So why is it that Brooks contends that we are "cheapskates"? How is it that we supposedly show that we don't care about the rest of the world? Brooks contends that it is because we don't have enough government spending on the international affairs budget.
I wonder if all the country's that hate us, would have got on board the WOT, if, the ragheaded radical islamofascists would have crashed a plane into the U.N. building in New York?
Na, that would be like supporting Freedom...
I sent a response to the LA Times writer of the story, at: rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com.
Here is what I said:
Dear Miss Brooks:
Thanks for helping the global media spread the ignorance about we Americans and our international generosity.
With the media workers-of-the-world like you doing their worst, the “opinions” that people overseas have about American’s willingness to give is not a surprise.
Now of course those of us in the know realize that you, Miss Brooks, would prefer to see our government throw the people of Afghanistan and Iraq under the bus and let the Taliban, the Al Queda types, the Salafists, Saddam’s old Baathists and the Iranian-funded Sadr militia have their terroristic way with the new democratic voters in those two nations; with a commensurate deletion of the corresponding expenses for those efforts from our defense budget, but somehow we also realize that such reductions (as stupid and foolish as they would be) will not result in corresponding, dollar-for-dollar increases in other forms of “aid”, and for good reasons.
While it is meaningful to the ignorant sheeple, to whom you write to please, to compare international “aid” as a percent of GDP, and using only government aid as well, it is far less meaningful to the actual international aid efforts when it is realized that for the majority of nations to which the US is compared negatively, in terms of government foreign aid as a % of GDP, they are mostly small nations and even 1% of their GDP is a mere drop compared to 1/10 of 1% of the US GDP.
The actual fact is that in dollar amounts alone, the US government is the largest aid donor nation (since 2000 and rising). But that is not even close to the whole American international aid story.
Now maybe you want to praise Sweden, who has no international obligations or treaty commitments with anyone, for its outstanding % (highest) of GDP that its government devotes to international aid. But, as you do, I am sure you will not tell your readers that the dollar amount from Sweden is still 1/5th that of the US government alone, nor would you note of course that not even the South Koreans are going to look to Sweden for help with their military defense needs (oh, sorry, forgot, we cannot weigh such needs as US “aid” in the world). Maybe to you, we cannot even count the US assistance (immediate and massive) in the recent Tsunami relief effort or the recent Pakistani earthquake effort, for to remind global readers about such efforts and the speed and size of our response would spoil your agenda - just as it would not help your agenda to note that the speed and size of our response was only possible because of the military apparatus we have and its global placement - no one else could deliver the volume of aid we could.
What really would spoil your agenda would be the truth about the generosity of the American people. You see, a majority of American people are not Marxists and do not look to the government as their savior and do not look to the government to do everything for them, at home or abroad.
The greatness of America has always been its people and its people expect that it is they, not the government, who will achieve great things, and they do.
American private charitable aid programs overseas amounted to $34 billion in 2002 (surely has increased since), making American private international aid more than the international aid efforts of most governments. (http://www.techcentralstation.com/082102N.html)
But that is not surprising to those in America that actually give their own money for aid, instead of demanding some “rich” person be taxed more so that Miss Roberts can politically direct where HER “aid” should go. In fact, the American people personally give the largest % of their GDP, 1.67% (with second place UK giving 0.73 of GDP) to all kinds of charitable aid, foreign and domestic. We are the largest, in dollar volume and most generous, as a % of GDP, personal private givers in the world.
Unlike you, we don’t try to confiscate other peoples money with taxes to do it just so that your political friends can boast about a government mandated program - we do it ourselves. Just go to Africa yourself, go to an area of extreme poverty and try to count the workers of private, religious, foundation and corporate funded NGOs actually doing something and you’ll find the majority are Americans.
Now, the dirty little international secret about foreign aid. Many foreign nations and the national international agencies love to report money allocated and money spent, as if those numbers mean something, all by themselves, regarding poverty. They don’t. If we had actual progress in Africa alone, for the nearly trillions given in aid since the 1960s, Africa would be the richest continent on earth.
Go get yourself a copy of the book “White Man’s Burden” by William Easterly. From it you will learn “Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good”. You will also learn that when you put all the “developing” nations from the 1960s together, in terms of aid received and economic progress they made since then, you will find that those who have progressed the most were not those who got the most aid, per capita of GDP, and those who have progressed the least were among those who did get the most aid, per capita of GDP. The fact is that no amount of aid can substitute for good government and with good government the need for aid and the length of need for aid rapidly diminishes. Many attempts at throwing aid money at Africa are like welfare payments once were here in the US. It breeds new generations of aid dependents, and it helps corruption maintain its hold on the local economy. The best aid is not the largest and the best aid projects and programs are not those demanding massive funds for themselves. Most international aid money is lost in the government bureaucracies that run the “aid” program, lost inside the government of the recipient country and lost in other corruption all the way down to the local “leaders”. The reporting of international financial figures are not concerned with reporting what actually improved because of the expenditure, because far too often nothing has. The best aid is narrowly targeted and passes through the fewest government hands; which private aid does a lot more frequently than government aid.
And where is progress occurring most in Africa today. You won’t find it by following aid dollars, you’ll find it by finding reforming governments.
While some nations love to report how much wealth of their citizens they have confiscated for the international public affairs agenda of announcing how “generous” “they” are, millions of American people and tens of thousands of American workers quietly go about demanding nothing from any other citizen, just giving themselves, at home and aboard, in time and in money and they do so far more than any other people in the world.
People who really want to give don’t sit at their typewriter and judge everyone else, and they don’t demand the government go confiscate the means from everyone else to do it, they just do it themselves. Why don’t you join them instead spreading world ignorance about the contributions of your fellow citizens.
Leave it to a liberal to claim that Americans are "cheapskates" because our government does not spend enough money on foreign aid. In the L.A.Times for April 13th, that is just what we are treated to with Rosa Brooks' screed titled, "To the rest of the world, we're cheapskates" and subtitled, "The U.S. international affairs budget -- which helps fight AIDS, poverty and more -- is just 1% of total spending." But, by attacking our country over its record on charity and foreign aid spending, Brooks proves that she neither understands the nature of American generosity, nor the American character.