http://www.iht.com/articles/60708.htm
Do the SDMB agree?
I’m somewhat pessimistic, but I sure hope so.
I hope he drinks from a well in sengal and dies. He represents the worst of capitalism, every time he speaks he remind me of Gordon Gekko.
That’s nice.:rolleyes:
[hijack]Is it just me, or was that picture of him and Bono standing together in dashikis the funniest thing ever published in a newspaper?[/hijack]
The irony of Bono, a multi-millionaire who isn’t even a United States citizen, whining about whether the United States spends enough on foreign aid, is delicious. Hey, Bono, build a freakin’ well yourself, you know?
In any case, my understanding of O’Neill’s comments on most of this trip, when not filtered through The Krugman Zone (Our motto: It’s Bush’s Fault!) is that O’Neill was more concerned whether existing aid was being spent efficiently or whether it could be reallocated to meet some of these needs.
pld: *The irony of Bono, a multi-millionaire who isn’t even a United States citizen, whining about whether the United States spends enough on foreign aid, is delicious. Hey, Bono, build a freakin’ well yourself, you know? *
To be fair, he does spend a much higher percentage of his money on foreign aid donations than the US does. (Hell, so do I, for that matter—it’s a pretty small number.) And I don’t understand why you should consider it inappropriate for him to “whine” about US aid levels—are non-citizens barred from criticizing a country’s policies?
I agree that the article in the OP appears to overstate the change in O’Neill’s views; as far as I can judge from his actual speeches during the Africa tour, it’s pretty much business as usual.
One might note that American citizens have had a rather disproportionate amount of involvement in Irish politics in the past 150-odd years.
—O’Neill was more concerned whether existing aid was being spent efficiently or whether it could be reallocated to meet some of these needs.—
If the aid wasn’t spent effectively, doesn’t that raise the question of WHY it wasn’t? Is mere incompetance a good answer? Not, at least, according to most political scientists I’ve read.
What they say is this: the reality is that the vast majority of our foriegn aid in places like Africa is primarily for the purpose of buying off foriegn leaders by funneling money through organizations and projects that they control, or simply buying them U.S. products (which is basically a backhanded subsidy for various U.S. corps) If it was ineffective, that’s because effectiveness was never the primary goal: advancing U.S. interests was. This isn’t necessarily a wrong thing: it is taxpayer money after all. But it’s sort of silly to pretend that this isn’t a major major factor in how aid gets allocated.
If O’Neill thinks that this can be changed, more power to him. But more likely his job is simply going to be defending the status quo: he’ll oversee the authorization of grants programs which are really just more of the same. We’ll see, wont we?
O’Neill may be disingenious in assuming that our aid to sub-Saharan African countries has had the prime purpose of aiding that continent’s poor. And sometimes the man’s willingness to spout ignorance as if it’s obvious truth astounds me, like the whole business over drilling the wells. (I think by now he’s figured out that drilling the wells is only the start - you need to train people to keep them working, and provide spare parts, etc; he was initially proposing that we just drill wells, install pumps, declare victory and leave.)
But like it or not, he does have a point. The Cold War is distant history; we no longer have to aid these countries to keep their leaders in the “anti-communist” column on the global ledger. So it’s time to direct our aid to this part of the world in a manner that actually accomplishes something for the people of the countries we give it to.
If he’s willing to commit the U.S. to giving the money to make potable water available everywhere south of the Sahara, then it’s reasonable for him to demand that the money ought to go to exactly that, and not be siphoned off by Third World strongmen with delusions of grandeur.
I may be going out on a limb here, but O’Neill seems sincerely motivated on this issue. I’m for giving him a little time to figure out what the costs really are, and a little more time to convince our “compassionate conservative” President to pony up the necessary funds. (Yeah, I know that’s technically up to Congress, but practically speaking, this will happen if Bush asks them for the money.)
I could O’Neill O’Neill, and say this can’t possibly be any more complicated than a $1.3 trillion tax cut, so we should see a program in three months. But let’s face it - we’re lucky that these guys have sub-Saharan Africa on the stove at all; it’ll never be a front-burner issue with them. So let’s give 'em a year, maybe a little more. But if nothing’s happening on this one by the end of 2003, then this was just another conservative ‘we care’ photo-op with no money where the mouth is.
—But like it or not, he does have a point. The Cold War is distant history; we no longer have to aid these countries to keep their leaders in the “anti-communist” column on the global ledger.—
But that’s the problem: half the reason these countries are in such bad shape to begin with is because of us serving our short-term interests. We helped quash just about every major movement for greater democracy and against corruption, and we defended brutal dictators simply so that we could have Cold War cronies. Most of our aid went to filling the country with landmines, tanks, guns, and rockets.
In the sense of pure self-interest, with no concern for history, and no sense of responsibility for our own actions, sure, screw em now that they are no longer of use. But if we dare lay claim to any sort of MORAL righteousness, then that would ismply be unacceptable. I’m not a demanding guy: if people want to be amoral, okay, I can’t stop them. But I DO demand that if they wish to fill their public life with platitudes, if they wish to tell their children that they are good and decent men: that they either live up to their rhetoric, or shut the hell up and get back to fallating themselves.
I’m certainly not going to defend our propping up of Jeane Kirkpatrick’s ‘authoritarian’ Third World governments over the decades that the USA and USSR treated Africa like a gameboard. (I remember when Ethiopia was our pawn and Somalia theirs, and I remember when it was the other way around too.)
Dammit, I hate to defend O’Neill; I really don’t like the guy. But I don’t think that’s where he’s coming from.
I’m sure he doesn’t feel any responsibility for our country’s past sins in the Third World; he’s been a corporate head honcho, not a geopolitical type. But to the extent that he’s preaching any sort of moral self-righteousness, it’s not aimed at the people of Africa, or even at their most kleptocratic governments. (Well, somewhat at them.) But mostly, it’s aimed at those who want to throw money at Africa, without any guarantees that the money will reach and help the people it’s intended for.
In my mind, that’s a reasonable demand, whether or not he can afford self-righteousness on that point.
Amen to that. And if his words don’t turn into meaningful action in the next 12-18 months, we damned sure ought to call him on it. And if he says, “I tried, but the President said the money wasn’t there,” then if he hasn’t asked the President why freeing the children of multimillionaires from the effects of the estate tax was more important than water for poor villages in Africa, then we ought to give it to him good and hard.