I find this piece, and specifically the argument made by many in the African nation of Congo, to be quite compelling:

As Congo watches the global scramble to raise billions in aid for victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami, many here wonder why Asian suffering stirs action while African suffering is greeted largely with apathy.

The New York-based International Rescue Committee says nearly 4 million people have been killed in Congo since the start of war in 1998, most from war-induced disease and starvation. Fighting persists in the county’s east ? the epicenter of the war ? and 1,000 are dying each day, half of them younger than 5.

The Asian tsunami, in comparison, has killed over 150,000. The disaster was a sudden scourge of nature, while Congo’s toll has accumulated slowly, at the hands of man.

“Over the last six years, millions of people have died here from this war,” said Kudura Kasongo, spokesman for President Joseph Kabila. “In Asia, they’re dying too, and getting money. Why is this?”

Risk analysis is not exactly the strong suit of governments and would-be humanitarians. That’s one reason why idiotic activists in the West, fearful of comparatively low environment risks, pushed for a ban on the spraying of DDT, which has resulted in massive suffering in the Third World due to the big-time return of malaria. In the Congo case, you can understand why the pressure is greater for a massive humanitarian response to the tsunami (a sudden, catastrophic event is more newsworthy and heart-wrenching than a lingering war or epidemic) without being happy about it.