Since it's a little slow, we'll just skip over Ford, Nixon, Johnson and Kennedy to go right to this highlight from the Eisenhower Administration:

From a 1992 column by Michael Kinsley about George H.W. Bush.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Norm Coleman to talk about this.
 

Come on, Hank. You're usually muich better at obfuscating the fact that you were talking shit. "I can't support my claims because the Clintons will kill me?"

Try to ease up on the drinking Sterno, will you?

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Accept, for the sake of argument, that America isn't stingy with foreign aid.* If we took the resources that we have spent on Iraq, and had spent the same money and effort on other forms of foreign aid, wouldn't we and the world surely be better off today?


* I saw the UN official's comments on CNN, and it is clear beyond dispute that he was talking about industrialized countries in general, and not specifically the U.S. So the reaction by American conservatives makes clear that they either had no idea what he said, or have something they feel defensive about.

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I'm not sure that a proper use of US tax payor money is to make the world better off. I think the proper use is to make the US tax payor better off. Now, you may say that these are not mutually exclusive, but I think we need an agreement on this basic premise first, no?

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Does that mean that we're going to stop pretending that what motivated the invasion of Iraq was the desire to stop Hussein from brutalizing his own people? You and bilmore get on the same page, and then we'll talk.

In point of fact, I think we'd be better off, but I went back and edited the post specifically to avoid the rejoinder from bilmore that Hussein was a bad man and that the invasion was justified if only to save Iraqis from him.

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Perhaps, instead, they were simply very misguided.

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That's a fair point. However, although I believe we are morally obligated to stop genocide where we can, that was not the primary basis for my support for the war.

Why do you think this?

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There are real, obvious limits to what you can do with military power, and we are exploring them in Iraq. We've spent a fantasic amount of money there, partly because the way we blow things up is expensive. If we had devoted those same resources to assisting the economic, social and political development of certain countries, and had made it the same sort of national priority, I think we would be closer to winning the war on terrorism. Our standing in the region and in the world would be much higher, reducing the support for those fighting us, and we would have done a better job of creating a better alternative to the kinds of regimes that most Arabs live under.

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We send Egypt 2 billion dollars a year, and they hate us. But you keep your rosy worldview.

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Not necessarily; I'd wager most of it would be wasted. Aid doesn't do much good unless it is directed to fairly specific types of programs (quite a lot of which are very low-tech and not capital intensive, such as well digging and vaccinations*), and directed only to countries with stable and fairly non-corrupt local governments. That, unfortunately, reduces the universe of aid projects that can effectively absorb and make use of additional funds, and very greatly reduces the number of countries to which it can be effectively directed. Within those parameters, though, more money would very probably make a very good difference in the QOL of a large number of people.

* I am not considering spending on projects that do not come out of traditional "aid" budgets, and that are not actually conducted in aid-recipient countries, but that nevertheless have huge beneficial effects in aid-recipient countries. Specifically, I'm thinking of vaccine and GM crop research.
concur with your characterization of his comments, and concur that the admin's response (not the "conservative" response) was defensive, but do not concur that therefore they felt they had something to be defensive about. Hearing a European UN diplomat start complaining of "stinginess" just after the US had announced its initial aid package, it is not unreasonable (or much of a stretch) to assume that there was a backhanded slap at the US in particular intended, particularly given the miscellaneous nastiness flying about over the last few years. Many people, in G and out and of all political flavors, are quite aware that the US is held to a different, and significantly higher, standard of behavior, including w/r/t generosity, compared to other rich or democratic countries. Frankly, even though I think it is appropriate to hold the US to a higher standard, believing as I do that the US is in fact superior to just about any other country in its moral and political underpinnings, the US spends one hell of a lot of time being badmouthed by people who are simultaneously holding out their hands for our money, and I fully understand getting touchy about it.

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Which would pay for what, a couple days of our Iraq escapade? And that money is being spent to shore up the government, not to change it. What if you spent real (in Iraq terms) money there, but told the Egyptians that they wouldn't get it unless they cleaned up their government, etc.?

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Agree with much of your assessment of traditional foreign aid, but surely minds smart enough to reject our traditional foreign policy towards Iraq in favor of a bold departure could do the same with regard to foreign aid as well as the military. Put Donald Rumsfeld in charge.

I felt the same way from the initial reporting until I saw what he actually said, which -- as a simple matter of English grammar -- really couldn't have been interpreted as singling out the United States. He said that "we" are too stingy. And certainly you don't have watch CNN for very long these days to feel some sympathy there (even if, for the moment, there's not much way to get aid to the worse hit because communications and logistics are so completely destroyed).

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The Egyptian press would say we're trying to annex Egypt as an Israel puppet, and a new al queda offshoot would spring up in Cairo.

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S'ok. They'd just go to Fallujah anyway, right?

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I hate to disagree with you Ty, but this stikes me as awefully naive.

Not that I disagree that the billions and billions of dollars spent on Iraq in the last two years couldn't have been put to better use in protecting our country and otherwise generally improving the welfare of the world. By putting another 50,000 people on the search for OBL, for example. But I don't think that any country in the world is going to positively respond to the message: we'll give you some money if you become less corrupt. What's in it for the people who are corrupt/in power?