Ah. I disagree and agree.
Agree = The program, since 1990, has always been about global PR in the post-Cold War world. But notice that even after 9/11 nobody cared. It's because terrorist organizations plan and they do not plan with the hopes of winning a lottery. This was just some moron that happened to have won eight years ago. However, the program certainly doesn't need to exist. But it also certainly makes those in the world who declare everybody hates us as foolish. There's a lot of people who dream of winning, coming to America, and leaving the **** world behind.
Disagree = Three things have made our country the richest and most powerful nation in history- our rights, capitalism, and immigration. I don't really care to use the word diversity because it tends to skew the point. Diversity is a black guy and an white guy getting hired. Big whoop.
But immigration has been one of the life bloods of America's strength. It is something to be proud of. I don't think many people realize that the United States was the world's first and is really still the only universal nation. This is because we are a nation of immigrants. The irony is that we have also spent centuries looking down upon immigrants, especially during the waves. Immigration is what pushes American prosperity forward. We can see quite clearly the populations around the world that have monopolies on such things like religion, culture, and so on. These civilizations stagnate to worse or less degrees from each other. Immigration introduces new and fresh ideas into a civilization. And given the journey one must make to bring a family across the ocean to the "new land," we generally receive the most intelligent, educated, hard working, and open minded. Why would anybody turn that away? Because some idiot did something? We have plenty more idiots who were born and raised here.
Immigration is entirely beneficial in many ways. It doesn't matter where the U.S. goes to war. Linguists from those countries are already here to help. When it comes to trying to understand cultures that are alien to our own (dictatorships, theology, communism, etc.), our population is full of people who fled such environments and offer insights. When America went to war during World War II, it brought the world's population to bear. And when it comes to understanding the Middle East, do you think the white guy in Idaho is supplying the insight? Our nation of full of experts who immigrated from these countries. They are not only shop keepers or cab drivers, but professors and intel analysts. Americans don't have to go to China, Japan, France, Morocco, or India to eat their cuisines. It's down the street. Just this intermingling of culture expands our minds beyond our safe zones. When it comes to invention, the United States isn't restricted to getting ideas from only within the local culture. Immigration frees the society from conventional and traditional concrete bases, which allows it to grow. Fresh ideas and ingenuity come from the outside and get applied and expands our own thinking. Where does China, Japan, or Russia go for fresh ideas? Unless it's through spy programs or the Internet, they normally don't. They tap into the same old local culture over and over and look towards people that look exactly like them and have the same life experiences. They really do not benefit from immigration. And this is one of the reasons the United States races forward while most trail behind.