Should we stop providing humanitarian aid to Africa?

[onodera]

Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and you'll feed him for a lifetime.

Why do we continue giving fish to Africans? A lot of countries there simply cannot support their own populations without humanitarian aid. They do not curb their preindustrial birth rate, but we keep their death rate down by providing food and medicine. This leads to ballooning populations of people who have nothing to do: there simply aren't enough jobs. Such people either go to war or make more kids. This leads to the UN providing even more humanitarian aid.
We should cut off the aid and let the African population stabilize at a sustainable number. Meanwhile we can start teaching them to fish. UN should occupy Zimbabwe, send Mugabe to the Hague to be tried for something, and turn the country into an efficient agricultural producer it used to be. Local tribalism (oh, how I hate tribalism) should be brutally suppressed. Any country that asks for aid should submit itself for such treatment instead. Giving milk and penicillin to people living in dung huts or corrugated iron shanties is stupid.

[Theben]

If we stopped stealing the resources of the continent, that might actually be a good idea.

And we are "teaching them to fish," even while we slit their collective throats.

[SlowwHand]

President Omar al-Bashir committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur region

[Blaupanzer]

The so-called "continual" famine in Africa is entirely based on distribution issues. Enough food (or in some years nearly so) is grown to feed everyone at better than subsistence level. But political issues accompanied by a massive presence of armed, out-of-control mercenaries/bandits prevents effective distribution of this food. A lot of potential food growth is disrupted by rape, pillage, burning, or driving off the farmers by these same folks.

With all that in mind, the best way to get all the weepy liberals and their news media to focus on Africa is to cut off aid and watch all the little children die as onodera's population stabilization policy takes effect. The UN is very short on warlords and very long on weepy liberals.

[Q Classic]

Actually, I'm pretty sure plenty of them know how to fish.

[Patroklos]

Eat the African babies

[Blaupanzer]

[q]we keep their death rate down by providing food and medicine. This leads to ballooning populations of people who have nothing to do: there simply aren't enough jobs. Such people either go to war or make more kids. We should cut off the aid and let the African population stabilize at a sustainable number.

Don't know much about how people live in developing countries, do you, onodera? At an agrarian pace, everyone is busy all the time. However, little comes of their efforts for a series of reasons based in politics. The soldiers in these societies are quite well fed and more than a little dangerous to their own citizens. The population balloons because the people live agricultural lives in which children are an asset to tend animals or work farms. As I noted earlier, the current population is for the most part sustainable. The totals along the edge of the Sahara are a little high as more and more land for grazing turns to desert. This is no reason to cut off the whole continent.

[Kidlicious]

Giva a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and you'll feed him for a lifetime.

Why do we continue giving fish to Africans? A lot of countries there simply cannot support their own populations without humanitarian aid. They do not curb their preindustrial birth rate, but we keep their death rate down by providing food and medicine. This leads to ballooning populations of people who have nothing to do: there simply aren't enough jobs. Such people either go to war or make more kids. This leads to the UN providing even more humanitarian aid.
We should cut off the aid and let the African population stabilize at a sustainable number. Meanwhile we can start teaching them to fish. UN should occupy Zimbabwe, send Mugabe to the Hague to be tried for something, and turn the country into an efficient agricultural producer it used to be. Local tribalism (oh, how I hate tribalism) should be brutally suppressed. Any country that asks for aid should submit itself for such treatment instead. Giving milk and penicillin to people living in dung huts or corrugated iron shanties is stupid.

Creepy

[BeBMan]

They could plop down some solar power plants in the desert and make money from it. Of course, they don't have the money to invest in it, and as long as there are other resources to exploit nobody will jump in to help. Rather make it worse by supporting some corrupt guys or gang leaders as long the keep the resource flow undisrupted.

[David Floyd]

I agree with the OP, of course. With our economy struggling as it is, why should we give handouts to Africa? Not that I think we ever should, unless it happens to be in our own interest.

However, if we ARE going to give aid - and this should apply to everyone - it needs to be with VERY stringent conditions attached to it. Off the top of my head, countries receiving aid from the US must agree:

-To suppress religious extremism (IE, radical Islam/Christianity movements, or anything else)
-To allow money to be used to teach contraception and STD prevention
-To allow for family planning
-To accept that HIV causes AIDs
-To guarantee the safety of US citizens within their borders
-To guarantee equal rights for all citizens (men, women, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals)
-To disavow terrorism and terrorist states, and to stop singling out Israel
-To immediately turn over any terrorists or terrorist suspects to the United States, or to the nation in which they committed terrorist acts
-To guarantee the property of US citizens and corporations against the threat of nationalization

That's just for starters. Basically, if you want US aid, you have to stop being idiotic in your social policy, join the modern world, and become our *****. If you don't like it, then you can find aid elsewhere, or starve to death, I don't really care which.

Obviously, this policy might have to be tempered from time to time, to prevent America's strategic enemies from gaining influence. If we loosen this policy, though, we must do it in such a way that still ends up with the aid receiving country being our *****.

[Dinner]

I'd love to slash virtually all foreign aid not because it amounts to so much but because when we're facing a $1.5 trillion budget hole it's a good symbolic move. I'd also love to close most of America's over seas military bases and cancel worthless weapons systems like the F-22. There is no USSR any more so why are we still spending hundreds of billions on weapon systems designed in the early 80's to fight the USSR? It's a waste of money. There is no reason for the US to spend more on the military then the next 40 countries combined especially when most of those 40 countries are allies. Slash the military budget in half. Axe it, axe it, and then axe it again because it's all just worthless pork which needs to go.

[SlowwHand]

I agree on the foreign aid position, but I heartlily disagree with the military assessments.

[David Floyd]

The F-22 is NOT a "worthless" weapon. It's a next generation air superiority aircraft that will SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the casualties of US military personnel, regardless of the enemy we are fighting. That's like saying we should also scrap Land Warrior, the CVN(X) program (or whatever it's being called), the Joint Strike Fighter program, and the Littoral Surface Combatant Ship/stealth destroyer program, because they are expensive and are also "too" dominant.

I'm sorry, but dominance is what we want. So what if the overkill is 10x more than is necessary to win? Lower US casualties = Good Thing.

The budget hole we are facing is NOT due primarily to military procurement. The cluster**** war in Iraq is partly to blame, and the endless spending on social programs is even more to blame.

[EPW]

The F-22 is NOT a "worthless" weapon. It's a next generation air superiority aircraft that will SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the casualties of US military personnel, regardless of the enemy we are fighting. That's like saying we should also scrap Land Warrior, the CVN(X) program (or whatever it's being called), the Joint Strike Fighter program, and the Littoral Surface Combatant Ship/stealth destroyer program, because they are expensive and are also "too" dominant.

I'm sorry, but dominance is what we want. So what if the overkill is 10x more than is necessary to win? Lower US casualties = Good Thing.

The budget hole we are facing is NOT due primarily to military procurement. The cluster**** war in Iraq is partly to blame, and the endless spending on social programs is even more to blame.

[Whoha]

when we give aid we harm the local farmers, another thing to be considered in this.

the Joint Strike Fighter program