Do you ever feel this way about politicians? 🙂
On a similar note:
Foreign aid: When the poor people of one country give money to the rich people of another country.
Afghanistan now has the dubious distinction of being declared the most corrupt country in the world. Just last year it was only second, behind Somalia.
So this news from the Wall Street Journal came as no great surprise:
More than $3 billion in cash has been openly flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years, a sum so large that U.S. investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted U.S. aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad.
Needless to say some of our representatives in Congress are upset:
The chairwoman of the House subcommittee responsible for foreign aid said she was stripping from pending legislation $3.9 billion in funding for Afghanistan following revelations that billions of dollars, including large amounts of U.S. aid funds, were flowing out of the country through Kabul’s main airport.
“I do not intend to appropriate one more dime for assistance to Afghanistan until I have confidence that U.S. taxpayer money is not being abused to line the pockets of corrupt Afghan government officials, drug lords, and terrorists,” Ms. Lowey said.
Do you think the Congressional hearings will uncover anything? If so, do you think they will do any good?
It’s much easier to do something about the corruption in our own countries. (And this certainly isn’t easy – Australia recently modified its tax policy to accommodate wealthy miners. Many countries recently bailed out bankers who sold dodgy products).
Channelling funds to the non-government agencies is probably better than government (not perfect of course).
I say let’s keep our money HERE. We NEED it. And why are we doing & funding these wars? After 10 years, nothing has changed. Wars don’t “win”.
My son has a bumper sticker that says “ENDLESS WAR”. The LESS has a red line through it with THIS above so that it reads END THIS WAR instead of ENDLESS WAR.
Jean, I am certainly with you on that one. It seems to be a universal principle that government-to-government aid fuels corruption when it comes as cash. On a more general level, I am suspicious of charity being performed as a bulk, industrial operation.
Who makes up these tables: “Most corrupt country”? Not those who believe that politics (anywhere), and inherent flow of money, are transparent. It’s naive beyond belief. Some countries (no names mentioned) are just better than others hiding their ulterior motives.
I’ll stop myself here since politics best avoided in polite company.
U
Ursula, the table comes from Transparency International which uses a somewhat subjective procedure based on interviews with businessmen. According to their research, you are a hair more honest than I am: 7.7 vs. 7.5.
I am also curious to have you elaborate on which one of us is the “polite company”, but probably should leave that alone. 😉
Evan,
“And this certainly isn’t easy….” Amen to that. Having a free press does help some, I think. But not enough!
bikehikebabe,
We’re in Afghanistan because of 9/11. We were trying to stop Al-Qaeda and apparently were becoming successful until we got distracted by Iraq.
My guess is the whole situation will change in a few years, since they’ve just discovered that Afghanistan is sitting on top of $1 trillion of resources. It’s hard to imagine that China won’t somehow get involved.
Looney,
Unfortunately even giving food and other items doesn’t always help. They often just get grabbed and sold. If there’s not a stable government that cares about its people it’s hard.
Ursula,
Maybe politics is best avoided in polite society, but laughing at politicians often is not. 🙂
Looney,
Hurray for Cathy and New Zealand! Thanks for the link.
Welcome to the real world CM. It is in everybody’s interest that such moneys be sent to countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. You know by now, what I mean by that “everybody”. I have written enough about these matters and do not wish to add fuel to the fire.
Rummuser,
“Welcome to the real world”? You missed the humor of the cartoon and the definition of foreign aid. Yes, we all know about the corruption involved in foreign aid. The new thing was the irate congresswoman. I take it you don’t think anything will come of the investigation.
PS I’m curious to see if Pakistan negotiates to get India kicked out of Afghanistan, which it so desperately wants to happen. To you think it might succeed?
Right now, I’m pretty skeptical about anything political.
(on the road in America’s heartland, heading towards Wyoming!)
Mike,
The nice thing about being skeptical is you have no expectations, so you can’t be disappointed. Only pleasantly surprised if things turn out well. 🙂
PS Have a great trip. Where in Wyoming?
Pretty much all over. We’ll be entering the state about the 10th and won’t be heading out of it until about the 14th….. of August. Our plans are to roughly follow the Oregon/California trail route, coming in to the state in the southeast, stopping at old Ft. Laramie, Independence Rock, etc. Our plans are to camp a week or more in Yellowstone and several days in and around the Tetons. We may pop over into Idaho a bit, too.
It is anybody’s guess, whether Pakistan succeeds in kicking India out of Afghanistan. My own hope is that we get out of there. Sooner the better. If the US and other Western countries and India get out of there, some very interesting things will happen. China and Iran will get in, Saudi Arabia will get in, Pakistan will play all against each other, and all of us can sit on the sidelines and watch the fun and see these guys killing each other off. The armament industry, the opium drug lords and all the other fishermen in troubled waters will benefit and there is every possibility that they will implode!
Yea! I love to see the bad guys killing each other off. Don’t tell me about the innocent people getting killed too, & ruin it for me.
That’s the risk of giving aid to an unstable government.
Aid funds may be better placed on international organizations such as the International Red Cross, whose volunteers were involved directly in the field.
tikno,
I agree. Doctors Without Borders is another good one.