In actuality,relief funding at the outset is a propaganda tool. A recent article by Colum Lynch of the Washington Post has provided a closer look at the falsity of the Tsunami and other previous disasters. In it he suggested that most if not all such relief efforts are grossly underfunded. It is apparent that the enormous commitments are usually media intensified. For example "UN official and aid experts say that the challenge in acurately tallying aid pledges is that governments rarely explain whether their contributions consist of new money, loans or a repackaging of earlier announced development assistance meant to increase the apparent size of their donation." So the more than four billion dollars pledged to date may just be pie in the sky.

"Governments have traditionally played political theater with aid pledges," said Shepard Forman, the director of New York University's Center on International Cooperation, who has studied aid disbursements, "There have been lots of smoke and mirrors in the amounts pledged by governments, and there is almost no way to track it."

For example, Last February, U.N. members promised about 500 million to rebuild Liberia after years of civil war and misrule by Charles Taylor. The United Nations asked for 141 million to cover its costs but received $65.3 million. Closer to home U.N. officials said their appeals after other natural disasters have fared even worse. A U.N. request for for money to respond to the devastation caused by a cycle of Caribbean storms, including Tropical Storm Jeanne in September, have been severly underfunded. Now! you easily influenced individuals in the entire Caribbean, what does that tell you? And just remember that this is just the tip of the iceberg.