Can governments be charitable?

2nd of January and already I am struggling with my resolution not to rise to the blogging bait...

A posting on Samizdata asserts that governments can never be charitable as 'money received from a nation-state cannot be charity as the money is not freely given, whereas willingly donated private funds are true charity.'

This got me thinking. What if responses to the Iraq crisis had been on the same scale and basis as the effort to help following the Tsunami? i.e. Western governments only 'donnate' substantial sums to the cause following largescale personal subscriptions from their citizens. Perhaps the assault on Fallujah should only have taken place provided NGOs could raise the finance through appeals to the public. Actually put like that it sounds a positive development...