Beyond lies in American food aid: the dead bodies
Saturday, April 7, 2007 at 6:40PM
ARTICLE: "As Africa Hungers, U.S. Policy Slows the Delivery of Food Aid," by Celia W. Dugger, New York Times, 7 April 2007, p. A1.
I've written before about this Congress-protected iron triangle of food producers, food transporters and aid groups.
This story just makes you want to scream at the greed of it all.
For two years Bush and Co. try to change this insane law that says only food grown by Americans and shipped by American vessels with American crews and distributed by American charities can be used for foreign food aid.
So despite the people going hungry right now in Zambia and USAID being more than happy to buy food aid locally--as in, right in Zambia when the harvest was bountiful this year--USAID cannot do so because of this law.
Also because of this law, our food aid will likely be held up in terms of delivery for as long as six months. So people will die needlessly, according to Oxfam. Maybe 50,000 in the next half year alone.
The Bush administration says American taxpayers could feed an additional million more Africans if Congress just changes this idiotic law.
But Bush's efforts to change the law the last two years were thwarted quietly by Congress and the iron triangle's lobbyists.
Tom Lantos is a key villian, calling any attempt to change the law "beyond insane," because it will kill domestic support for food aid by harming our farmers.
Move beyond your lies, Mr. Lantos.
James Kunder, acting USAID deputy is quoted in the piece as saying less than one-half of one percent of US ag exports would be affected by the law being changed.
Sound like it might be worth it to feed one milliion and prevent 50k deaths in Africa in the next six months?
And don't even get me started on how this insane law retards agricultural markets in Africa and ensures steady death tolls over the years.
Guess who gets to die first, Mr. Lantos? The orphans of AIDS victims.
Please, somebody get Willie Nelson to wail on that one.
This is Lantos and others caving in to lobbying from Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Bunge and Cal Western, which sell "more than half the $2.2 billion in food for Food for Peace, the largest food aid program, and two smaller programs," according to USDA.
Bush should go on national TV to shame Lantos and his fat-cat ag biz allies and the greedy American shipping companies and the scummy nonprofit aid groups who are all in cahoots on this moneymaker.
This is all so amazingly dishonest and immoral, it just makes me sick.
And the bit about support for food aid withering from lack of support if this iron triangle isn't served is really indefensible.
Lantos should be ashamed of himself. He needs to go on this basis alone. He's been in for so long he can peddle crap like this and still get touted by DC types as some great man on foreign policy.
Because if Lantos was half the leader he imagines himself to be, he'd both change the law and boost Congressional support for such rapid-fire response aid.
But Lantos doesn't because he's more interested in credit than actually saving lives.
And I find that shameful indeed.
Reader Comments (8)
From the official Lantos web page: As the senior Democratic member of the House International Relations Committee, Tom Lantos has been a strong voice for policies to protect the United States from actions of terrorist groups and individuals, but he has also been a powerful voice for pursuing our foreign policy cooperatively through the United Nations and other international organizations and for working closely with allies in Europe and Asia.
Apparently Lantos does not link humanitarian aid with soft power as a tool in reducing the base for terror recruitment.
Now, what do you think of the 1.3 million Africans who die from malaria every year because environmentalists in the Core like to feel good about themselves by preventing mosquito eradication with DDT?
As repugnant as it sounds, Lantos' observation of the politics is right on the mark. Without agri-business on board is there any domestic constiuency for food aid? How long would it take for Willie Nelson to start singing about how we're buying foreign grain when American farms are going bankrupt.
It's similar to the arguments against means testing Social Security. Do that and the upper-middle and middle class will no longer support taking 12% of their income for which they'll see no benefit.
If Bush has been working on it for two years, he was as successful as he was in getting funding for the continuing occupation of Iraq through Congress before the election. This is not a Dem/Repub issue, but an example of a failure built into the current fundraising system.