On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 08:54:37AM -0500, Curt Howland wrote: > > The US doesn't protect anyone. If the US were actually interested in > defense, rather than empire, the military bases overseas would be > closed, rather than manned in 170 countries, of which, what, 2 > are "at war" with the US? > Ummm, many of the overseas military bases are in place at the *invitation* of the host governments. I'd hardly call that empire. Now, those bases were built under the shadow of the Cold War Soviet threat. However, many of the bases have closed or will be closing soon. If anything, because the military services are too small to maintain lots of overseas bases. > The "rendering massive aid" is also misconstrued. It has nothing to do > with the government of the US, it has to do with the last dregs of > what was a vigorous economy. > > While the US government redirects some of its blood-money taxes > to "aid" in quantities of "$millions", the individual citizens of the > US donate "$Billions" to various charitable efforts around the world. > I challenge you to provide a statistic. Now, don't get me wrong, I think it would be great if the US governmnet would get out of the charity business and leave it to private citizens' generosity. However, I am also a realist. > By simple scale, the US government is ineffectual in its > supposedly "positive" efforts. The destruction and death is many, > many times greater by government action than its paltry "aid", and > that "aid" always is paid not to individuals or voluntary > organizations, that "aid" is given to whatever government proports to > be the lawful one in that geographic area. So the "aid" actually > lines the pockets of petty dictators, rather than > feeding/housing/nursing anyone. > I guess it is a matter of perspective. There is really only so much that can be done before people (both in the US and abroad) start complaining that what should be a humanitarian mission is becoming too belligerent. Just look at the fiasco in Mogadishu. Good intentions gone wrong. > If you want to have a positive effect, the first thing to do is get > government out of the way. Might does not make right. > On this we agree. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com
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