The Question of Foreign Aid

Riecently, a new website has peaked my interest - that of www.kontroville.com This site seems to be the work of some indiviuals who attend Cedarville University (a place I used to call home). First off I am somewhat suprised at the language that seems to be used at the site's opening statement: "At kontroVille.com, we aren't radicals. We aren't fundamentalists, wingnuts, or moonbats". I see this as an attempt at inflamatory language that describes those that attend Cedarville that don't ascribe to the auspice of kontroville. In my estimation inflamatory language isn't going to win new converts. Also, I see nothing on the site as of yet that identifies those that hold such an opnion, do they intend to reveal their identities, or stay in the shadows?

On this site there was a article that discusses Foreign Aid and how the US isn't living up to what the UN thinks it should - http://home.wideopenwest.com/~kville/n.pdf (apparently the US made a deal with the laudable world government body - the UN - and isn't keeping it). I don't see this as a big deal really, because even if we aren't giving 0.7 of our GDP, we give more in actual dollars than anyone else (and the article admits such) and yet European countries (as named in the article) give that 0.7 GDP amount and are praised, even if it's lower in actual dollars than what the US gives. IMHO percents don't matter, hard dollars do.

Another question here that comes up is that of giving money away when it comes to foreign aid. It seems that the USA is great at throwing money around for a good cause, but does it do anything, can it fufill it's intended purpose when there seems to be a lack of accountability? A riecent article in the WSJ seems to have somewhat of a solution to such a delima - marketing. The idea goes something like this: A country's government (i.e. the USA) doles out an X amount of foreign aid to a country that is in need of it, and meets the indicators set forth to riecieve such (if there are any - which there should be). Along side the govt. comes the private sector with their effective marketing techniques to help guide the recipients in how they should spend that aid on materials they need to survive (provided that the aid gets to them - an end that I think the marketing would help achieve as a accountability mechanism because if the marketing is going on and no one is buying, someone is bound to ask "well did the aid get to the people?"). So the aid is spent on materials that are marketed to the people as essentials and these essentials are then turned around and sold to others within that country - in hopes of creating microenterprise and a self sustaining system - so that eventually the said country recieving aid no longer needs it and has a thriving capitalistic system within its borders. This also assures that the money is used correctly to help those in need and even benifits the country giving the aid by buying products from said giving country's private sector and strengthing their economy.

Great idea, on paper - it probably needs aditional accountability. Communism was great too, on paper, but neither of these ideas took into account the depraved human condition...and to quote one who is wise and learned in the ways of the Jedi..."that is why you fail"