Winning the War, Losing the Peace
So echoing my earlier piece, this article questions why Bush the Second’s new budget features no real increase in aid for developing countries and in fact reductions for most of them.
With noble flourish just days before the budget’s release last month, Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged, “We have to go after poverty, we have to go after despair, we have to go after hopelessness. We have to make sure that, as we fight terrorism using military means and legal means and law enforcement and intelligence means and going after the financial infrastructure of terrorist organizations, we also have to put hope back in the hearts of people.” He added, “We have to show people who might move in the direction of terrorism that there is a better way.”
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Funds for international peacekeeping will drop by $118 million, or 14 percent. Aid to strengthen new democracies, including Russia, will be cut by $126 million, or 20 percent. Economic support to sub-Saharan Africa — for the promotion of democracy, institution building, community development and education — will be cut by almost a quarter, from $100 million to $77 million next year. Such support for Latin America will be cut by almost half, from $166.5 million to $96 million.