What Really Happened Today?: "U.S. Money Aids World’s Worst Dictators"

The Independent Institute

U.S. Money Aids World’s Worst Dictators

February 13, 2006
Benjamin Powell, Matt Ryan

Parade magazine recently ranked the twenty worst dictators currently in power. Many names are familiar—Fidel Castro, Muammar Qaddafi, Kim Jong-Il, Robert Mugabe and others. They are all guilty of human rights violations and in some cases have committed outright genocide. But there’s another trait common to all twenty leaders—every single one has received foreign aid from wealthy Western countries.

Popular Washington, D.C., rhetoric says that development aid should be dispensed to corruption-free countries with laws and policies conducive to supporting sustained economic growth. President Bush created Millennium Challenge Accounts to funnel aid to such countries. However, few countries have qualified for the program and little money has actually been disbursed. Instead, we find that both the U.S. and its partner countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have contributed a great deal of aid to these oppressive regimes.

Parade ranked the Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir as the world’s worst dictator. During his reign OECD countries gave his regime more than $6 billion in non-military aid. The U.S. accounted for more than $1 billion of that aid. Kim Jong-Il was ranked as the second worst dictator and received a little over $1 billion in aid, with more than half of it coming from the U.S. Than Shwe of Myanmar, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan round out the top five dictators on the list. The U.S. contributed $32 million to Myanmar, $1.1 billion to Zimbabwe, and $385 million to Uzbekistan.

Overall, OECD countries contributed aid to every one of Parade’s 20 worst dictators. Combined, these leaders received nearly $55 billion in aid. The U.S. contributed to 19 of the 20 worst dictators; King Abdulla of Saudi Arabia was somehow left off of the U.S. gravy train. In total, the U.S. contributed more than $7 billion in aid to these leaders. In North Korea, Belarus, Ethiopia, Swaziland, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan the U.S. contributed more than 20 percent of the total aid these countries received from OECD countries.

Government-sponsored aid has failed to promote economic growth in the third world. From 1970 to 2000, more than $400 billion poured into poor African countries with no development to show for it. Parade’s list of dictators makes our foreign aid record even more disturbing. Not only has it failed to promote development, in many cases our aid has supported oppressive dictatorships.

Following Hamas’s recent victory in Palestine’s elections, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threatened to cut off aid to Palestine, saying, “The United States is not prepared to fund an organization that advocates the destruction of Israel, that advocates violence and that refuses its obligations.” Perhaps the U.S. should apply that policy to the dictators on Parade’s list as well. By providing aid to these dictators the U.S. has given them a source of funds to use to secure political support and likely prolonged their oppressive reigns.

The first rule of development policy should be to do no harm. Unfortunately OECD and U.S. aid have failed to promote development and actively promoted harm by aiding oppressive dictatorships. This kind of aid also unfortunately tends to undermine economic freedom by politicizing economic life in the recipient country and by preserving inefficient regimes. Over the last 30 years development aid has lowered measures of economic freedom in both dictatorships and democracies. To better promote freedom, and consequently development, we should end economic development aid to dictators and democracies alike.


Benjamin Powell, Ph.D., is the Director of the Center on Entrepreneurial Innovation at the Independent Institute, an Oakland-based policy think tank and a professor of economics at San Jose State University.

Matt Ryan is an adjunct fellow with the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. and holds a Masters degree in Economics from San Jose State University.


SOURCE - http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1671

ORIGINAL SOURCE - http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/







February 15, 2006

BBC NEWS | Programmes | File on 4 | Hidden history of US germ testing

Biological pathogens they developed were tested on volunteers from a pacifist church and were also released in public places. In the 1950s, the Seventh-day Adventist Church struck an extraordinary deal with the US Army. It would provide test subjects for experiments on biological weapons at the Fort Detrick research centre near Washington DC. The volunteers were conscientious objectors who agreed to be infected with debilitating pathogens. In return, they were exempted from frontline warfare.
Posted Feb 15, 2006 09:00 AM PST
Category: HIDDEN HISTORY


U.S. Money Aids World's Worst Dictators: Newsroom: The Independent Institute

Posted Feb 15, 2006 08:43 AM PST
Category: CURRENT EVENTS


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Anyone feel a draft?


HOTLINKS

Amidst the swirl of outrage, obfuscation and wisecracking, one fundamental flaw in the White House's Cheney shooting story remains. How can a 28-gauge shotgun fired from supposedly 30 yards away cause pellets to become lodged in someone's heart?

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Hate Speech.
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... before we invade Iran.


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TAC to Standard Challenge Accepted

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...

History has proven us right. But the question on the table now is the one raised in the lead editorial of the Jan. 23 Standard, “And Now Iran.” The Standard calls on President Bush “to prepare for various forms of military action” to smash Iran’s nuclear program. For the Standard believes that containment and deterrence will not work with Iran.
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Did they follow him onto Jack Abramoff's casino ship?


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Category: COVER-UP/DECEPTIONS


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Posted Feb 15, 2006 06:39 AM PST
Category: MAINSTREAM MEDIA

References to beer preceding the shooting are being removed from the mainstream media coverage of the shooting.

SOURCE - http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

Peace, (NOW!!!)
BK

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