International offers of help

The people of the United States are often among the first to open their hearts and pocketbooks when another country is in need. Witness the outpouring after the tsunami last year. Amazon.com alone raised something like $14 million dollars for the Red Cross (we just won't discuss the delay in them getting on the bandwagon for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts - they're on board now).

But there has been some grumbling around the net in the last three days, asking where the international community is now that it is the US that is in need. While there has not been the obvious outpouring of assistance such as was seen in December for Southeast Asia, that doesn't mean no one is willing to help.

- The Canadian Red Cross is soliciting donations on their website and is sending a team to the US to assist in relief efforts. Damian Penny, a Canadian blogger, has a list of links where Canadians can donate for hurricane relief. The Canadian government issued a press release stating that they had been in contact with the Department of Homeland Security offering whatever assistance they could.

- Israel has also offered help if it is needed. The article from the Jerusalem post points out that while Israel doesn't know a lot about battling floods, they have a lot of experience dealing with collapsed buildings.

- Both Saudi Arabia (you know, the place where all that oil is that we can't refine) and Russia (with two transport planes and search helicopters) have offered their assistance. In the same article, OPEC pledged to ensure the stability of the oil market.

- Citizens of Bern, Switzerland, a city which recently suffered devastating floods of its own, have been asking where they can send donations. I read this one this morning at work in a larger article about condolences coming in from around the world, but I can't remember where. Once I find the link, I'll post it.

And guess who's noticeably absent from the above list? Begins with a 'U' and ends with an 'N' (although we did get the pro-forma condolence statement)

UPDATE - After I posted this, I found at Michele Malkin's that UN Undersecretary-General Jan Egeland (the same one who called us "stingy" after the tsunami) has gotten around to offering more than condolences from the UN. JunkYardBlog also asks "Where Is The 'International Community?'"

UPDATE #2 - The mention of the citizens of Bern came in this article from the AP, which says the US Embassy in Switzerland has been receiving a lot of inquiries from citizens and institutions looking to donate. The same article notes that experts in the Netherlands "expressed surprise" that New Orleans wasn't better protected. Well, why don't they send some of their experts over to help in the rebuilding efforts, especially if Louisiana can't be convinced to rebuild the city somewhere else?

UPDATE #3 - The AP reports that France is looking at ways to launch relief efforts, possibly from the French Antilles. And here's a nice editorial a newspaper in Thailand, one of the countries that benefitted from our generosity in December (H/T Kobayashi Maru). A reader points out that Venezuela has offered help, too.

UPDATE #4 - An AP report at FoxNews.com reports that the following countries have offered assistance in one form or another - Russia, Japan, Canada, France, Honduras, Germany, Venezuela, Jamaica, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, Hungary, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, China, South Korea, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, NATO and the Organization of American States - and that Condoleeza Rice has said that no offer that can help will be turned down (although a Russian official is saying that FEMA turned down a Russian offer of assistance).