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Invisiblecarbonhoots
old hand

Registered: 09/11/01
Posts: 1,351
Loc: BC Canada
USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit
    #4664288 - 09/15/05 10:00 AM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Sounds to me like the envoy sent by the present American government pretty out of step with the rest of the world.

They have been shocked that President Bush could declare that "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" [in New Orleans] when that risk was notorious and had been discussed for decades.


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Published on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 by the Financial Times/UK
The US Fight Against the Fight Against Poverty
by Jeffrey Sachs

The negotiations on the draft declaration for the World Summit - which opens on Tuesday - have been nothing short of bizarre. The United States government has fought a relentless battle to dissociate itself from specific obligations regarding international development, and has tried repeatedly to the quash obligations that it has taken on the past. All of this has been taking place at a time when the US itself has become an aid recipient, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The opening salvo a couple of weeks ago was the remarkable assertion by the United States government that the Millennium Development Goals do not even exist, so that the phrase itself should be expunged from the document. This was news to the rest of the world, who were gathering at the Summit first and foremost to find ways to reinforce the Millennium Development Goals. The US claimed that it had signed the Millennium Declaration but not the Millennium Development Goals.

The argument was not very impressive. All 18 of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals - to halve hunger, fight disease, reduce maternal mortality, ensure access to safe drinking water, and more - are explicitly part of the Millennium Declaration. With 190 countries standing in opposition to the US position, the US relented.

The longer battle has ensued around official development assistance and the target of 0.7 percent of GNP in official development aid. It seems at times that all US foreign policy regarding economic development revolves around the US insistence to pay almost nothing to help the poorest countries.

US official aid levels are 0.16 percent of GNP, an increase from 0.10 percent when President Bush took office but still the lowest or second lowest of all donors (vying with Italy for the bottom slot). US aid levels for Africa are 0.03 percent of GNP, meaning that the US gives Africa just 3 cents in aid for every $100 of US GNP. Much of the rest of US aid still goes to “strategic” countries such as Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, or to US consultant salaries.

Why the US government is so dead-set against doing more to help impoverished and dying people is one of the great mysteries of our time. It’s not as if the poorest countries are asking for an open checkbook or an unconstrained line of credit. They are asking for rich countries to honor a modest commitment, a mere 0.7 percent of GNP, roughly one seventh of what the US is spending this year on the military and one third of what the US has spent on tax cuts in the first Bush term.

Just as with the Millennium Development Goals, the US government has worked overtime to huff and puff that it never signed the 0.7 target, and thus should not be bound by it. Even if it were true that the U.S. had never signed on, the sight of the world’s richest country denying a long-standing international target in this manner is stunning. The US signed on to the 0.7 target in the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development in March 2002. It has since bobbed and weaved to evade the implications of that agreement.

In paragraph 42 of the Monterrey Consensus, the US and other signatories declared that they “urge developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts toward the target of 0.7 percent of GNP in official development assistance.”

The European Union took up its pledge, and has defined “concrete efforts” as a new timetable to reach 0.56 percent of GNP in official aid by 2010 and 0.7 percent of GNP by 2015. The US on its side has simply been claiming that the target does not exist, and telling some in the corridors that signing the Monterrey pledge had been a mistake.

This aggressive position has continued down to the details. The US has fought commitments to a “Quick Win” against malaria through the mass distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets and effective medications. It has resisted commitments to quick wins in other areas as well. In the end, every specific target and timetable to help the world’s poorest of the poor has come under US fire.

The US fight against the fight against poverty would be bizarre at any moment (remember John Kennedy pledging “to those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required”) but it has been especially shocking in the face of Hurricane Katrina. The US is accepting aid from UN agencies, Mexico, Europe, and others, at the very moment it is working overtime to avoid or evade commitments to the poorest of the poor, who are dying by the millions each year due to insufficient assistance from the donor countries.

There is a silver lining in all of this, believe it or not. The American people have been aghast at the failures of Washington to prepare for, and then address, the hurricane. They have been shocked that President Bush could declare that “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees [in New Orleans]” when that risk was notorious and had been discussed for decades.

Similarly, whenever they have gotten a glimpse of the UN negotiations, they have been shocked. Though the American people know little about the Millennium Development Goals (since President Bush has perhaps never even uttered the phrase), editorial writers around the country, in both liberal and conservative regions, were dismayed that the US delegation was working in America’s name to undercut the world’s measurable and monitorable poverty alleviation targets that provide a clear framework for accountable results.

Perhaps the most notable bottom line this week will be that the voices of the poor are finally piercing the deep layers of indifference and misdirection.

Professor Sachs is a director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and author of The End of Poverty (Penguin, 2005).

? 2005 Financial Times


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  -I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me

CANADIAN CENTER FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES

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InvisibleAlex213
Stranger
Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: carbonhoots]
    #4664684 - 09/15/05 11:37 AM (18 years, 6 months ago)

US official aid levels are 0.16 percent of GNP, an increase from 0.10 percent when President Bush took office but still the lowest or second lowest of all donors (vying with Italy for the bottom slot). US aid levels for Africa are 0.03 percent of GNP, meaning that the US gives Africa just 3 cents in aid for every $100 of US GNP. Much of the rest of US aid still goes to “strategic” countries such as Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, or to US consultant salaries.


Puts an interesting slant on the oft heard battlecry "The US gives more in AID than anyone else..."

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Offlinedaimyo
Monticello

Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 12 years, 1 month
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: carbonhoots]
    #4664704 - 09/15/05 11:43 AM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Why do we still talk to the world? It's time to institute the draft and take over the rest of these pussies. The US shouldn't give anybody anything but hot lead. Take their money, women, and resources and divide it up amongst the countrymen willing to take it.


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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

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InvisibleAlex213
Stranger
Registered: 08/22/05
Posts: 1,839
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: daimyo]
    #4664733 - 09/15/05 11:52 AM (18 years, 6 months ago)

The US shouldn't give anybody anything but hot lead

Hasn't worked too well in Iraq tho. They appear to have had their ass handed to them.

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Offlinedaimyo
Monticello

Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 12 years, 1 month
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: Alex213]
    #4664783 - 09/15/05 12:02 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

What war did you watch? We destroyed the Iraqi military.

If you are referring to the insurgency, that's because Washington won't let the soldiers do the damn thing. Unleash the beast and watch those terrorist bitches crumble. If we're gonna be policing the world we need to do it with a diamond tipped iron fist.


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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

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Offlinephi1618
old hand

Registered: 02/14/04
Posts: 4,102
Last seen: 13 years, 10 months
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: daimyo]
    #4664812 - 09/15/05 12:07 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

If we fully unleashed our war machine, the world would expire.

Look at WW2 - do you really want something worse than that? And for what? More toys?


I've never heard a worse idea in my life.

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Invisiblelooner2
ABBA fan

Registered: 06/20/04
Posts: 3,849
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: carbonhoots]
    #4664926 - 09/15/05 12:31 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

I am loving the US more and more these days.


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I am in love with Acidic_Sloth


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Offlinelonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
 User Gallery

Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 12 years, 11 months
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: carbonhoots]
    #4665058 - 09/15/05 12:54 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

these "world summits" are a total waste of time.


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America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"

We have "reckless fiscal policies"

America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

Americans deserve better

Barack Obama

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OfflineProsgeopax
Jaded, yethopeful?

Registered: 01/28/05
Posts: 1,258
Loc: Appearing at a mall near ...
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: Alex213]
    #4665138 - 09/15/05 01:09 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Alex, the quote specifically stated 'official aid.' What about private charity? Is it your contention that the voluntary charitable donations of Americans are somehow not important? Did you know that private charity frequently bypasses government bureaucracies and is MORE EFFICIENT at delivering to those who need it? Besides, it is not the U.S. government's job to be wet nurse to the rest of the world. If you care to dispute this, please quote where in our government's charter that it says it is the duty of the U.S. government to clean up after the failures of other governments and their people.


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Money doesn't grow on trees, but deficits do grow under Bushes.

You can accept, reject, or examine and test any new idea that comes to you. The wise man chooses the third way.
- Tom Willhite

Disclaimer: I reserve the right to change my opinions should I become aware of additional facts, the falsification of information or different perspectives. Articles written by others which I post may not necessarily reflect my opinions in part or in whole, my opinions may be in direct opposition, the topic may be one on which I have yet to formulate an opinion or have doubts about, an article may be posted solely with the intent to stimulate discussion or contemplation.

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Invisiblecarbonhoots
old hand

Registered: 09/11/01
Posts: 1,351
Loc: BC Canada
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: Prosgeopax]
    #4665768 - 09/15/05 03:13 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Is it your contention that the voluntary charitable donations of Americans are somehow not important? Did you know that private charity frequently bypasses government bureaucracies and is MORE EFFICIENT at delivering to those who need it? Besides, it is not the U.S. government's job to be wet nurse to the rest of the world. If you care to dispute this, please quote where in our government's charter that it says it is the duty of the U.S. government to clean up after the failures of other governments and their people.




Wow. Pure genius!

That statement is much more powerful than that wishy washy shit about how the Millenium Development goals don't even exist.


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  -I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me

CANADIAN CENTER FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES

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InvisibleLeftyBurnz
Mr. I Eat Butthole
Male User Gallery

Registered: 06/21/05
Posts: 24,570
Loc: FL
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: carbonhoots]
    #4666114 - 09/15/05 04:32 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

well im far from loving this country right now. but i must say i agree with the majority on this one, even though i have donated a few times to poverty donations i say screw what the poor countries think about us not donating more TAX dollars to them, like prosgeopax said, its not our job to help the poor countries on their feet, i remember this country in history class that was pretty fuckin poor starting over with not much, hmmmm...... oh yeah US, yet our forefathers got up off their asses, even with an iron fist ruling from across the atlantic, why should we GIVE them money so they can get to where we are especially when there is poverty in our own goddamn country, i say let em work for it like we did.


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Edited by LeftyBurnz (09/15/05 04:34 PM)

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InvisibleLos_Pepes
Stranger

Registered: 06/26/05
Posts: 731
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: LeftyBurnz]
    #4666240 - 09/15/05 05:07 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

The real reason the levees weren't taken care of better is because all the black robbers in the area that think the white man owes them something.




Edited by Los_Pepes (09/15/05 05:09 PM)

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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: Los_Pepes]
    #4666264 - 09/15/05 05:13 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

How many people here do you think understand that cartoon?


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Invisibletak
geo's henchman
Male User Gallery

Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 11/20/00
Posts: 3,776
Loc: nowhereland
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: Los_Pepes]
    #4666280 - 09/15/05 05:15 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

Were you raped by a black man as a child?


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The DJ's took pills to stay awake and play for seven days.

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InvisibleLeftyBurnz
Mr. I Eat Butthole
Male User Gallery

Registered: 06/21/05
Posts: 24,570
Loc: FL
Re: USA fights like a tiger at the World Summit [Re: Los_Pepes]
    #4666333 - 09/15/05 05:26 PM (18 years, 6 months ago)

i didnt say anything about new orleans, unless thats the ONLY city in the country with poverty i was talking about all 52 states, theres fucking poor people in every state.


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