The United States is the most altruistic country in the world. A small few other countries may beat us in dollar per person individual donations, but even that is deceptive. The total figure doesn’t includ such things as the quarter we drop in a Salvation Army bucket, or the Girl Scout cookies we purchase. Nor does it include all the things people like our GIs do overseas.
I get email updates from Mark Alexander and his The Federalist web site. This is one of these stories you probably heard about in passing, but haven’t seen:
In 1995 at — appropriately — Abu Ghraib prison, nine Iraqi businessmen were surgically “relieved” of their right hands. While TV news producer Don North was in Iraq last year, he was shown videotapes made by Saddam’s men of the amputations and determined that he would find these men and help them. He found seven of them and made his own documentary of their story including medical help. That help came in the form of state-of-the-art electronic hands, with fingers, that respond to trained muscular movements. The $50,000 hands were donated by Otto Bock, a German-American prosthetic company. The seven men were flown (with some difficulty) to Houston, where Dr. Joe Agris had to first repair the botched amputations and then give the men new hands. North has been trying for two months to distribute his documentary in the U.S., but not one broadcast or cable network will take it. Apparently, they’re far too busy airing images of a few American soldiers humiliating terrorist captives at Abu Ghraib prison. Nevertheless, Dr. Agris will go to Iraq, where he hopes to help other such victims of Saddam’s brutal regime.
Why don’t networks want to show this? It isn’t like President Bush would get a boost from it. It doesn’t, however, paint a picture of pure despair in Iraq, and wouldn’t further the cause of jihadis around the world. Therefore, it isn’t worthy of air time.
I keep up with a lot of weblogs because that’s the only place I can find a broad perspective on the news. This is but one example.
Now, if we’d only do something really important like building daycare centers in the Middle East…