General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Just as ruthless and indifferent to the rule of law as his predecessor." Ouch. [View all]truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)We need to change our foreign aid structure as well as our aggressive military stance. The way things stand now our paltry largess is given with strings attached. We "give" money to other countries with the agreement that they spend it on buying weapons from us. Or we lend money for them to hire our construction companies to build a highway system--whether they need it or not. Or maybe we lend them money to buy seeds and fertilizer and pesticides from Monsanto, locking them into an unsustainable farming cycle that they cannot afford anyway (have you heard about the epidemic of farmer suicides in India?).
If we worked on being good global citizens instead of the meanest SOBs on the planet, and channeled our foreign aid toward helping other countries improve their own lives on their own terms, we could spend a fraction of our military budget on real border security and international police work, and IMHO be far safer than we are now. With the added bonus of building better lives for all of us, and many others as well.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket that is fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. It is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Dwight David Eisenhower, 4/16/1953*
*I must in fairness add that Eisenhower said that 4 months before the CIA, with his blessing, overthrew the afore-mentioned president of Iran...<sigh> He should have taken his own advice.