Why are we sending aid to other countries?

To funnel taxpayer money to global corporations and saddle third world nations with debt that they will never be able to pay, so that we can demand they allow global corporations to extract their resources and subdue them to do the “empire’s” political bidding.

See Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

That’s not necessarily true across the board, I imagine, but by and large that’s what we’re doing.

Yes, that’s one answer, sadly. Another is that somewhere in the midst of all the materialism and greed, there is the flickering memory of the fact that we are all fellow humans.

I find it horrible to think that whilst most of the world is dying of hunger, people in America and the UK are dying of food.

What Kev said. This is the new, sophisticated form of slavery.

For both the “now you owe us” answer, and the fellow man answer.

Among probably a litany of other reasons. For example, if a series of third world countries collapsed there would probably be a lot more war, war that could potentially involve us.

No matter how bad you may think it is here, in the US, it is not even close to what it is in other places. If we have it to give, we need to because it is the right thing to do. Who knows if all of the motives are good, but I hope that some are.

Here’s a couple of videos about the author and his thesis…

1

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Kevbo has it right on.

For other, more humanitarian-style aid, it’s because it’s better to have friends in the world than enemies. If we stop the aid, it’s not just the poor countries we would alienate, it’s pretty much everyone.

If Kevbo’s answer is factual, then what is the solution, curtail all aid? Will that make starving people less indebted and that is a good thing?

I am always confounded by these problems, I think that what you say is probably partially true, but what then is the answer?

So many have overly simplistic responses, I just wonder what might actually be a good working solution. I can’t quite come up with it, although I see places to start but they would not be politically correct or politically smart (for someone who wants to be reelected).

Sometimes life is easier if I just bury my head in the sand and try to pay my own bills without worrying about the rest of the world and its motives.

because the U.S. is dirty and rotten and has done other countries wrong…...if you ask me its the least they can to show some kinda remorse. c’mon slavery….......stealing oil…..you name it. theyve done it.why not give back?

@rooeytoo, this is truly a Pandora’s Box if you take the time to investigate just this question and all the other questions that this line of thinking produces. I’ve had the curse luxury of poring over this information and the interesting thing is that you sort of end up back where you started. The answers are simple and boil down to a “be the change you seek” kind of antidote, but the difference is having really opening your eyes to what makes the world turn (so far, it seems like it comes down to a spirit/consciousness type solution). People think that voting for Obama meant “change,” which has a level of truth to it, but there are many, many other layers of lies and truths behind that. As long as we’re dumb to those realities, our ability to “solve the world’s problems” is equally impotent. For example, as long as we keep accepting this idea that our government is incompetent and if only they would apply common sense, we could fix these problems, then we fail to see that our government is being simultaneously bribed, blackmailed, and bent over a barrel (and just plain greedy and power mad). It’s just like “The Wizard of Oz” in that we don’t know what we’re up against until we pull back the curtain. At the same time, we willingly (and not so much) give over our personal power and energy to people who we believe are going to make our lives better, when the truth is we already have everything we need (a heart, a brain, courage, and uh… magic slippers). The “empire” is counting on you to bury your head in the sand and pay your bills. On time and with interest. In the meantime, they’re going to distract you with video games, movies, NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR, CNN, your evangelical megachurch, etc. That’s the game (it seems), and it’s been played since empires began. (See bread and circuses.)

To answer your question… in many cases, they wouldn’t be starving if it weren’t for corporate/imperialist interference however many years (or hundreds of years) ago. Many of these countries and peoples were managing more or less just fine as subsistence agriculture communities before “we” stepped in to civilize them. But, we found out they had oil, or diamonds, or some other natural resource and wanted to take it, so we (i.e. western civilization) instituted slavery or taxes, for example, to get these people off their land and working in whatever enterprise that required cheap labor to generate corporate profits. And, now that we’re giving them aid, we can force GMO crops on them which is another ruse to indebt the population by coercing the purchase of seeds and fertilizer. That realization doesn’t fill anyone’s belly, but it does lead us to other options besides assuaging our guilt by sending a dollar a day to the Christian Children’s Fund.

So back to “be the change you seek.” I really think a lot of this boils down to our imaginations. For example, what if we were taught about the true nature of “economic aid” in our world history class? Or read about it on the front page of the USA Today? How would our country’s population react differently than hearing it in dribs and drabs from raving conspiracy lunatics? If the public at large were told, for example, that Texaco purposely dumped oil and pollution the equivalent of two or more Exxon Valdez’s into the Ecuadorian rain forest to the same extent that we’ve been informed about swine flu or Lindsey Lohan rehab, how would we respond? Or if we weren’t so caught up in a cycle of working to pay our bills and debts and taxes and watching our HDTV that we actually had time and mental space to give a damn? Would we curb our consumption? Grow our own food? Buy from anyone other than a global corporation?

Those are all conventional solutions, but (and I’m stepping beyond my reading knowledge at this point) there’s evidence that a change in consciousness in one segment of the population has a ripple affect on the population as a whole. See here and here and here. If you accept these as plausible truths, what could you suppose is the reason for obfuscating and sensationalized news, mass media, and propaganda? If the majority of the population was awake and aware to the true nature of these problems and cared enough to refuse to comply with them, would they still exist?

I’m running out of gas on this, and perhaps that’s for the best, but it’s been useful for me to articulate this, and hopefully the response is useful to you.

Great question, least likely to ease our guilt, but most importantly influence others, and by all means make lots of money for us at others expense, you know-create a problem, then fix it, and always keep empowering those who are left unchallenged and keep getting richer.
They are mostly thieves, that take our money, maybe 20 percent of it gets to the intended goal.

The world is interdependent. To the people of New Orleans after Katrina hit it didn’t matter where the help came from.