Colin Powell said U.S. aid to tsunami-stricken countries "does give the Muslim world and the rest of the world an opportunity to see American generosity, American values in action. ... I hope that, as a result of our efforts, as a result of our helicopter pilots' being seen by the citizens of Indonesia helping them, that value system of ours will be reinforced." The editor of Beirut's The Star disagreed: "To think that aid would make people overlook all the other reasons to criticize the U.S. - it's naive, it's racist, it's almost insulting." In the Indonesian province of Aceh, "Australian journalists who witnessed a confrontation between Indonesian soldiers and alleged separatists ... were ordered to leave the area and warned not to report on the incident." One commander told the journalists, "Your duties here are to observe the disaster, not the conflict."

The National Association of Manufacturers, whose political action committee BIPAC mounted a massive get-out-the-business-vote drive last year, is forming two new groups to support the Bush administration. NAM's Alliance for Worker Retirement Security is "leading the charge for business interests," calling for Social Security privatization. NAM's American Justice Partnership will launch "a multimillion-dollar campaign to aid the White House in its quest to win approval for conservative judges," reported the Los Angeles Times. NAM head John Engler said, "There has been too much of a tendency ... to cast these judgeship battles as a social debate about abortion or gay rights. In fact, there are very few of those cases in contrast to those dealing with the tort system and the rights of individuals and companies."