A better case could be made that liberal organizations fought for and won $43 million for the Taliban. That would also be deceptive, and most Freepers would be jumped on for making such an unfounded allegation.
AFGHANISTAN: Famine Endangering 1 Million, UN Says; More
Wrapping up a visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan to witness the plight of the Afghan populace firsthand, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said yesterday Afghans urgently need assistance if the international community wishes to avert a mass famine.
"We believe that at least 1 million people are at risk of famine," said Kenzo Oshima after returning from his visit to the Central Asian region.
Oshima said he saw "a sea of people living in unbelievable misery" during a visit to a refugee camp near Jalozai, Pakistan (Reuters/ABCNEWS.com, 20 Feb). More than 130,000 Afghan refugees are living in horrible conditions near Jalozai.
Oshima met with with Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad on Friday. They discussed the Pakistani proposal to provide more relief to displaced persons inside Afghanistan (Agence France-Presse/ReliefWeb, 17 Feb). Oshima noted that the United Nations was involved in discussions with the Taliban to explore that option. Oshima also discussed with Pakistani authorities the possibility of setting up another refugee camp in Pakistan in order to ease overcrowding (Reuters/MSNBC.com, 17 Feb). Approximately 700 people are crossing the Afghan border into Pakistan every day (Reuters/ABCNews.com).
Oshima praised the "generous" long-term commitment of Pakistan to the refugee crisis. "We recognize that here is a tremendous burden put on the government and people," he said. "We hope that the open and generous attitude which has been demonstrated will be maintained" (AFP/ReliefWeb).
Relief Aid Stabilizes Situation
The arrival of relief aid in the last two weeks has helped stabilize the deteriorating conditions at camps for the internally displaced around Herat in western Afghanistan.
Relief agencies, however, are bracing themselves for the arrival of more refugees as snow begins to melt and open up the mountain passes. Aid groups are now focusing on reaching out to people in outlying rural areas in order to "discourage further migration to Herat," according to UN World Food Program coordinator Denise Brown. According to Brown, some of these areas have not received food assistance since October.
Brown also said that efforts are needed to reactivate farming in the region. "The shortage of seeds needs to be addressed immediately," she said. Seeds are in short supply because the major suppliers in Iran and Pakistan have also been affected by the severe drought that has struck Central Asia (Integrated Regional Information Networks, 19 Feb).
Figures don't lie, but liars figure. Let's all try to remember that the largest chunk of our military spending is in the form of payroll and other benefits. In totalitarian third-world countries, this is matched by less than a dime on the dollar.
Next, we have to remember that communist regimes have complete control over pricing. For example, the price of a MiG jet fighter might have been set at $5,000 because the Supreme Soviet said so. This kind of pricing philosophy pervaded the entire communist weapons acquisition system. A T-72 tank might be priced at $900. An AK-47 assault rifle might be priced at $12.
By comparison, at one point in the 1990s when I looked up the price tags, a stripped down version of our F-16 fighter cost $21 million, an M-1 tank cost $1 million and an M-16A1 rifle cost $2,000. The communists ran their military factories at a colossal loss, even though they were paying their workers Third World wages if they were paying them at all.
Also, another form of "creative accounting" kept many defense-related expenditures (such as intelligence) entirely off the books, so to speak.
It might put things into a more accurate perspective to point out that we have roughly 3 million people in uniform (including reserves and National Guard) while the Chinese have almost 100 million. We have tried to compensate for their overwhelming numerical advantages by going ultra-high tech. This is expensive, particularly when we spend several million dollars on research & development costs for systems that are later handed over to the Chinese by some yokel from Arkansas in exchange for a few thousand dollars in campaign contributions.
"I've signed an executive order that immediately freezes United States financial assets of and prohibits United States transactions with 27 different entities. They include terrorist organizations, individual terrorist leaders, a corporation that serves as a front for terrorism, and several nonprofit organizations.
Just to show you how insidious these terrorists are, they oftentimes use nice-sounding, non-governmental organizations as fronts for their activities. We have targeted three such NGOs."
Kinda puts some swiss cheese holes in that argument of yours that all those NGOs were just sending wheat (see my earlier posts on NGOs). Now mind you I have to give him his props for closing that loophole (a dirty little secret known to the NGOs).
Your honor, the prosecution rests its case.