5,000 Americans missing - concern seems low

[osaMABUSh]

5,000 Americans still missing in the tsunami hit countries; yet, it seems little attention is being given to the possibility of hundreds or thousands of dead Americans. Colin Powell kind of dismissed it on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. 5,000 is the number of people the State Department has inquires for but cannot resolve. I have to believe that this is a legitimate and scary number. If a close relative or friend of yours was traveling in that part of the world and no one heard from them in a week then you would have to assume the worst.

What's going on here? Are we afraid it could be a 9/11 casualty number or is our government afraid this non-terror incident could render 9/11 not as the end all of American tragedies?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6782014/

[bluestateguy]

1. I think that's why we upped the aid

We know that the deaths of Americans in the region will be in quadruple figures, thus making it harder to justify the original stingy appropriation. Regrettable that that's the way it is, but that's how it works.

[wolfgirl]

19. I agree...

when the reports were first coming out, it appeared only 100+ Americans were missing. Now with that total 5000+, aid is coming out of the woodwork. Of course, many of the missing were at resorts which translates to $$...maybe some of Bush's pals had friends that were affected. I know that sounds awfully harsh, but I feel that as long as it was "them" (dark skinned, poor, Muslim) Bush didn't care, but as soon as it became apparent white, moneyed folks were affected..whammo, Bush to the rescue.


I really hate feeling this cynical about Bush's actions. I want my country back!!!!!!

[RoyGBiv]

2. Interesting thought ...

Personally, nationality doesn't matter one whit here. Compared to the number of confirmed dead overall, the number American "missing" seems rather pale.

It's the whole catastrophy that puts 9/11 in some perspective. As horrible as that event was, for the survivors, life did go on. For many of the survivors in SE Asia, life as they knew it truly has ended.

[jdj]

10. It's like the world just got 9/11'd.

People from so many nations disappeared in an instant.

We are not lone victims anymore like we want to pretend to be (this admin, I mean). Maybe because of this we will lose this depraved attitude of "we are victims/we can do anything we want/you don't understand our pain" now.

[Maple]

3. Yes, I'm baffled by this

Not a peep, not a hint of concern.

No photos, no stories, no headlines...

This is more people than 911, and more Americans than have been killed in Iraq...and yet...utter silence.

WTF??

[jdj]

12. It's because they have not been confirmed dead.

The DNA will take time to process. I heard today that the fact that foreign families want the remains shipped home is really causing a huge headache for the forensics people working on this.

Because the bodies are no longer identifiable and it has to be done with DNA and they don't have enough freezer trucks to store bodies, and are having to pack them in dry ice and stack them on location. And they have to be specially packed so they don't explode in the coffins on the flight home. Soon they will be begging the families to please let them cremate the remains.

It is going to be a disaster around the logistics of repatriation.

Of course, there is the possibility that the sick admin. doesn't want to lose all it's 9/11 collateral and influence over our minds, and losing more Americans in this tragedy would effectively close the door on "since this is the worst thing, we gonna work it for what it's worth" window.

[TrustingDog]

32. Bush boasts about protecting the US citisens from terriers, but...

but, darn, those Acts of God might be embarrassing him. Doesn't he have a direct line?

edited for the icon. I don't like how the ': P' looks, it's too smiley.

[iamjoy]

4. Does It Matter?

I mean over 100,000 dead, does it matter how many are Americans?

[Maple]

9. Ahem...it normally does...to Americans.

[iamjoy]

15. But That's Just It

There is a tendency in something like this for us to go, oh, any Americans, any westerners? As if an African, Asian or Indian life is somehow worth less to us.

Are we so jingoistic that we can't think about how many others are suffering? 150,000 dead, it SHOULDN'T matter how many are black or white or brown or red or yellow. Certainly the waves didn't care, and I sure hope the rescue workers don't care.

[aneerkoinos]

18. Worth?

It's not about worth, it's about who you know, who you can most easily identify with, imagine yourself in somebody else's situation.

Every country has first responsibility to it's own citizens (who else?), but that don't take away from the responsibility towards others. If there are westerners in local hospitals, of course that is burden to the local health care system trying to cope with the situtation, and it would help also locally to bring those patients to their home countries, not to mention the relatives of those victims and victims themselves. That is what Nordic countries and others have done / are doing.

We can't imagine 150.000 dead, that's just number. We can begin to imagine when someone we know has lost family members, and that way we can (trans)form a deeper emotional link to those people in far-away places about whose life we know much less and sympathize with them on levels that are less abstract.

[Bouncy Ball]

27. Of course

we care, period. No one here is saying the American's lives were worth more than anyone else's.

But normally each country checks for their own, geez. And yeah, if 5,000 Americans were killed in those tsunamis, there'd at LEAST be a frigging news report about it. I mean, damn. Not silence.

It's eerie.

[TrustingDog]

30. did we ever really find out how many perished in Florida?

during the hurricanes? There was some talk about the numbers being ignored or set low so as not to upset Jebbie

[Bouncy Ball]

33. I never heard ANYTHING about

a death toll. Of course they wouldn't want to make Jebbie look bad.

[silverweb]

5. Bingo.

What's going on here? Are we afraid it could be a 9/11 casualty number or is our government afraid this non-terror incident could render 9/11 not as the end all of American tragedies?

I think you hit the nail on the head right there. This non-terror incident provides no "enemy" to target, no excuse to invade another company, and no "political capital" for the BFEE. American dead are of no greater importance to these goons than anyone else unless they further PNAC's cause.

[lawladyprof]

22. I agree

As tragic as 9-11 was, to those who know history it was one of many instances of horrific human suffering. I didn't expect the media to try to put it in any sort of perspective although I believed it could have much to heal the nation, especially America's emotional anguish, if it had. Now, the inevitable march of history has begun the process.

[bowens43]

6. In the scheme of things, it's not that significant.

We are talking about over 125,000 dead.

[jdj]

13. That is confirmed

I just read today that on Car Nicobar that only 1 in 4 survived.

And it is tragic because there are very small populations of indigenous tribes surviving there, and some lost significant #'s.

I did hear today that when the Indian Coast Guard flew over one of these islands today to check on one tribe they were met with a barrage of arrows. So hopefully this tribe is okay, I googled to try to find out more, and there is a paleolithic tribe in that region called the Sentelese that are extremely hostile and have no contact whatever with the outside world.

This could be such a loss to humanity just to lose these people, but some have suggested the confirmed dead will go as high as 400,000. When you read a little bit about these islands and start adding up these #'s there's no way it won't go much higher.

[madison2000]

7. They mentioned this at the end of ABC news but it sounded like

most of these people were travelling in these countries in regions not affected by the tsunami - but they had no means of contacting them. Possibly they don't know the scope of it and don't realize people are worried about them? Possibly there is no way to make a call?

[nascarblue]

8. All they care about is their oil...

Isn't that evident by the fact that they sent their economic hitman team of Jeb, Powell, and the World Bank? It's not enuough that they've controlled the oil infrastructure in Indonesia for the last 30 years, now they probably look at it like Mother Nature did them a favor. We all know Bush's motto. Destroy it with Daddy Bush's Carlyle group, rebuild it with Cheney's Halliburton.

[Palacsinta]

11. Weird........

There was a segment on ABC news tonight on missing Americans. Seemed to be a non-story.........they implied that most missing Americans were "off" and would check in eventually........or at least that was my take.

[osaMABUSh]

17. Sounds like BS to me. C'mon, wouldn't you phone home?

No way these Americans if "just in the area" would not phone their family in the US just to say I'm OK or at least to talk about the tragedy. The only logical reason that wouldn't contact someone is if they were dead.

[aneerkoinos]

20. List of missing

There is good chanse that many of the 5000 missing are caused by information breakdown, relatives report them missing but fail to inform the officials if and when they receive information from or about the person thought missing. By rule of thumb, that could explain away about one third of the 5000 number.

[Warpy]

14. Funny, the BBC this morning put it at about 300 missing

and 15 confirmed dead. Now they're just listing the 15 dead.

Remember, this is the State Department that wanted people who had lost everything to cough up $75 for replacement passports before they could be allowed to board planes out of the areas.

US citizens are dead last on their list of priorities unless they can use them for political gain.

[Egalitariat]

16. At this point, they're not missing. They're dead****

nm

[HeeBGBz]

21. Where are all the people who have people missing?

Why are there no pleas to the media to find their families? Why was there no anger for *'s My Pet Goat- the sequel?

If I had someone missing, I would be raising unholy hell.

[Stephanie]

23. Indeed. But if the number is correct, where are their families?

I think hometown papers all over the country would have the stories. I don't know. Ex-pats? Adventurers?

[alcuno]

24. One of my former students is missing.

Heard today from students.

[Stephanie]

25. Is there any place to check on names? Any website, any agency?

It's inconceivable that 5000 could be missing and there is no list, there is no news, no place to check. Could this be happening?

[aneerkoinos]

31. Here's one

http://www.icrc.org/home.nsf/home/webfamilylinks

Many Thai hospitals have their own patient lists on the net, BBC has has a service of a kind.

Google turned up this freeper thread with more links:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1310848/posts

[Bouncy Ball]

26. Wow.

Um, yeah, that's pretty damn bad. Why ISN'T there more concern?

Damn.

[Kansas Wyatt]

28. Well, there aren't any good military targets there...

So we'll just have to go attack Cuba. After all, they still possess old Soviet technology and we have reason to believe that they developed a weapon to generate a massive tsunami. Oh yes, they have terrorized the World for long enough now, and we must take preemptive action before they launch a tsunami against us.

With Jeb being the closest Govenor on the front line, it will be an excellent way to package him for 2008.

[B Calm]

29. You hit the nail on the head!

Are we afraid it could be a 9/11 casualty number or is our government afraid this non-terror incident could render 9/11 not as the end all of American tragedies?