Foreign aid At a meeting recently where representatives of the Mennonite Ten Thousand were speaking a woman stood up and suggested that Americans should not have to worry about supporting worthy causes like the ones the speakers had mentioned because surely with all of the money that the US gives in foreign aid each year the fault must lie with the local governments that are not getting that aid to the people who need it. While President Bush has said that ãpoverty doesn't cause terrorism,ä many experts argue that poor countries with nondemocratic governments could become havens for terrorism. Moreover, the U.S. Agency for International Development maintains that ãU.S. foreign assistance has always had the twofold purpose of furthering Americaâs foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets while improving the lives of the citizens of the developing world.ä But experts say that the U.S. government has given aid more often to reward political and military partners than to advance social or humanitarian causes abroad. When Bush got into office one of his first initiatives was to sign a directive that stopped US aid to all women's programs around the world. Programs that poor women around the world were counting on suddenly evaporated on January of 2000 and that Bush ban on women's programs is still in place. A survey of Americans demonstrated that people believe that we give about 15% of our GNP (Gross National Product) as foreign aid each year and they prefer that the amount given be reduced to about 10% of our GNP. The actual dollar amount is less than 0.1% which puts the US at the bottom of the list of foreign aid given by wealthy nations. Here is the real US foreign aid dollars given to poor countries. Ross How much aid does the United States give? Less than 1 percent of the U.S. budget goes to foreign aid. President Bushâs 2003 budget proposes about $11.4 billion in economic assistance and about $4.3 billion for peacekeeping operations and to finance, train, and educate foreign armed forces. How do U.S. aid levels compare with those of other countries? The U.S. foreign aid budget as a percentage of gross national product (GNP) ranks last among the worldâs wealthiest countries (at about 0.1 percent). In raw dollars, however, the United States is now the worldâs top donor of economic aid, although for more than a decade it was second to Japan, which is far smaller and has been beset by economic woes. In 2001, the United States gave $10.9 billion, Japan $9.7 billion, Germany $4.9 billion, the United Kingdom $4.7 billion, and France $4.3 billion. As a percentage of GNP, however, the top donors were Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Sweden. The tiny Netherlands (pop. 16.3 million) gave $3.2 billion in 2001÷almost a third of what America contributed. So the Netherlands gave $196 per person in foreign aid and the US gave $41 per American in foreign aid in 1991 and the numbers have gotten worse since then. Do Americans understand how much of the U.S. budget goes to foreign aid? No. A 2001 poll sponsored by the University of Maryland showed that most Americans think the United States spends about 24 percent of its annual budget on foreign aid÷more than 24 times the actual figure. Do Americans support increasing foreign aid? Yes. A University of Maryland poll, which was conducted in July 2002, indicated that 81 percent of Americans support increasing foreign aid spending because they believe that the aid will help to fight terrorism. According to the pollâs findings, the typical American would like to spend $1 on foreign aid for every $3 spent on defense; the real ratio in the proposed budget for fiscal year 2003 is $1 on aid for every $19 spent on defense. o00o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o "We operate on guilt, [Muslims] operate on shame. The idea of photographing an Arab man naked and having him simulate homosexual activity, and having an American GI woman in the photographs, is the end of society in their eyes.' -Seymour Hersh Everything is changed because
of the debacle of AbuGhraib Iraq is no longer a 'winnable war' for the US RossCannon _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
