The GOP in the House of Representatives just passed on the perfect chance to cut $79.2 billion from the Continuing Resolution to fund the US Government through fiscal year 2011. The cuts would have met little resistance from their Tea Party base, or the Democratically controlled Senate, and what little resistance there might have been could have been shouted down in the name of bipartisan compromise, which would have made both sides look good to their base. As it stands both sides appear bumbling and incompetent to
anyone who gives the looming budget crisis even a second thought.
Our government is not designed to run smoothly, that way leads to tyranny, but it also wasn’t designed to be shut down over a budget squabble as Newt Gingrich found out in 1995, when his Republican base made him resign his speakership in shame. Commentary on the budget crisis aside, cutting corporate welfare, and foreign aid from the Continuing Resolution, would have been a step in the right direction, and would have surpassed the $60 billion in cuts the GOP touts as necessary to get the budget back on track. To me this just makes sound fiscal sense.
I am very disturbed about the current monetary derailment we are experiencing in this country, and one of the monetary policies I find most disturbing, is the US Government’s policy of giving hard earned taxpayer money to foreign countries around the globe. This would be nowhere near as distasteful to me if the aid were given in the form of food, basic supplies, and medicines directly to the needy people in third world countries, and developing nations, but unfortunately it’s not, it’s given in the form of cash, and that cash is given to prop up governments who help the US protect her interests in whatever region these nations happen to be in, with very little if any of the money given going to it’s stated purpose of helping the poor in those countries. I find the governments, and policies of the countries that receive our taxpayer money, to be distasteful and repugnant.
It wasn’t until very recently that the truth about our foreign aid policies began to see the light of day, with first the toppling of the government in Tunisia, then the ousting of long time dictator Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Had either of these been isolated events, our government could have shrugged its shoulders, and told us there were some choices that hade to be made for security in the region, as it turns out, Tunisia and Egypt were just the beginning of a domino effect in the region, and they spurred me on to do a little research about foreign aid, so I could write this article.
In 1953 the US Government via the CIA, and intelligence services in Great Britain helped Mohammad Rezza Shah Pahlavi stage a coup in Iran, where the democratically elected parliament was disbanded, leaving the Shah, a cruel autocrat, in place, because the parliament took a hard line stance against the western world, marking the first time in history, that US intelligence helped overthrow a sovereign government.
Over a period of the next 26 years the United States looked the other way, and sent aid to the Shah in the name of regional stability, while the Shah ruthlessly terrorized the people of Iran. This came to an abrupt halt with the Islamic Revolution of 1979, in which the Shah fled the country, and 52 diplomats from the US Embassy to Iran were taken hostage for 444 days, a situation that killed any hopes Jimmy Carter had of being voted in for a second term as the President of the United States.
At one time the United States supported Saddam Hussein, another autocratic ruler in the Middle East, this one with genocidal tendencies, because of his efforts to overthrow Iran, in the Iran/Iraq war, sending this particular madman money and military supplies, even though Iraq had built a Chemical Weapons plant, and a nuclear research center, (a place the US helped Israel destroy through foreign military aid), and looked the other way, while Saddam Hussein killed some 250,000 of his own countrymen.
The above are just a couple of examples of the many mistakes the government has made with those portions of taxpayer dollars it sends to foreign countries in aid packages. While our men and women were, (and still are), fighting and dying in Iraq, and Afghanistan, in the name of freedom, (our government even going so far as to keep the world updated on the progress and freedom gained in those two countries), we were busy propping up dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, (a monarchy, but one where the king has absolute power, in effect making him a dictator with a noble title), Algeria, Bahrain, and Turkey in that region. Sudan, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia, (yes your money goes to support the pirates there), and Nigeria in Africa, and of course, we also prop up dictators in Eastern Europe, Asia, end we even send foreign aid to Cuba as well. Is it any wonder that the name of the United States is almost universally reviled among the peoples of the world?
Another aspect of the foreign aid issue that vexes me, is the almost neurotic way in which we back two countries on opposing sides of a bad situation, (war if you will). In 1948 the United Nations displaced the population of Palestine, forcing them to share their country with the newly reformed Nation of Israel. This decision was met with immediate reprisal from neighboring Arab states, (they invaded the next day), and has plunged Israel and Palestine into a never ending war over being forced to share the same land. The United States, which says the Israeli nation must be protected in the region, sends aid in the form of money and military supplies to Israel, and even goes to the extraordinary measure of propping up the government of Hosni Mubarak to that end. While at the same time we are sending money and supplies to Palestine, and tsk tsking whenever the two rivals clash with each other. The United States has almost the exact same policies with the two Koreas. We have bases and troops in South Korea, we send them military supplies and cash, and at the same time, we send food and supplies to North Korea, it’s almost like we are playing some kind of insane game of tag your it, with the populations of the world.
Then we have foreign aid sent to places like Mexico and China, two of our three biggest trading partners, and coincidently the two countries in which we have the largest trade imbalances with. What in the world could possible motivate our leaders to send money to nations with which we have huge trade deficits, and other problems?
Mexico on our southern border refuses to get the corruption in their government, and their drug cartels under control, and as a result, these vicious drug dealers are invading our country, killing and kidnapping our citizens, and killing local, state, and federal law enforcement agents with impunity, yet the President of Mexico screams foul play when an anti-immigration bill is passed in Arizona. At what point do we say enough is enough? Do we need to continue to send them foreign aid, while they continue to take advantage of us economically, and with their hardened thugs?
And then we have China… Sure we only give them a paltry $65 million, but in my opinion, that is $65 million too much. China takes advantage of the good nature of the US and her citizens at every turn, and yet we continue to send them our cash money. Last year we had a whopping $270 billion trade deficit with China, and at the same time China kept its Yuan undervalued by as much as 40%, which in effects kills competition from the US in the world markets. China subsidizes its own business, thus hampering US businesses in the international markets, the government pirates intellectual property, and demands foreign companies turn over patents to do business with China, and China breaks WTO rules by demanding the government buy products from its own companies, rather than on the open market as other countries in the WTO do. Of all the nations in the world, I find China’s economic policies to be the most repugnant, as they are designed specifically to kill competition, and I absolutely do not understand why we are sending them foreign aid in any capacity.
In some countries the foreign aid we send may actually do some good, but taken as a whole, our foreign policies destroy freedom, they destroy trade, and they help make the United States look like a tyrannical monster in the eyes of the world’s populations, and it is a practice that must be stopped if the United States has any hope of redeeming its reputation around the world.
Buy American
Let Freedom Ring
If you found this article useful, please feel free to subscribe to my blog either via the RSS feed in the upper right corner of the blog, or the Atom feed at the bottomThank You
No comments:
Post a Comment