Category Archives: Foreign Aid

Afghan GDP Equals US Military Spending There

Drug War, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Military, Neoconservatism, War, Welfare

Belatedly, and after spilling much blood and treasure for nothing at all in Afghanistan, mainstream opinion makers have concluded what we non-interventionists concluded a decade ago. Making Afghans (and Iraqis) wards of the American state will increase their impotence (to say nothing of violating their negative, leave-me-alone rights and ours, as we’ve paid for the adventure in lost lives and livelihoods). “Ultimately, philanthropic wars are transfer programs—the quintessential big-government projects.”

A “two-year congressional investigation from Senate Democrats” gives details of the defeat. Via the National Journal:

“World Bank data estimates that 97 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product comes from spending related to the military and donor community presence, according the report, which warns that a withdrawal could pull the rug out from under the Afghan economy.” …

MORE…

I suspect that slashing and burning the Afghans’ poppy fields hasn’t helped them either. “In a country with a poor infrastructure, the ‘relatively stable value of opium and its nonperishability means that it can also serve as an important source of savings and investment among traders and cultivators.'” (From “Tokers Are Terrorists Now”)

Migrant Remittances Dwarf Foreign Aid

Economy, Foreign Aid, Taxation, Welfare

Governments are good at talking-up the “charitable” nature of their wealth transfers, especially when budget cuts loom (the kind that threaten bloated bureaucracies). U.S. government aid, however, doesn’t come close to private American charitable donations in any given year (link). Private foreign aid greatly exceeds U.S. government aid. And the former, unlike the latter, can be channeled to recipients the donor – not government – favors. The depth and the consistency of America’s voluntary giving obviate the need for political pelf, i.e. foreign aid.

No devotee of Sir Peter Bauer, author of “Dissent on Development” and the foremost authority on foreign aid, takes seriously the warning (here) that the GOP’s meager proposed budget cuts “would cause the deaths of at least 70,000 children around the world who rely on American funding, according to the government agency in charge of foreign aid.”

Here is another interesting figure that further puts in perspective the $15 billion or so of foreign aid stolen from American taxpayers:

According to the “Atlas of Human Migration,” published in 2011, thanks to the opportunities created (indubitably, by and large, in developed nations), the remittances “sent back home by migrants in 2007 was an impressive $250 billion, putting the $103 billion sent in development aid, in the same year, to shame.” (TLS March 4, 2011)

Subsidizing “Freedom” for the Arab Street

America, Democracy, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Government, Islam, Middle East, Military

“We are not part of the picture” [in Libya], Ehud Barack told Greta van Susteren, who recounted to him the familiar war-for-Israel-and-oil accusations circulating in some Arab quarters vis-a-vis the offensive in Libya. This, even as the US commits itself to furthering the whims of the seething Arab Street—whoever it comprises, wherever it is, and whatever it wants. American warriors, in arms and in armchairs, seem to believe that repeating the word “rebel” enough times will transform the shady ragtag factions we are fighting for as a princess’s kiss transforms a toad.

Ehud Barack, Israel’s Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister (bio information), has politely applauded NATO and the US for rescuing the Libyans, but he also expresses a conscious thought about the feel-good operation, the kind of thought that will never be floated stateside:

“It’s up to the Arab people to struggle for their rights; to change regime or impose corrections and new procedures in their internal political life.”

My sentiments exactly:

If indeed we’re subsidizing “freedom” for [the Libyans] and are fighting their battles—then we’ve also increased their impotence and diminished their initiative. Subsidize individuals because you believe they are helpless—and you’ll get more learned helplessness.

Besides, what are these people? Wards of the American state? Whatever happened to fighting your own revolutions?

UPDATED: Stoic, Heroic Japan Vs. Neurotic Nation USA

Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Human Accomplishment, Journalism, Media, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Propaganda, Pseudoscience, Technology

The following is from “Stoic, Heroic Japan Vs. Neurotic Nation USA,” my new, WND.COM column:

” … Our country’s edgy experts have ordered the evacuation of Americans in Japan within a 50-mile radius of the damaged reactors at Fukushima. Japan is being harangued to ape America. The Japanese have, so far, moved people from within a 20-kilometer radius of the power plant. Funny that. The Neurotic Nation, whose military personnel in Japan are popping iodine pills if they’ve so much as flown over, or visited, the vicinity, expects the country that is fielding “The Fukushima 50″ to do the same. …

… Judging by their bombast, you’d think that our experts have been to the site at Fukushima. Indeed, Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, asserted that the water meant to cover and cool the spent fuel pool at the No. 4 reactor had evaporated, leaving the rods dangerously exposed. They were overheating, he declared from ground zero … at the House Energy and Commerce Committee panel in Washington. …

Are the nuclear plants in Japan working the way ours do in America? MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked one of the many American specialists to shamelessly share his findings from afar.

Hardball’s blowhard has a point. The USA’s stellar safety record—the best in the world, perhaps—is helped by the fact that we don’t have much of a nuclear power industry. Following the recommendations set out in ‘The China Syndrome,’ a Hollywood dramatization of the incident at Three Mile Island, the construction of new reactors in the USA was practically halted. Nobody died in that 1979 accident in Pennsylvania. Nobody but the nuclear-power industry. …

… The chauvinism with which our ego-bound elites are treating The Japanese Other continued apace. After all, this genteel, able people do not qualify as members of an easy-to-patronize, protected group, the kind so valued in the U.S. …”

The complete column is “Stoic, Heroic Japan Vs. Neurotic Nation USA,” now on WND.COM.

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UPDATE (March 20): Newsweak acknowledges Japan’s strengths: “In spite of monumental collapse and ruin, the Japanese politely wait in long lines for hours, without once complaining. Law and order are respected at every step. The Shinto-Buddhist tradition, which stresses social harmony and cohesiveness and looking out for your neighbor, is deeply ingrained in the culture. This stands in sharp contrast to some of the spontaneous reactions that have flared in the West. In the US, for example, a simple blackout back in 1977 unleashed an embarrassing wave of looting and mayhem, with marauding bands of thieves making off with anything they could carry.” …

But then, the reporter tries to blame Japan’s “ethical and social homogeneous” culture for the horrific monetary policies the country’s leaders have pursued, and for the country’s apparent paucity of “new off-beat ideas and technology, where the key is to be nimble and creative.” Any assertions will do when you are trying to redeem the morass and misery of official multiculturalism.