In his Monday post Juan Cole looks into the generosity of the contributions of Middle Eastern countries relative to the US (taking into consideration population and per capita income). His conclusion is that countries like Saudi Arabia are more generous than the US. However, I think he omits one very important difference. The US government contributes with authority granted to it by the US public (via elections), whereas the Saudi government for instance, contributes with no legitimate authority at all. The relatively few members of the Royal Family are giving away what they've basically snatched from their people. Comparing the per-capita contributions of two countries implies that the decision to contribute is itself "per-capita" (roughly speaking). In the case of Saudi Arabia or Libya it obviously isn't.
However, the simple analysis when applied to Australia and Turkey does seem to hold. But even in this case, the analysis is too simple. Comparisons of US contributions to those of other countries should consider ALL costs the US bears: operation of US naval vessels and aircraft involved in rescue operations, proportion of UN funding that comes from the US, contributions by private US organizations, US military costs that benefit other countries, etc.
