Is the U.S. entitled to assist less developed countries? (1 Viewer)

[The Sheep]

What moral, economic, and political responsibilities does the United States/and other developed countries have towards the rest of the world? In other words, should we assist Afirca in its war against AIDs? Should we help the underdeveloped world to become developed countries? Yes or no and then why. You please explain yourself.

This is a thread to express your opinions. Not to get flamed by ignorant dumbasses who dont want to accept other people's opinions because their opions conflict with their own.

'Nuff said.

 

[128shot]

Nope.


We got our own nation to worry about. These countrys can go to hell for all I care, its not our job to play international agency.


While we're at it, drop the damn UN too.

 

[Kandahar]

I think that American foreign aid should mainly be geared toward American interests; if our aid bribes foreign governments to do what we want for our own security, great. If our aid slows the spread of HIV in Africa (and therefore in America), great.

However, giving countries aid strictly for "humanitarian purposes" with no strings attached rarely works. If the aid money isn't conditional on the government doing certain things, there's no guarantee the money won't be mostly filtered into the pockets of the ruling class. And a government of the size of the United States is simply ill-suited to attach too many conditions to the aid, because there is simply no way for us to enforce them.

In most African countries, we could eliminate all foreign aid and the average person wouldn't notice any difference at all.

 

[TimmyBoy]

What moral, economic, and political responsibilities does the United States/and other developed countries have towards the rest of the world? In other words, should we assist Afirca in its war against AIDs? Should we help the underdeveloped world to become developed countries? Yes or no and then why. You please explain yourself.

This is a thread to express your opinions. Not to get flamed by ignorant dumbasses who dont want to accept other people's opinions because their opions conflict with their own.

'Nuff said.

We do have some responsibility towards the rest of the world. If we ignore the problems of the rest of the world, their problems will become ours.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by 128shot
Nope.


We got our own nation to worry about. These countrys can go to hell for all I care, its not our job to play international agency.


While we're at it, drop the damn UN too.

This post is a perfect example that proves we are not in Iraq to help Iraqis. Because we don't care about them. We don't care about anybody.

This is the same attitude that was prevalent in Weimar, Germany in the '30's. When faced with obvious atrocities being done in our name, we just look the other way and say, "Not us. We come from the moral high-ground". The Germans didn't start caring until Eisenhower forced them to bury the their dead. I hope we start caring before someone does the same to us.

 

[The Sheep]

Now that my board has gotten a few meager posts, I'll finally add my own opinion. Oh and is there an age restriction thing on this site where it doesn't allow anybody over a certain age online? Just wondering, said I was 37 even though I'm 14 xD

Anywho, in my opinion, the U.S. shouldn't even bother to send money to underdeveloped nations because of 3 reasons:

-American donations should go to organizations that benefit America, not some poor periphery country that only serves as a slab of rocks and dirt

-The poor cycle. Give em food, water and shelter, but are you giving them an education? No. You need to give them education to actually give them some hope to a future, not food that will barley last you a couple of hours, maybe a day.

-And finally, Americans are critisized for doing helpful ****, and everybody else just tells us that we need to do more. If they tell us we suck, then we'll just stop and let half of the world's economy just die.

meh number 3 is a weak ass argument, dont know how to phrase it. Spare me of criticism, been critisized my whole life. Not exactly willing to take much more.

 

[128shot]

This post is a perfect example that proves we are not in Iraq to help Iraqis. Because we don't care about them. We don't care about anybody.

This is the same attitude that was prevalent in Weimar, Germany in the '30's. When faced with obvious atrocities being done in our name, we just look the other way and say, "Not us. We come from the moral high-ground". The Germans didn't start caring until Eisenhower forced them to bury the their dead. I hope we start caring before someone does the same to us.

I certainly did come off that way didn't I?


but weither you believe it or not, Hitler would have hurt us indirectly if not directly, and surely we should have known that.


So WWII acted in everyone interests, including our own.


Iraq is questionable, and not a certain extent, I'm non-serious about that, sometimes we should intervene, but I'm sick of being looked at as the worlds international police. Why don't they go to Europe to help sometime?

 

[Resident_Bitch]

I think alot of the "assistance" goes back many years to the whole concept of you scratch my back I'll scratch yours. although most of the time we (as in the public) don't see what we get in return.

 

[TimmyBoy]

This post is a perfect example that proves we are not in Iraq to help Iraqis. Because we don't care about them. We don't care about anybody.

This is the same attitude that was prevalent in Weimar, Germany in the '30's. When faced with obvious atrocities being done in our name, we just look the other way and say, "Not us. We come from the moral high-ground". The Germans didn't start caring until Eisenhower forced them to bury the their dead. I hope we start caring before someone does the same to us.

Very well said Billy. We do have a role to play in the world and we must be actively involved in the world. If we ignore the world's problems then eventually those problems will become worse and eventually we will have to deal with them whether we want to or not. Everything that happens in the world affects everybody. The problem is that we get involved in the wrong places for the wrong reasons and then we don't get involved in other places when we need to get involved for good reason. Rwanda and Bosnia are prime examples of the US needing to be actively involved to prevent a genocide. Yet, we did not get involved at all and in Bosnia I can safely say we accommodated, rewarded genocide rather than worked to prevent it. In Iraq, my perception is that we are involved for oil and not really for the best interests of the Iraqi people or the rest of the world. I mean, just look at the Bush Adminstration, the whole cabinet comes from oil comanies. We can at least prove that their is a conflict of interest with a cabinet that all came from the oil industry and the big bucks the oil industry gave to get Bush elected. All the evidence points to oil interests as being the reason for us being in Iraq. The Bush Adminstration isn't going to come out and say that because he knows it would generate an outrage, so he can't come out and say the truth.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by Timmyboy:
Very well said Billy. We do have a role to play in the world and we must be actively involved in the world. If we ignore the world's problems then eventually those problems will become worse and eventually we will have to deal with them whether we want to or not. Everything that happens in the world affects everybody. The problem is that we get involved in the wrong places for the wrong reasons and then we don't get involved in other places when we need to get involved for good reason. Rwanda and Bosnia are prime examples of the US needing to be actively involved to prevent a genocide. Yet, we did not get involved at all and in Bosnia I can safely say we accommodated, rewarded genocide rather than worked to prevent it. In Iraq, my perception is that we are involved for oil and not really for the best interests of the Iraqi people or the rest of the world. I mean, just look at the Bush Adminstration, the whole cabinet comes from oil comanies. We can at least prove that their is a conflict of interest with a cabinet that all came from the oil industry and the big bucks the oil industry gave to get Bush elected. All the evidence points to oil interests as being the reason for us being in Iraq. The Bush Adminstration isn't going to come out and say that because he knows it would generate an outrage, so he can't come out and say the truth.

We've been dummed down so much, I'm not sure outrage is possible. I do know one thing about Americans, once we get motivated on a particular issue, we do something about it. That's been our history. Part of our heritage. Every time our nation has had a common goal, problems got solved.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally Posted by 128shot:
certainly did come off that way didn't I?

but weither you believe it or not, Hitler would have hurt us indirectly if not directly, and surely we should have known that.

So WWII acted in everyone interests, including our own.

WWII was a just war. Europe was doomed unless we got into it. We came together as a country, made a lot of sacrifices, and did the world a big-ass favor. We earned the respect of the world because of what we did as a nation after we were attacked.

If Iraq had attacked us, I would not be against our invasion now. But they didn't. My father was one of those guys that said, "Don't ever start a fight, but always finish it!" We finished Hitler. I'm afraid someone is going to finish us if we don't do something about this insanity during the 2006 elections.

 

[128shot]

I'm just sick of being looked at as the worlds savior, the USA is not one big ass police force (though, arguabley, we do put ourselves in this position)


Like I said before, why don't they go to Europe for answers for once? We should be fixing our own problems too.

 

[iamjack]

Then its seems as I have always surmised. Paradoxically, you either have to agree with Bush Sr., who didn't start the fight but finished it, or Bush II who started the fight and finished it.

I, for one, disagreed this Bush Sr., leaving Saddam in power in order to appease leftists. It might seem the moderate thing to do, but if examined in the larger scope, no liberal democrat would ever approve Saddam's to continued reign knowing what he was. By this note, the paradox continues and disagreeing with one Bush means agreeing with another, and agreeing with one means agreeing with both. The ultimate truth is revealed: unless you actually believe in autocracy, then you must concur that eliminating Saddam from power was socially the right thing to do.

The remainder of the political argument stems from abstract factors like motivation and pretense. But I'm reassured that, in the long term, those positively affected by these event probably won't be too affected by the left wing's hurt feelings.

 

[ludahai]

The United States should help less fortunate peoples of the world. However, aid should only be given to governments that are transparent and where it can be verified that the aid is being received by those for who it is intended. Unfortunately, few recipients of U.S. aid meet that criterion. The U.S. should also provide military assistance to free nations of the world under threat from larger, non-democratic bullies.

 

[iamjack]

The United States should help less fortunate peoples of the world. However, aid should only be given to governments that are transparent and where it can be verified that the aid is being received by those for who it is intended. Unfortunately, few recipients of U.S. aid meet that criterion. The U.S. should also provide military assistance to free nations of the world under threat from larger, non-democratic bullies.

This is true, a lot of that aid is accumulated by the American left who believe the US has no right to deny welfare to less prominant countries, regardless of the political dynamic. Thus billion of dollars of aid are absorbed by despotic governments. The obvious answer would be to engender democracy first above all else. However, that would require some kind of flexing of muscle, political, military or economic which in neoliberal terms equates to western/American chauvinism. Therefore the same extreme-minded leftists who try to promote growth and reform in third world countries defeat their own efforts.

By your last line, luda, I imagine you're reffering to Taiwan. I believe in Taiwanese independance as well, but as I'm sure you're aware that's a very complex and delicate situation. Dealing with a large, authoritarian extremist country like the PRC is difficult, and I think military involvment wouldn't be in anyone's best interests. Especially when they know we're legally obligated to provide it if they incur, and the first thing they would do is start world war 3 if Taiwan so much as declared statehood.

 

[The Sheep]

Bumpage, keep posting!