Posted: May 10, 08 7:06am
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080510/ap_on_re_as/myanmar_cyclone
In this news article, two things struck me as important enough to jot out a note at TBD.
1. Annually, the U.S. gives billions in aid to at-risk nations world wide who in turn take everything they receive and disguise it's source. The repackaging of foodstuffs is common practice everywhere. When the aid is cash, equipment, or construction materials earmarked for agricultural programs or civil engineering projects, the host governments go to even greater lengths to make certain nobody knows the gift is from the U.S. They say it's from the U.N. when 95% of it comes from the U.S. They claim it's from their own treasury (making themselves appear stronger to theri people.) They claim it's from someone else entirely -someone who serves as a politicial or cultural foil to the U.S. Soemtimes, they insist the money be channeled through some other country, so they can spin the source of the aid.
2. The U.S. and the U.N. is once again trying to help poor, innocent, desperate people whose corrupt government is going to steal 90% of everything they're given. This is the world we live in. The U.S. taxpayer has done more for muslim people worldwide than any other ten countries combined, but the people we help don't realize it. The rest of the world takes our tax dollars and uses them to elevate their own prestige, while railing from their bully pulpit about how evil we are.
Didn't you ever wonder why the International Red Crescent was necessary? A celebrity devotes a few hours to helping a foreign aid agency and she's treated like Mother Teresa, while billions in aid you and I pay for appear like rabbits out of some corrupt politician or warlords hat, and of course the whole crises is ultimately the evil meddling of the U.S.
