From The BBC:
Millions of dollars earmarked for victims of the Ethiopian famine of 1984-85 went on buying weapons, the BBC has learned. An investigation found claims that a rebel movement in Ethiopia diverted the aid to fund its attempt to overthrow the government of the time. Rebel soldiers said they posed as merchants as "a trick for the NGOs"...
I don't mean Ethiopia specifically, I mean as a general rule, you can safely assume that a lot of aid is not spent as intended. Whether the aid agencies siphon it off, or it is stolen, or spent on weapons or the dictator's new palace, or ends up in Switzerland is a different discussion.
Forbidden Bible Verses — Genesis 42:1-17
6 hours ago
10 comments:
Yes. This has been blindingly obvious since my secondary school days when an enlightened history teacher showed me and my classmates the truth about 'humanitarian aid'.
The BBC is on an obfuscation mission for it's Labour handlers.
Money is fungible. QED.
I think you have left out one of the major destinations, which is the funding of the comfortable lifestyles of the great and good who run these NGOs and 'charities'.
Which in one sense is a good thing, since any intervention they attempt is inevitably disastrous, as you note.
Principles are soluble in cash.
I thought the "aid" was mainly used to put any surviving farmers out of business.
don't let the sainted Sir Bob hear you!
I regularly get shouted down at meetings of our local residents' association (sorry, MW, NIMBY group) for stating that 1. overseas aid* - except for emergency provision in time of immediate need - is completely counter-productive, and 2. spending billions (via corrupt national governments and even more corrupt international organisations) trying to stop "climate change" and efforts to make Muswell Hill "emission"-free and its local economy "green" and, thereby, "sustainable" are similarly flawed activities.
Mrs U now refuses to come to these meetings and wonders why I tolerate the abuse. I tell her that it's because, some time in the distant future, I (or one of my rare allies) will be able to say "I told you so".
* most of the association's events are run in support of some enormous cash-sucking fake charity ostensibly "for the chiiiildren".
W, of course, we've been hurling aid at Africa for half a century and it has done no good whatsoever.
D, in this case, sacks of sand are fungible with sacks of grain or rice.
C, that's included under 'siphon off'.
AC1, there's that as well.
U, that's why you're aid minister in my bloggers cabinet :)
Anon, St Bob will have to grow up a bit.
MW
Re your cabinet, what's happened to the International Trade Secretary? He's been awfully quiet recently.
John Band still blogs away, he updates at his about once a week.
I do believe that St.Bob did come to that realisation a couple of years ago and is now trying to balance his initial 'feckin' give the feckin' money with the actualite of increased child birth and therefore more mouths to feed with appearances on any BBC programme.
I seem to remember arguing these points when he starred on TOTPs.
STB.
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