Posted on 01/24/2008 1:04:57 PM PST by bs9021
Foreign Aid Follies Part 2
by: Emmanuel Opati, January 24, 2008
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on January 22nd that the current administration will fight efforts to curb billions of dollars in U.S aid to Pakistan. Condoleezza, who is in Europe for the U.N. Security Council meeting that is considering new sanctions on Iran said that Musharraf is a “good ally in the war on terrorism.” ...
Husain Haqqani, Director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University, said, “Pakistani’s military looks upon the U.S. as the check writer.” “Pakistan has received $21 billion U.S. since 1954, and $17 billion U.S. of that has gone under military governments mainly for military purposes. American has made the army the most important institution in Pakistan,” added Haqqani.
In his research paper on human development, that studied 97 countries between 1970 and 1990, Peter Boone, a Professor at the London School of Economics, concluded that “development assistance had fattened political elites.”
For instance, in 2006, Uganda’s Ministry of Health was under investigation for possible misuse of approximately $160,000 U.S. of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) program intended to increase immunization coverage. Unbothered by criticisms of corruption in his government, Uganda’s President went ahead to buy a Gulfstream jet worth U.S. $48.2 million in a country whose GDP was $52.93 billion.
In many ways, foreign aid is partially responsible for promoting such behavior in some developing countries. This has created what author and columnist Doug Bandow calls “irresponsible behavior” in many leaders of the developing world. Doug Bandow argues that “the expectation of a subsidy encourages people to behave irresponsibly,” evidenced by the Savings and Loan (S&L) crisis in U.S in the1980s when a government bailout became a ‘moral hazard.’
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
The only measurement is, is it Constitutional.
I know of nowhere in our Constitution where it says: The king shall tax its citizens and give its treasure to foreign kings.
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