Gas Masks/Nuclear War!!

[Mima]

Have been reading with interest in the papers the last few days about the panic buying in both British and US shops for gas masks and I wondered if any Mumsnet members are "panicking" and buying such things. Also just heard on the news about people stocking up on such things as long life milk and tinned goods. Just wonder what other members views are on these things. Incidentally most of the British shops have ran out of gas masks!

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Darn! I threw out some ciprofloxin about ten days ago! I wouldn't have had enough to treat us all, though.

Supposedly, those of us in Scotland are less at risk because of the greater incidence of cloud cover and rain. "Wot, like Chernobyl, you mean????" There are still contaminated animals in Scotland from that event.

Do you know what is really bugging me about all of this, and this is going to sound horrible but hear me out! All the charity concerts and fundraising efforts that are going towards the survivors and families of the people who died in America. I'm sorry but these people will probably have life insurance, plus they will get money from the state and the victim's place of work. Meanwhile, the refugees from Afghanistan are starving, frightened, cold and ill. They are victims of the same atrocity, but who is fundraising for them?
Yes, the victim's family deserve some kind of compensation, but none of them are starving. These Afghans have seen their families killed, tortured, whatever, they have left their homes and walked for miles. These people are the real victims in all of this, these people deserve our money and help.
Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest!

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What a lot of cr*p Lisav!. Large swathes of the Afghan population have only been kept alive so far through international aid which has largely been donated by the US and the UK. The reason they are starving in the first place is entirely down to their own government.

Those of us who actively support a wide range of charities have of course been fully aware of the situation in Afghanistan for some years now (how much have you donated to them in the past as a matter of interest??).

As to the victims in America, the insurance payouts to the families of those who died are highly unlikely to be sufficient to support them for the rest of their lives given how young so many of the victims were. Do you seriously believe that the payouts to the families of the 300 firemen killed will be enough to pay off mortgages, feed, clothe and educate their families for the next 30 years?. Of course many of those killed were not American and not in permanent employment in any case.

The one thing that does irritate me more than anything is why do people resent other people's choices as far as donating to chairty?. Logically, you should be also be suggesting that people shouldn't be donate to the RSPCA, RSPCB or even the National Trust or whatever when there are people in the world starving. We all have the right to choose the charities we support and nobody is stopping you from doing the same.

Yup - the US has historically been far and away the biggest giver of aid to Afghanistan. The $320m in aid it announced last week comes on top of the $185m it has already donated to the country in 2001. There are of course dozens of charities already with Afghan projects in place and have been for a number of years.

Lisav, the broadsheet papers this morning are quite correctly full of ads for Unicef and other aid bodies' appeals to alleviate the suffering in Afghanistan and on the Pakistan border. Take your pick.
By the way, until the WTC atrocity happened, firefighters in New York and elsewhere in the US enjoyed extremely low pay and status. Many of them could not afford to live anywhere near their central New York workplaces and I fear that many of them probably skimped on their life insurance through sheer lack of cash. Add them to all the Hispanic/Black American facilities staff in those buildings, also on paltry salaries, who almost certainly had no financial back-up and I think you'll find that many of the victims left their families in dire financial need. Did you not see the pictures of some of their next of kin having to queue for death certificates (no body, no funeral) just so they could claim emergency assistance to keep their homes?
Please don't start picking and choosing who is a more "worthy" victim on the basis of where they happen to live. The WTC terrorist attack was a global atrocity and you don't have to approve of American foreign policy, or even of armed reprisal, to see this.

Whoa! I didn't mean to offend you lot but I am sticking by what I said I'm afraid. Yes, I know that Unicef and Oxfam are out there helping the Afghans now, but it makes me angry the way the media plays up to all of this, calling the Americans 'victims' and the Afghans 'refugees'. I know this is a sensitive subject and I do not favour terrorism and I too shed lots of tears when the Trade Towers were bombed, but it seemed so hypocritical to see all these Hollywood stars, the rich and famous, pile out to raise money for the victims families, when the poorest of the poor in Afghanistan have to rely on the generosity of foreign aid. These people have been ravaged by war for centuries, starvation and homelessness are part and parcel of life for them. Yes it was a horrible act in America, but does it take this to make us open our eyes to what is happening in the rest of the world?

And by the way Croppy, I am not asking how much anyone contributes to any charity, nor do I want to know what charities they contribute to, that's none of mine or your business. There is a huge gulf between the West and the East and it seems patronising of us to say 'oh our aid feeds them, when their government should be' - yes of course their government should be feeding them, it just so happens that their government couldn't care less about them! And who helped the Taliban get into power in the first place? Who supplied them with all their weapons?

All this aid that is going in there now is only being stepped up to appease the Muslims, to show that we are not targeting the Afghan people and to try to stop them from going over the border into Pakistan. Our countries only seem to give aid when there is a policital reason behind it, never out of the goodness of their own heart. They should have been giving the people aid instead of selling them arms in the first place.

Finally, I am not saying we should not do something for the American victims families, just that we should not forget the Afghan people at this time and maybe the money should be split between the two countries.

On the supply of arms etc,I think you are confusing the Muhjaiden (sp?) with the Taliban. The latter has of course been supported only by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in terms of arms supplies.

I am confused as to you saying that what charities people support should be nobodies business but their own but then go on to suggest that charity money raised after the WTC attack should be more evenly distributed between the US and Afghanistan. Doesn't this suggest that you don't believe people have a right to support whatever charity they want to and instead should have their wishes overridden?.

The Aid programmes and international chairities' work in Afghanistan is not new at all. Most have been active there for at least 20 years.

My question Lisav was of course rhetorical not personal. Anybody who reads a newspaper has been well aware of the atrocities and suffering under the Taleban regime for some years now and it has been discussed in some detail on Mumsnet. As has been said elsewhere, there are innumerable charities that support the local population.

I don't know what papers you read but the ones I read are full of sympathy for the plight of the Afghani people. If it is nobodies business what charities people choose to support then what is wrong with Hollywood stars chosing to support those affected by the WTC attack?.

Lisav, what about the millions of homeless, starving people in this country? our Government should be doing something about that. I must agree with croppy about some of the american victims families not being able to afford Life Insurance, it may seem like a lot of money but in reality it isn't. I know a family and the husband pays over £340 in the month for life insurance, and if he dies, it goes straight to the bank to cover his mortgage, overdraft and all other bills, and when we counted it up his wife and 4 children and farm, would'nt really be that well off.
There have been thousands of families in Britain this year due to the F&M who have recieved NO money from the government other than money given to them by the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution and the Scottish Branch as well. I know of many families who could not have fed themselves or their children without the charitable donations of many people in this country, of which all were very gratefully received.

Don't you think Lisav that making judgements about the relative merits of different victims is a pointless exercise?. If you went down that route, how would you ever justify donations to say children's charities in the UK when the same sum donated to a charity working in certain African countries could save hundreds of children from starvation rather than just one British child from say, abuse?.

As far as I can see the high profile US fundraising efforts are only directed at their own population. Given that it is the largest number of civilian deaths in any western country caused by a single terrorism act, I am not suprised that Americans feel they want to do what they can to help each other. I personally would be reluctant to crticise anyone's decision to donate to any charity of their choice whether its a donkey sanctuary or a situation like Rwanda. It is a personal choice and a selfless decision and so should be encouraged rather than criticised.

Also, as you rightly point out, Afghanistan has been torn apart by war for centuries. Doesn't that suggest that blame for the country's difficulties cannot entirely be laid at the door of the West?.

See today that donor countries have pledged $737m to help Afghanistan following an appeal from the UN. Apparently aid from the west to the country has average $400m in past years.

I will repeat the question i put on another board...how much have the extremely wealty oil producing arabs donated to their own people??????

I'm sure they aren't berating themselves over their lack of donations to the UK NSPCC etc!

You have all raised good points. In answer to Gracie - yes I believe that everyone has the right to donate to who they like and I wasn't suggesting that ALL money raised for victims of the WTC be split, there are numerous funds now set up for these victims, but I was questioning of ethics of having a load of Hollywood stars do various concerts specifically for them. Someone said that there are lots of funds for Aghanistan, this is not so, there are now more funds set up for the WTC than for Afghanistan, just trawl through the internet and count them. The message it sends out to the world is that America's rich and famous will come out and raise millions for their own people, but are reluctant to do the same for others. If this war is to be a 'just' war, don't you think that someone should be putting on charity concerts for them too, so that it is evenly matched?

There is very little aid getting through to Afghanistan, today in the papers the aid agencies were criticising the American government for dropping packets containing just enough meals for one day and asked "How will the Afghans know in the future if an offer of humanitarian aid does not hide a military operation?".

I am sorry that I picked up on stupid points such as life insurance, you are quite right, that has nothing to do with anything. But the West is not blameless in the state of Afghanistan, they DID help the Taliban rise to power, as well as Pakistan. The West has always favoured Israel over Palestine and the oppressing Taliban regime, though widely reported over here, was not acted upon by any government. Those Afghans who hijacked that plane at Luton Airport ages ago were desperate for the West to help their country, but we did nothing.

I don't mean to have a go at the families of the dead and I apologise if that is the way I have come across, but I do think the West do a good job of looking after their own whilst turning a blind eye to the plight of those in the East. And as to Tigger2's comments, I would much rather be homeless on the streets of Britain than homeless and living in Afghanistan. At least I know where there are homeless shelters and places to go for a cup of tea and a hot meal, just look at how many charities we have for our own kind, there are no such shelters over there. These are all our brothers and sisters and should be treated as such. If Paul MacCartney can put on a concert for the WTC victims, then someone should do the same for the Afghans.

Lisav, please do not worry about the Afghans, they are all being looked after very well by my local authority.
Sorry that was abit bitter and twisted.
Sometimes it feels that all we do is slate everyone and everything, can we not just agree that be it America, Afghanistan or Seria Leone, we as a small (very small) island compared to all these other countries, offer an awful lot of aid to other parts of the world and I do not feel that it is wrong to offer help to any innocent individual be it through drought,floods or terrorism. If we was not so generious how comes Live Aid back in 1985 raised one of the largest amount of money ever!

Well if you are referring to the hijacked plane which landed at Stanstead (which funnily enough stopped at four other airports first at which they did not want to disembark), all those who wanted to apply for asylum in the UK did so. A fair number of the passengers wanted to go back home.

Can't you just accept that there always has been and most likely always will be dreadful suffering in many parts of the world - almost all of which is caused by the individual governments concerned?. To suggest that we can solve these problems through charity is absurd.

The Taleban only emerged in 1995 and it has never been supported by any international power except Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Lisav, please realise that these people their own Government and country, we have enough problems in this country without trying to start to support them.
Worn out, you are not bitter, you are speaking the truth, many Assylum seekers see Britain as an easy touch to seek Assylum in. They come into this country by the lorry load and I was not allowed to go abroad this year, as if I had I had to be off farm for 5 days before going abroad. What about the various bush meats that are brought into this country, what diseases are they bringing in, do you know it makes me laugh, one rule for us and one for them.
Lisav, Britain came of as one of the worst countries in the European Union last year in subsidies etc, France and Germany being the main bread winners in financial terms. I donate to various charities, but don't see why we now should fork out for a country that supports such a regime as the Taleban.

I won't be looking at this thread again. It is a shame it has degenerated into asylum seeker bashing. It was really funny at first.

Yes Scummymummy, I too have been dismayed by the sentiments expressed. The lack of humanity and understanding of international politics is depressing. I am so glad that I have the good fortune to live here, the freedom to express myself, access to healthcare, education, and most basic of all, good food and clean water.

Scrummymummy,
This is not asylum bashing at all. I thought this was a link for grown up, free speech conversation.
Yes I am a little pivved when I find that when my son goes to school he will be in the minority because we have such a high influx of illegal immegrants in my area, and this is not me being racist, my muslim neighbours said that she could not believe how few "white" children there were at our local school (5% to be exact), and she feels like moving her daughter to a more "balanced" school.
If you followed my conversation, I feel for any innocent victim of crime or an act of God. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make everybody love their neighbours and that we could call an end to war be it religious or political, but it is not going to happen just like that, we are all different with varying ideas but surely that does not me that we can not debate the issues.

OK. I lied and have looked at this thread again. Thanks for supporting me, Faith. I agree with you totally- we're very lucky to be living in a liberal and prosperous country like Britain.
Wornout- I'm afraid I always distrust qualifiers such as "I'm not being racist but..."

Scrummymummy,
Your privilage!
But I am NOT a racist, and have strongly argued against racism over the years.

Wornout
Out of interest, what evidence do you have that the 'non-white' children at your local school are 'illegal immigrants'?