Too Much Assistance

The latest international food and rescue crisis, this one in Pakistan, has me thinking about the whole concept of emergency aid to nations, particularly renegade or corrupt ones like Pakistan. The world aid to Pakistan following the floods there is intended to be used to provide food, clean drinking water and to deal with the burgeoning health crisis there after the floods (caused by the, uncaring, incompetnet and corrupt government in Pakistan). No doubt much of it will be stolen by thugs in and outside of Pakistan, so that much of the aid never reaches the targeted population. Much of the feed the children and rescue aid the west sends to nations like Pakistan amounts to nothing more than a process by which the poor in rich countries subsidize the rich in poor countries throgh more taxation on the givers to pay for it.

Food aid donations have fallen sharply since the economic crisis of 2008 while the number of people facing acute need in emergencies of different kinds has increased. Or at least they scream louder to the same western natons to give, give, give. No, I am not insensitive, but I do think concessions should be made by those nations continually recievign financial aid when the world's haves give to those who face a crisis or a general inability to in take care of themselves. In the U.S alone, trillions of tax dollars have been spent on foreign aid, and there is now greater poverty and corruption in Third World countries than when aid was begun.

A former African head of the World Bank wrote a book in which criticized the western welfare as that of "systemic foreign assistance that undermines public accountability, fosters corruption, leads to less savings, increases poverty, throttles the private sector of the economy, and promotes what amounts to a culture of dependency among those who are supposed to be its beneficiaries".

This is not to say the wealthy countries (of course some super rich nations in the mid East and Asia, like Saudi Arabia, are often the last or are absent when comes time to giving....particularly when it involves their "Muslim brothers", whom they seem to wholly ignore in times of need) should turn their back in an emergency, but rather should cut off the flow of the non emergency funding that is practically an avalanche and which creates the situation in which those nations can't cope with disaster themselves when it arises.

Yet despite the failure of long-term aid to reduce poverty or promote economic equity worldwide, is falsely promoted in the west as a cure of terrorism, which allegedly is produced by poverty and oppression. "Donate to the poor", is the pitch and we can end terrorism and promote competency in governments everywhere. We are supposed to believe that cultural and social movements are caused simply by changes in economic and other material conditions. That if we give our money a magical transformation of the have nots will begin. It has not and it won't in the future without stringent conditions attached to the gifts.

I say we should attach strings to every dollar given. Demand that the aid be distributed by the givers, not the corrupt governments that receive it. Enact real measurable progress standards as a condition to getting any more aid, as measured by independent monitors. I am personally tired of paying for entitlements to the undeserving in my own country. Now international entitlements have risen to demands for more, more, more, as the receivers of the aid do less, less less for themselves, I've lost any enthusiasm to be financier for the undeserving and have gained enthusiasm for nations being more responsible before begging at the altar.