The Right to Offend

[Moonraker]

ThisYouWillDo

Totally agree its off topic, thats why I said so in my post and kept my post brief. It was just the "first to jump in" comment seemed to me not quite true. Regarding aid, I don't know the stats but I think if you go per capita and by GNP the stats may change a little from simply more than any other nation.

Whatever.

[Whippett]

ThisYouWillDo

Totally agree its off topic, thats why I said so in my post and kept my post brief. It was just the "first to jump in" comment seemed to me not quite true. Regarding aid, I don't know the stats but I think if you go per capita and by GNP the stats may change a little from simply more than any other nation.

Whatever.

Good point Moonraker - To expand on that - is Bill Gates (strings attached $1M donation) costing him as much as the granny who buys $20 worth of home baking at a school fete to help the library. In terms of buying power yes - in terms of cost to the benefactor - no - it's actually less out of Gates' pocket than granny's $20...

but that's off topic too.

On topic however, I've seen how American aid is sometimes distributed in the developing world - and it's not always a pretty site. The bureaucrats don't seem to bother finding out if they are trampling local custom or not - or otherwise offending. I watched an entire shipment of grain - which was needed - get dumped by a couple of marines. I don't even know why the marines were distributing the stuff - but they were - they threw the sack of grain off the truck onto the ground - and ruptured every last one of them - the grain was everywhere - of course people picked it up - they were hungry - but it wasn't shared fairly - the strongest got all of it - the weakest picked it up for them in hopes of getting some - and the marines thought it was all a huge joke.

That made me angry, and I didn't need the grain or feel beholden to the US for what it was doing in terms of aid - but there were a lot of angry mutters from the crowd about it - and rather than making friends, the US lost friends in that littlke exercise - and that was just one istance.

In another the US pumped $4Billion into a water distribution scheme - to help the farmers in an area that desperately needed some help. Unfortunately the irrigation system was gravity fed and took water from a dry area already and delivered it to a lake. So the farmers who needed an irrigation system lost some of the little water they had - and a thriving fresh water fishing industry was destroyed because the water that was dumped into the lake was heavy in minerals - and killed the trout - so the fishermen lost their livelihood as well. The signs everywhere - with big American flags made it plain who was responsible - and lost the US a lot of friends - though there must have been serious corruption in the project because the locals got together, closed off the useless system after the engineers had gone home and dug their own system using what had been built - but with modifications - to send the water where it was needed. An engineer friend not associated with the project estimated the project should have cost no more than $4million maximum - and never should have taken 6 years.

Just two instances from personal experience which indicate how even with good intentions, the American Foreign Office can screw up even good intentions.

I also witnessed a Russian food distribution program - it was handled much better - everyone got some of the food, and the people doing the distribution - while Russian spoke the local language and were friendly and courteous.

The difference in attitude was stunning - and until the US Government learns to send people who know what they're doing - I have a feeling a lot of the US aid programs will explode in the faces of the American people. My own government is pretty stupid when it comes to foreign aid as well - we tend to take a more US approach - and that sucks