The German Media: “Criticism: US Authority Did Not Pass On Tsunami Warnings”

(By Ray D.)

We knew it wouldn’t take long for the German media to find a way to blame the tsunami disaster on the US. Today, N24, ZDF and Focus are all reporting on the alleged failure of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to properly warn nations of the tsunami danger after a massive earthquake shook the floor of the Indian Ocean. The story is based on reports that the “US Congress is preparing to investigate” the NOAA's alleged inability to properly and rapidly pass on potentially lifesaving information to nations in the path of the tsunami.

What is troubling about this story is not its content, but the way in which it is being packaged, presented and sold to the German public. As always, whenever there is a problem in the world, the finger of blame is inevitably pointed at the United States. Instead of asking why the EU or the UN failed to detect the tsunami and promptly warn those in danger, the German media is once again turning to the usual suspect: The world scapegoat USA.

Never mind that the United Nations would have been the most appropriate organization to set up and run a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean that could have saved thousands. Never mind that the EU (that great bastion of humanitarian soft-power) completely and utterly failed to detect and warn anyone of the tsunami. Never mind that wealthy Asian nations failed to invest in a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean in their own back yard. The German media is once again telling its audience what it so desperately wants to hear: It’s America’s fault!

The Truth: The NOAA Did Issue Tsunami Warnings

The headline, “Criticism: US Authority Did Not Pass On Tsunami Warnings,” is misleading in the extreme. It implies that the NOAA negligently failed to pass on information that could have saved thousands of lives. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The NOAA did, in fact, pass on tsunami warnings to several nations and made repeated attempts to warn them of the potential tsunami danger. In most cases, the nations warned either could not react in time or, as was the case in Thailand, chose not to react for fear of harming the tourist industry. It must also be noted that some nations (India for example) detected the oncoming tsunami independently of the NOAA, yet were unable to take decisive action due to a lack of time, coordination and infrastructure.

The main problem facing the NOAA was that it simply did not have the proper contact information for every nation in the tsunami’s path and, absent a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean, had no exact way of knowing where the tsunami was, where it was headed or whether it even existed. The NOAA’s inability to quickly contact the proper authorities due to a lack of coordination is the main issue that Congress would investigate. Here is an excerpt from the NOAA’s December 29 statement on the disaster:

“NOAA scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii went to work within minutes of getting a seismic signal that an earthquake occurred off the west coast of Northern Sumatra, Indonesia. NOAA issued a bulletin indicating no threat of a tsunami to Hawaii, the West Coast of North America or to other coasts in the Pacific Basin—the area served by the existing tsunami warning system established by the Pacific rim countries and operated by NOAA in Hawaii.

NOAA scientists then began an effort to notify countries about the possibility that a tsunami may have been triggered by the massive 9.0 undersea earthquake. The Pacific Basin tsunami warning system did not detect a tsunami in the Indian Ocean since there are no buoys in place there. Even without a way to detect whether a tsunami had formed in the Indian Ocean, NOAA officials tried to get the message out to other nations not a part of its Pacific warning system to alert them of the possibility of a tsunami. However, the tsunami raced across the ocean at speeds up to 500 mph.”

The fact that the German media has chosen to package the story with headlines that imply gross negligence on the part of the US government in this disaster is the truly troubling issue here. Legitimate criticism of the NOAA’s response time or lack of full coordination with affected nations is both legitimate and necessary. It is a problem, however, when the US and the NOAA are singled-out as a primary focus of criticism while the UN, EU and affected nations are largely let off the hook despite their many failings.

Conversely, it is interesting to note that the USA is not being singled-out for praise in the German media for its donation of $350 million in aid or for the fact that US helicopters were the first to bring aid to remote regions affected by the tsunami. This all further underscores the underlying bias prevalent in the German media.

Comments

[Jens-Olaf]

Maybe not the amount of money, but as I mentioned below:

www.ard.de ,one of the most important German TV news: tagesschau

today 16.55: US aircraft carrier with the urgently needed helicopters in Indonesia, very positive, showing the efficient aid.

[Hector]

US military aid (not counted as part of the $350 million) will exceed 1 billion in a matter of weeks. The ships, helicopters, and troops enroute or already in the area are larger than the entire navies of most nations.

[Ray D.]

@ Jens-Olaf:

Thank you for pointing that out.

But the point that we are trying to make on this site is that the positive news about the USA receives proportionally far less coverage than the negative news and the blame. We are not trying to say that there is never any positive reporting on the USA, we are simply saying there is a clear negative imbalance (a bias if you will) when it comes to the German media's reporting on the USA.

http://www.medien-tenor.net/index1.html

How about a little criticism of the UN and the EU to balance out that attack on the US? How about a little more criticism of the affected countries governments, many of whom badly bungled the situation? Let's just get some more balance into the media.

---Ray D.

[Downer]

Nachfolgend ein Kommentar von Henryk M. Broder im Tagebuch der "Achse der Guten". Einer der wenigen Stimmen der Vernunft:

"Was machen die fantastischen Drei nach dem Tsunami?

Es war klar, dass es passieren würde: Während BILD fragt, womit Gott gerade zugange war, als die Tsunami-Welle den Indischen Ozean aufmischte, sind die fortschrittlichen Kräfte schon viel weiter. "Katastrophe am Indischen Ozean: Globaler Kapitalismus schuld am Ausmaß der Tragödie" heißt ein Text, der zur Zeit durch das Internet rollt. Darin wird der Zusammenhang zwischen Kapital, Natur und Katastrophen-Managment erklärt und als Alternative zum herrschenden System die Einführung eines globalen Sozialismus gefordert, um sowohl die Armut wie die Launen der Natur in den Griff zu bekommen.
Das war absehbar. Überraschend ist nur, daß die führenden Verschwörungs-
theoretiker der Bundesrepubllik, die Herren Bröckers, von Bülow und Wisniewski, die schon die Anschläge vom 11. September auf ihre frivol-orginelle Art interpretiert haben, zum 26. Dezember schweigen.
Sind sie von der gigantischen Welle mitgerissen worden? Oder fällt ihnen diesmal nix ein? Da möchten wir den fantastischen Drei ein wenig unter die Ärmchen greifen und ihnen die folgenden Ideen zur weiteren Verarbeitung und Verbreitung vorschlagen.
1. Die Tsunami-Welle ist nicht durch ein Seebeben, sondern durch eine atomare Explosion ausgelöst worden.
2. Die USA haben absichtlich keine Warnung heraus gegeben, um die Folgen der Flutwelle unter authentischen Bedingungen studieren zu können.
3. Der Mossad hat 4.ooo Israelis aus dem Katastrophengebiet ausgeflogen, nur Stunden bevor das Beben ausgelöst wurde.
4. Der US-Konzern Halliburton hat schon Anfang Dezember der US-Regierung seine "Hilfe" im Falle einer "Naturkatastrophe" angeboten.
5. Der Tsunami soll vom Krieg im Irak ablenken und den USA helfen, durch humanitäre Maßnahmen ihr Ansehen in der Dritten Welt zu verbessern.
Weitere Theorien können bei den Verlagen Droemer Knaur, Piper und 2oo1 eingereicht werden, wo bereits die kritischen Dokumentationen zum 11. September erschienen sind."

http://www.achgut.de/dadgd/view_article.php?aid=214&ref=0

[roman thomas]

it's becoming too much already. does anyone know how to contact someone on the conservative side of the german media. and make some noise already.

[roman thomas]

@ray d.
is there anyway possible that i can translate german to english. i'm really missing out on the german side of things. plus your getting some descent turnout on your posts. maybe time to start numbering the them. thanx.

[Chomskybot]

Da muss auch ich mal zustimmen - ausgerechnet an die NOAA den Vorwurf zu machen, versagt zu haben, ist Blödsinn. Da kann man genausogut dem baden-württembergischen Landesamt für Geologie, Rohstoffe und Bergbau den Vorwurf machen, denn auch dort weiß man von allen Erdbeben weltweit...

[Mike]

Hello roman_thomas-

W/R/T yours of 9:22 to ray.d-

Try the free Google Language Tool.

It's results are sometimes unintentionally funny, but more often then not it gets the main point across...

[Karin Quade]

The new year has not changed anything: still the U.S. is to blame for everything. I was really upset when I read the headline of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung" today. It put the blame on the U.S. for not having warned. Actually, now I am only waiting for an article to blame the CIA for having created the Tsunami. To complete the picture.

SPIEGEL-ONLINE, today:

Die Australier haben an diesem Vormittag Gesellschaft bekommen: US-Ärzte vom Flugzeugträger "Abraham Lincoln", der vor Banda Aceh ankert. Sie wollen die Lage in der Stadt erkunden.

Die internationale Hilfsaktion ist nach einigen Startschwierigkeiten voll angelaufen: Auf dem Flughafen landen öfter als in den vergangenen Tagen schwere Frachtmaschinen. US-Hubschrauber von der "Abraham Lincoln" schaffen Hilfsgüter in bislang nicht erreichte Küstenorte. Die Australier bauten eine Wasseraufbereitungsanlage auf.

I`ve got the message: Indonesia. Most victims. Worst infrastracture. Help coming from the Abraham Lincoln.

To read your daily german anti-americanism you can check out www.freenet.de, comments on tsunami

[Trish]

You know in the states we refer to such disasters as an act of god. Normal human beings who know what humility is, wonder why these acts of god happen, count their blessings and see how it is they can help. I personally do not understand how so many people are willing to pay the price of having hate in their hearts to continue their attacks. Anyone who has spent any time in America with Americans (not at the outlet mall or at a tourist resort) will know that the vast majority of all Americans were trying to figure out how to help. The American red cross alone has gathered 72 million since the tsunami. All this hate towards the US is not jading the US it is jading the hearts and minds who choose to hate so shamefully. Southeast Asia is gonna need our help for some time to come. Why can't we westerners gather together and do something nice. How anyone can use this diasaster for anything other than helping those suffering is beyond me. God Bless those souls down their fighting for survival and those who are there or on their way willing to brave some of the toughest psychological conditions there are without regards to themselves to help those who fell pray to an act of God.

[Don]

When I first heard about the lack of a automatic warning system I was heartsick at the apparent negilgence. Then I heard two things more, that an effective tsunami response system would consist of not only the equipment but also a well-trained command and control apparatus and intensive training of local police and firefighters in each of the affected areas. Someone has to deliver the warning but that isn't enough. It has to be recieved and acted upon in a timely and intelligent manner. Tsunamis aren't like hurricanes, which manifest themselves days and weeks before hitting land and which can be readily tracked. You have minutes or at most hours to react and save lives.

As for the warning, what language should it have been delivered in? Obviously English wasn't good enough. German wouldn't have been any better had those laggards in Baden-Wuurtemburg been alert enough to deliver the warning.

Intelligent people can do two things. They can learn from experience and try to avoid this next time. Or they can blame Bush and attack the people who are effectively saving lives on the spot (I.e. US and Austrailian military forces and the local governments). The German media seem to have opted to do the latter.

[jane m]

If the southern Asia nations wanted to do it, they could well afford to finance a common tsunami warning site to protect the coastal area of the Indian Ocean. They all have choosen, up to now, to spend their resources in other areas. It doesn't occur to Americans that we are responsible for the safety of all those who live near an ocean. I am dreadfully sorry that such a tragedy occurred but I do not feel that my country is the cause of it.

[WhatDoIKnow]

In wake of the awful tsunami disaster, important parts of the German media considered that they had to focus on the "failures" of the... US ??? Absolutely nothing is to low for them.

If any undeterred optimistic reader still entertaines high hopes about the future of the US-Germany/Eu relationships, he/she should think twice about that.

I should correct myself - the hopes should remain, even when facing the sad reality. The relationships might look better in the future, the diplomats might go through the friendly moves for the cameras. The reality is that the resentments planted in the German heads today by the German media will not simply melt away after watching a friendly handshake between Bush and Schroeder.

I don't feel any bit of schadenfreude when I say that those things have the irreversible tendency to eventually turn against the ones who perpetrate and support them.

[Tom Penn]

I want to know what these people that despise me with such passion and consistency want from me? I am now afraid the answer is the one thing that we can never and will never give them: our freedom and sovereignty. This is the only thing the EuroZombies, Internationalists, and our enemies (terrorists, islamofascists, Iran and North Korea) have in common.

[Transatlantiker]

This is bizarre. Nobody is singling out the United States as a culprit of anything here. There is criticism about a possible behavior (or non behavior) of an U.S. authority. The headlines clearly say so. Focus has the most graphic headline, those of N24 and ZDF are very neutral.

N24
War die Flutkatastrophe vorhersehbar?
Kritik: US-Behörde gab Warnungen vor Todeswelle nicht weiter

ZDF
Kritik an US-Behörde für Meeresforschung
Bericht: Warnung wäre möglich gewesen -
Kongress bereitet mögliche Untersuchung vor

What on earth do you want with that story? You don't like the headline? The fact that an U.S. authority has to respond to criticism in U.S. congress?

NOAA happens to be THE authority on tsunamis. If NOAA were German the headline would read: "Hat deutsche Behörde geschlafen?"

But of course, all this is good for another kneejerk reaction accusing German media of another round of Anti Americanism.

I don't think that NOAA could have done much about the whole thing. You can only warn places that have a mechanism in place that passes on those warnings to the local authorities that matter and can react in time. This did not exist. And the fact that it doesn't has been widely criticised in the German media, especially the Thai response to tsunami warnings.

There is one thing that puzzles me somewhat. I was online when the earthquake was first reported. I had CNN running in the background, and CNN did report the quake. I don't remember hearing any NOAA tsunami warning on CNN in the critical time. And I remember that I thought by myself that such a big quake will generate quite some waves although I did mostly think of Indonesia, not of Thailand and Sri Lanka.

It was morning in Phuket. Imagine a few people watching CNN news in their hotel rooms and learning about the tsunami threat. This would probably have saved lives.

I read about a ten year old schoolgirl (on Fox News) who learned about tsunamis at school and correctly interpreted the retreat of the sea as a sign that a tsunami was coming. Her warning probably saved a 100 lives because people left the beach in time.

Btw in the last days I have read plenty of reports about the great work the U.S. and Australia are doing in the hardest hit areas (and the lacking UN efforts are exposed as well). But you only single out the articles that "support your case" that the German media are so biased against America. And in the NOAA case they don't even support that case.

I hope it's not Anti American to ask why I didn't see any tsunami warning on CNN?

[Del Hoeft]

My question to the German Media is, when did the United States become the global weatherman? Did the General Assembly vote on that? These tenured MSM types need to get a grip. The European media has an obsession with the US. A bit like an atheists' anger at the shortcomings of a deity he professes not to believe in. If the USA should or could be all to all, all the time, Then the world should be throwing virgins into volcanos to appease our wrath. Instead, we send help to a place like Aceh and face it, If the same happened to us many in Aceh would be praising Allah for it.

[Joe]

You make a blanket statement about CNN but there in fact several CNN's. For example the one that most of Europe gets is not one that is shown in the US. In fact, CNN tries very hard to insure that Americans do not know there is a difference. There is also a CNN for Asia that comes primiarly out of Hong Kong. So which one were you watching.

For CNN to not report a warning in the US would be normal. It is called a non event given that the US coast was not in danger.

I keep hearing all these reports about NOAA and Congress. I surely cannot find any articles. Someone mind posting a US news story link. Thanks.

[Ray D.]

@ transatlantiker:

So why isn't the German media criticizing the UN, the EU or the Asian countries involved? Where is the criticism of the European Geological Institutes for leaving the tsunami victims to die? Why did the UN sleep? I don't see a whole lotta stories like that my friend...

The other key point here is that there is NO WARNING SYSTEM in the Indian Ocean. The NOAA could only guess where the tsunami was and where it would hit. The NOAA couldn't even 100% confirm that a tsunami actually existed until it struck land. To top it off, they had virtually no time because the tsunami was moving at around 500 mph. This criticism is nothing more than cynical Monday morning quarterbacking of the worst kind.

And how could you possibly describe N24's headline as "neutral?" Are you f***ing kidding me? The NOAA did all that it could to pass on the information. In fact, it is not even the responsibility of the NOAA to respond to earthquakes and tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, the NOAA only has a warning system for the Pacific. Where was the UN in all of this? Why hadn't they created a system for the Indian Ocean? I thought the UN was the one organization that could do no wrong and was supposed to solve all the world's problems transatlantiker. Where the f**k were they? Why aren't they being criticized left and right in the German media? Why is it always the US? Why aren't there stories about how Kofi Annan stayed on vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for 72 hours before returning to NY? You call this neutral reporting...what are you on?

Look, don't expect any of us to take you seriously when you pop-off with bullshit comments about how this is all unbiased, balanced criticism. If you want to live in a fantasy world, go start your own blog, but don't expect us to keep swallowing the nonsense forever. Now that I look at your comment, it is obvious that you didn't even read my posting. Next time at least show me a little respect and actually respond to what I have to say.

---Ray D.

[Ray D.]

@ transatlantiker:

You write: "Btw in the last days I have read plenty of reports about the great work the U.S. and Australia are doing in the hardest hit areas (and the lacking UN efforts are exposed as well). But you only single out the articles that "support your case" that the German media are so biased against America.

OK: Give me 3 or more examples of prominently positioned articles in major German media sites with headlines praising the US effort and/or criticizing the UN's failures.

I won't hold my breath...

---Ray D.

[Sandy P]

The UN computers detected the tsunami, a lot of good that did, the staff was on Christmas vacation. The building was "closed."

[Transatlantiker]

From what I read NOAA is the main institution that can detect tsunamis in time and coordinates the warning system for the Pacific nations.

German or European institutions can detect quakes but not predict tsunamis. Nor can the UN.

"Wichtige, lebensrettende Informationen“ seien nicht weitergeleitet worden, schimpft Olympia Snowe, ein republikanischer Senator aus Maine." (Tagesspiegel)

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/index.asp?gotos=http://archiv.tagesspiegel.de/toolbox-neu.php?ran=on&url=http://archiv.tagesspiegel.de/archiv/03.01.2005/1570533.asp

All the quoted German articles very well give NOAA's side of the story. The headlines make it clear (except Focus) that this is voiced criticism, not established facts.

It's a friggin' U.S. Republican senator who blames NOAA (right or wrong).

I have made it clear that I don't share the criticism. You try to educate me with points I made about NOAA like I never made them in the first place.

It's you who has a selective reading, both of the German media and of the stuff that people post on your blog.

You have no interest in real discussion. Everything that you post just has to serve one purpose. It's you who create a distorted view of the German media by cherrypicking.

You are right. It's time to leave. Reasoned criticism is unwelcome here while posts like "I hate Germany. I hate Germans. They are no different today than they were in the 1930s and 1940s when they were so happily killing all the Jews they could get their hands on! No different!" obviously don't seem to bother you.

I won't post here again.

Have a nice day and Good Bye.

Note from David: Have a nice day, too, T.
And please - please! - don't come back!

[Ray D.]

@ transatlantiker:

It's you who has a selective reading, both of the German media and of the stuff that people post on your blog.

I won't post here again.

Have a nice day and Good Bye.

Oh NO! How will this site go on now?

Transatlantiker, doesn't it strike you as a bit odd that this NOAA bunk has received more coverage in the German media than it has in the US media? Why do you think that is? Just a coincidence?

I guess your decision to split means that you couldn't find any examples of prominently positioned articles in major German media sites with headlines praising the US effort and/or criticizing the UN's failures. In other words, this is your way of saying you have no evidence to back up your assertion that the German media is a paragon of balance and fairness and you are thus declaring intellectual bankruptcy.

As John McLaughlin would say: "Bye BYE!"

[Ray D.]

One more thing:

"Reasoned criticism is unwelcome here while posts like "I hate Germany. I hate Germans. They are no different today than they were in the 1930s and 1940s when they were so happily killing all the Jews they could get their hands on! No different!" obviously don't seem to bother you."

Unfortunately, we don't have time to read all (or even the majority of) the hundreds of comments we receive everyday on this blog. That doesn't mean we approve or agree with everything people post in their comments. The opinions of the commenters are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of our site. Obviously, we don't approve of the example cited above as Transatlantiker implies.

---Ray D.

[beimami]

@Transatlantiker

Do please continue to post here. Criticism keeps the conversation fresh. And your arguments are exemplary for the insidious nature of German reporting on the U.S. Taken by itself, the content of N24/ZDF/Focus story was not bad; it was, as Ray D. pointed out in his post, the packaging and presentation that were clearly meant to leave the readers with a negative impression of the U.S. Taken by itself, one could argue there is no anti-Americanism implicit in the article, just unfortunate presentation, but anyone who regularly reads the German media will recognize the obvious pattern here.

[Solomon2]

the USA is not being singled-out for praise in the German media for its donation of $350 million in aid or for the fact that US helicopters were the first to bring aid to remote regions affected by the tsunami

No wonder, if a comment I read on another blog is true: that the German media is mis-identifying American help as the U.N. coordinating effort. Can you confirm this?

[C. Lapide]

The following article from the Spiegel corrects the biased reports a bit

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,335242,00.html

Looks like the US institutions were the only ones which took the threat serious and started appropriate steps to warn other countries. They saved lives where the local authorities listened to them.

[Downer]

Great statement by Charles Krauthammer on FOX-NEWS:

"We are six percent or less of the world's population, yet we give almost half. We are a very small number of people, relatively speaking, and we carry the weight of a dozen countries. Secondly, we maintain a military structure that keeps the peace of the world.....Who is in the Indian Ocean with the aircraft carriers, helicopters, skilled personal? No one has the infrastructure in the world, we spend almost half a trillion dollars a year on our military structure, which is essentially the fire department of the planet and is it always at the disposal of people hit in a national disaster.....Incidentally on food aid, we five 60% of all the food aid in the world. It is simply irresponsible to talk about the U.S. as anything other than the most generous nation on the planet."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142970,00.html

[WhatDoIKnow]

Transatlantiker believes that Medienkritik presents a "distorted view of the German media by cherrypicking".

This is one of the best lines in this blog. Amazing, isn't it? I would love to live in the world he lives in. I bet it's nice and cozy, and once Bush goes, well... than it's just one step away from paradise.

I think Transatlantiker should keep posting, just to show us how far from reality people like him really are.

[S1IG]

@downer
Jeder gut informatierte Deutsche weiss, doch dass man FOXnews nicht trauen kann. (Stichwort: Wim Wenders Hirn). :-)
Danke fuer den Link!

[Don]

I think both Ray and Transatlantiker should cool off and think a little. Ray's basic point is valid. The German media does tak3e an anti-american viewpoint more times than not, at least on stories where it can be reasonably be done. And those stories seem to follow that tradition. But Tranatlantiker has a point in that the questions were first raised in the US by Americans. And had someone at NOAA thought of calling CNN (and knew whom to call, etc) lives could have been saved.

There were and are problems with that idea, however. NOAA had no way of knowing whether there was a tsunami or not. A few individuals knew there was a high risk given an earthquake. Against that there is the fact that very few tsunamis happen in the Indian Ocean. A warning on CNN could cause panic evacuations and people could be injured or even killed. Had CNN given a warning for a false tsunami and people died we probably would have been seeing strong criticism in the German press of NOAA now. Some people may have gotten to higher ground. The lives of tourists may have been saved. But most of the native people of the afflicted countries don't watch CNN, nor do they speak english. Very few would have been warned and saved.

Another question is why Germans or Swedes or French or Spanish didn't call CNN or the BBC? They all have perfectly competent earthquake monitoring stations which detected and located the quake. NOAA is supposed to be the tsunami experts but it's unreasonable to say they are the only ones brilliant enough to think tsunami. So where were the Germans that day?

[Downer]

@S1IG

Im Gegenteil: Jeder gut informierte Deutsche weiß, dass man den deutschen Medien nicht trauen kann. Das fängt beim ZDF an, geht über die Süddeutsche bis hin zu konservativen Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung. Schlichtweg keine Ausnahme, die nicht dafür bekannt wäre, an die niederen Instinkte der Nicht-Amerikaner zu appellieren, die zwar nicht wissen, wie der Planet sich dreht, aber keine Gelegenheit verpassen, um gegen etwas zu sein, solange der 'Große Satan' oder ein paar Juden mit im Spiel sind. Bei anderen Dingen, beispielsweise wenn es eben um den Sudan geht, wo man leider noch keine öffentlichkeitstaugliche Verbindung zwischen dem dortigen Völkermord und den Wirtschaftsinteressen des Westens ableiten konnte, dominiert Ratlosigkeit. Aber was nicht ist, kann ja gewiss noch werden. Und was Wim Wenders angeht, Wenders ist ein Idiot und Wichtigtuer, den man nicht allzu ernstnehmen sollte. Ebenso wie Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, Günter Grass, Peter Sloterdijk, Walter Jens, Ulrich Wickert, Christoph Keese, Stefan Aust, Marc Pitzke, Gerhard Spörl, Georg Mascolo - und viele, viele andere "Experten", die darauf aus sind, ihre geistigen Ergüsse abzusondern, wo sich die Möglichkeit bietet.

[S1IG]

@Downer:
Volle Zustimmung - ich haette die "" um das 'gut infomierte' nicht vergessen sollen.

[George M]

During the summer, I transform into the captain of a 17 FT fishing boat. Any competent mariner knows that he can rely on NOAH's weather radio broadcasts, which run 24/7.

The broadcasts are free. They are on the open airways like any other radio station. You do not have to be a subscriber to get weather reports.

All that the effected countries had to do was turn on their radios!

[Gabi]

Berlusconi kommt doch gleich nach Bush und Sharon auf der Haß-Liste. Nur direkt in den schwedischen Medien erwähnt man die italienische schnelle Reaktion:

"Einzig das Rettungswerk habe am Tag nach der Katastrophe zwei Mann nach Sri Lanka geschickt - am gleichen Tag, als Italien schon mit beschlagnahmten Flugzeugen 1.100 Touristen heimgeholt habe. Eine gleiche Inkompetenz habe sich, so die Zeitung "Dagens Nyheter" in einem Leitartikel, nach dem Untergang der Fähre "Estonia" und nach dem Mord am schwedischen Ministerpräsidenten Palme gezeigt. Das sei nicht mehr hinnehmbar - die Überorganisation behindere Phantasie und Mitgefühl."

http://www.faz.net/s/RubDDBDABB9457A437BAA85A49C26FB23A0/Doc~E1E93E2DF7BC448989C1264A2F0EE3CE6~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html

Keine Ahnung, wieviele deutsche Medien dies lobend erwähnen.

[beimami]

@Downer

Das hast Du gut gesagt. Auch volle Zustimmung.

@Gabi

Oh yeah. Die Haß auf Berlusconi ist groß, aber er kann nicht nur einstecken, sondern auch gut austeilen. Ich weiß wirklich nicht, ob der Typ ganz sauber ist, aber er macht sich lüstig über die bescheuerten Linken, und das gefällt mir.

[distel]

Was Berlsuconi da in Italien abzieht hat mit Demokratie nicht mehr allzuviel zu tun. Berlusconi beherrscht ja so gut wie alle Medien in Italien. Regierungschef ist er selbst, im Parlament hat er eine gute Mehrheit hinter sich, die er mit 10000€-Weihnachtsgeschenken bei Laune hält und die italienische Justitz verarscht er nach Strich und Faden. Damit kontolliert er 3 der 4 Gewalten und die vierte kann ihm nicht anhaben.
Für mich sind das Tendenzen in Richtung Diktatur, auch wenn er abgewählt werden kann, was aber nicht passieren wird, weil er mit seinen Medien einen enormen Einfluss auf die politische Meinungsbildung hat.

[Gabi]

Meine Aussage auf Berlusconi bezog sich allein auf die Haßliste. Ob berechtigt oder nicht, dazu fehlt mir die Kompetenz.