Minister Al-X

How Do You Say "Ba-Humbug" In Hindi?

America, the indifferent (International Herald Tribune).

Just in time for Christmas:

...the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs, and it has told charities like Save the Children and Catholic Relief Services that it won't honor earlier promises. Instead, administration officials said that most of the country's emergency food aid would go to places where there were immediate crises.
...
The administration has cited the federal budget deficit as the reason for its cutback in donations to help the hungry feed themselves. In fact, the amount involved is a pittance within the federal budget when compared with our $412 billion deficit, fueled by war and tax cuts. The administration can conjure up $87 billion for the fighting in Iraq, but can it really not find more than $15.6 billion - our overall spending on development assistance in 2002 - to help stop an 8-year-old AIDS orphan in Cameroon from drinking sewer water or to buy a mosquito net for an infant in Sierra Leone?
...
There is a very real belief abroad that the United States, which gave 2 percent of its national income to rebuild Europe after World War II, now engages with the rest of the world only when it perceives that its own immediate interests are at stake. If that is unfair, it's certainly true that American attention is mainly drawn to international hot spots.
...
In 2002, President George W. Bush announced the Millennium Challenge Account, which was supposed to increase U.S. assistance to poor countries that are committed to policies promoting development. Bush said his government would donate $1.7 billion the first year, $3.3 billion the second and $5 billion the third. That $5 billion would have been just 0.04 percent of national income, but the administration still failed to match its promise with action.

Back in Washington and away from the spotlight of the summit meeting, the administration didn't even ask Congress for the full $1.7 billion the first year; it asked for $1.3 billion, which Congress cut to $1 billion. The next year, the administration asked for $2.5 billion and got $1.5 billion.

Worst of all, the account has yet to disperse a single dollar, while every year in Africa, one in 16 pregnant women still die in childbirth, 2.2 million die of AIDS, and 2 million children die from malaria.

Jeffrey Sachs, the economist who directs the Millennium Project, puts the gap between what America is capable of doing and what it actually does into stark relief. The government spends $450 billion annually on the military, and $15 billion on development help for poor countries, a 30-1 ratio that, as Sachs puts it, shows how the nation has become "all war and no peace in our foreign policy."

You mean Jesus' messenger in the White House doesn't care about poor people? The Hell you say.

posted by Anonymous @ 9:54 AM