involvement.
Now, what is my point here? It is not, as I’m sure many of you readers think it is, and as many of my contemporaries argue, that the US should not be providing this much aid when we can’t afford it. I am not saying, as many Conservative pundits do, that the US government “can’t pledge support when it can’t even support its own citizens”, nor that “obama is giving away money that we don’t have” (Ross Smith, Twitter, 1/16/2010). We should be providing this aid. As the only superpower left, it is our responsibility to help out countries in these exact circumstances. Being as rich and powerful as we are, it is our duty to help the poor when such a disaster occurs. It is the responsibility that comes with the great power we do have.
My point here is two-fold. Really it is more of a complaint than anything. These other countries, while they do provide aid, they are committing nowhere near a fair share of it. China has the fastest growing economy in the world, and realistically has the second largest supply of US dollars, besides the US itself. And yet it only gives an amount that could be given individually by many in the upper class in America. Germany has the highest per capita trade surplus in the world, yet again can only spare just over 2 million. All of the countries giving aid will be using US assets to get them to the people. The US is giving well above what all of the other countries are giving. And what will happen when this crisis is over? America will be blamed for any supplies not getting out fast we “didn’t respond soon enough”. America will be blamed for any deaths caused b y a shortage of supplies because “we didn’t give enough”. When the reconstruction effort begins, any money that ends up in the hands of the warlords and criminals will be Americas fault because we “didn’t keep tight enough control on it”. Despite the fact that we are giving more and doing more, and in turn hurting ourselves more, than any other nation, anything that goes wrong will be our fault.
Regardless of what the US government does here, our global image will at best remain unchanged and at worse erode even further simply because we will be perceived as not having done enough while other government give pocket change. Why is this? Other nations have come to expect this kind of reaction from America. We are the relief agency for the world. US aid isn’t