ID:275966
 
Ok, I just saw one of those commercials about the poor children in 3rd world countries. Now i have to ask why it is that we are spending billions of dollars to help rebuild a country that terrorised the hell out of us instead of donating money to places like that? I know that as a tax payer i would much rather have my money go to poor people then to a country that tried to destry us. What does every here think?
If you invade a country, you help rebuild it.
That's the way it goes.

(plus Iraq was invaded *so* it could be rebuilt afterwards)
In response to Elation
Exactly. We don't take 'um out and leave them with rubble. You destroy the enemy, and befriend the oppressed.

And we can't always give everyone money. We helped the tsunami relief greatly, as did many other countries, but you can't do everything.

besides, we aren't aiding terrorists, we're aiding the country oppressed by terrorists.
Dragon warrior2662 wrote:
country that tried to destry us.

The country didn't, the government may have.

On a side note, we kinda invaded Iraq :)

~Kujila
In response to Kunark
Except that their weren't any terrorists there until you invaded. :P.

Of course, Australia isn't much cleaner. Bloody Bonsai.

PS - Our Prime Minister (Rough equivalent of president), John Howard, is sort of like a little Bush. Hence, he is Bonsai.
I can see why, in delusion you put '(Americans Only)' in your title, I hope theres enough left of you to donate to these countries after this is over.

Children, not adults, children. Why should they suffer their fathers sins, if indeed they come from such a 'terrorist country' I highly doubt you have any idea what your speaking of when you blert out '3rd world countries' - maybe you do, it just doesn't come across in your writing. Just because a country is far away and poor, doesn't mean it hates America; Donate today to the poor and starving peoples of the world.

I've only just woke up, so I'll let the more wordy people take you out; Good night.

-Thorg.

P.s - I'm English, so screw your thread title.
In response to Thorg
It can also benefit us. They could become a vital ally someday once we help get them rebuilt and etc... Japan used to be an enemy and then we bombed and rebuilt them. Now they are one of our strongest allies. Simple as that.

-S2k
In response to Thorg
Thorg wrote:
I can see why, in delusion you put '(Americans Only)' in your title, I hope theres enough left of you to donate to these countries after this is over.

Children, not adults, children. Why should they suffer their fathers sins, if indeed they come from such a 'terrorist country' I highly doubt you have any idea what your speaking of when you blert out '3rd world countries' - maybe you do, it just doesn't come across in your writing. Just because a country is far away and poor, doesn't mean it hates America; Donate today to the poor and starving peoples of the world.

I've only just woke up, so I'll let the more wordy people take you out; Good night.

-Thorg.

P.s - I'm English, so screw your thread title.

um, ok.

why should US tax dollars benefit people of other countries, isn't that what their tax dollars are for? their tax money isn't feeding me.

there are poor people in the US that could use the money. why should money be given to people outside of the country and not people in the country?
In response to OneFishDown
I didn't realise America couln't take care of itself, Me, in my stupidity, when I saw your military might being flexed in other countries thought you were a solid country, ready to bring a working system of government to other places.

But then again 'Children, not adults, children. Why should they suffer their fathers sins', True, True.

But then a then again, England's over there doing the same and I know for sure we have poverty issues; I guess it's all relative. No one body of people are gonna share the same views.

Only YOU can prevent forest fires.

And now, to orienteering!

-Thorg
I wrote a lengthy post that discounted your entire post, but... My browser ate it, so I'll make this short.

"The country" didn't try to kill us, extremist militant groups did.

The extremist militant groups didn't try to kill us, they tried to piss us off enough so that we'd spend so much money on warring them that our economy would collapse. Our own bloated bureaucratic capitolism is taking its toll.

The COUNTRY didn't have anything to do with it. One in every thousand people in Iraq and Afghanistan have anything to do with any anti-US activity. Most of these thousand have been offset by wars, etc. These people weren't exactly rich to begin with. So, national crisis would, in my eyes classify these people as in need.

On top of this, you don't just roll into a country, carpetbomb the hell out of it, then leave it to rot. That's rude. Rules of warfare: Knock it down, build it up. If you can set up a stable government on your way out, you have an ally. Look at Japan after world war II.

On top of this, excluding non americans just because you can't seem to grasp the idea that america isn't the rest of the world... Well, it's stupid.

I personally think that we should give aid to the poorer countries, but I've got a skeptical attitude as well. We have our own hungry to deal with. It's a tossup. You can't be really on one side without being a hippy humanitarian moron, or a self-centered egotistical jackass. There IS no graceful or right stance here.
In response to Thorg
Every country has problems, Franklin Roosevelt, being the hero that he is, totally screwed our country over. He made it possible for it to be the bloated beurocracy it is today. Capitalism doesn't work the best, but it is the best way to live --in the short term. It's not the best in the long term.

America has a lot of issues, we don't have a lot of jobs, we don't have good healthcare, we don't have good education systems, and we don't really do much to help the poor. The system is so messed up it almost needs a full jolt-startover. What we DO to help the situation always makes the situation worse. Look at welfare, for instance. Welfare doesn't work. Why? Because most people figure they can stay on welfare and not have to work. So long as you put on the appearance of trying to get a job, and maybe have a kid or two, you can have the bare neccessities covered. Sure, it's not the best way to live, but some people really do it.
In response to Ter13
Psssh.

I say screw them all. I don't care about anyone else except me.

And as for the rules of war. To heck with that, war is wrong to begin with, so why should we try to make it right? Any place we take out, we should take over. Simple as that.

Thats how it used to work.
In response to Jp
Jp wrote:
PS - Our Prime Minister (Rough equivalent of president), John Howard, is sort of like a little Bush. Hence, he is Bonsai.

I prefer "Shrub". It sounds more demeaning. =P

Note to Americans and other aliens (Terry Pratchett's words, not mine ;-) ) - The Honourable Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, slavishly devotes himself to following each and every one of Bush's policies, no matter how inane. He's also quite short. Hence Jp's "little Bush" comment.

"Mini-me" is also a good nickname for him. ;-D
It's already been said in the replies so far, but it needs to be said again...lol

Iraq never "terrorised the hell out of us" and they never "tried to destroy us"... In fact, Iraq hasn't even been a slight nuisance since the first Gulf War, and even then they weren't bothering us, they were messing with one of our allies... And if this comment is something based on 9/11, you need to understand that 9/11 had little or nothing (most likely nothing) to do with Iraq... Bin Laden isn't an Iraqi, the Taliban aren't Iraqi (well, some of them might be, I guess)... These guys are their own little group, not acting under the control of ANY government... (and the only reason we attacked Afghanistan, is because that's where it appeared they were hiding)

Plain and simply put, Iraq was never a major threat to us in the first place... Even if they developed these WMDs that they supposedly had, they still couldn't have ever gotten the better of us... Potentially, they could have done some fairly heavy damage, depending on what types of weapons they might have made, and which ones they had the guts to use against us... But after the initial attack, we'd have easily wiped them out...

Iraq was never a direct threat to us, and never really could have been...

Now don't get me wrong... Hussein and his regime were definitely not nice... He really did need to be overthrown... But not by us... The Iraqis should have staged their own revolution...

However, we did go over there, and we leveled the place... You think that it would be right for us to just pack up and leave them helpless like that, after we did all the damage?

It's like walking into someone's house, breaking everything, ripping out their electrical system, tearing apart their pipes, pulling the food out of the refrigerator, and just leaving... Is that acceptable to you?

So basically, we shouldn't have broken it in the first place, but once we did, it becomes our duty to fix it...

Now, as for the topic of giving aid to the poor of the world, as others have mentioned, the U.S. has many of its own economic problems to deal with, which should be our priority...

However, regardless of how bad some parts are, this country is still much better off than most... So there definitely is some measure of duty for us to share our prosperity...

I mean, everyone has bills, everyone has money problems (well, not really everyone... I don't suppose Bill Gates has too much to worry about financially, aside from Microsoft stock prices...lol), yet isn't it just right to give to those less fortunate? Isn't it the "neighborly" thing to do? Even if it means you have to sacrifice a bit?

If you've got 5 dollars, and you need to buy lunch, but you see someone who is starving, shouldn't you give them something, even if it means you have less?

So, yes, we do need to focus on our own country's needs... But at the same time, we can't ignore the needs of those less fortunate... Besides, if building ourselves up is done at the cost of letting others fall, aren't those others going to turn on us eventually? If one guy, holding all the food he can eat, and all the money he needs, is sitting in the middle of a group of homeless, aren't they going to come after him?
In response to SuperSaiyanGokuX
SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:
So basically, we shouldn't have broken it in the first place, but once we did, it becomes our duty to fix it...

In other words: "You break it, you bought it." ;-)
In response to Shades
Shades wrote:
Psssh.

I say screw them all. I don't care about anyone else except me.

And as for the rules of war. To heck with that, war is wrong to begin with, so why should we try to make it right? Any place we take out, we should take over. Simple as that.

Thats how it used to work.

All I can say is: No.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. America spends plenty on humanitarian relief. Unfortunately, relief efforts tend to be hindered by all the corruption and evil that makes such places third world countries to start with -- e.g., the Oil-for-Food scandal; Mugabe and the farmers in Zimbabwe; donated food winding up sold on the black market in North Korea; etc., etc.

Imagine you're trying to date a girl whose parents are complete jerks, and every time you drop off some chocolates for her, they eat them, and every time you drop off some flowers, they sell them, and every time you ask to see her, they tell you she's grounded indefinitely. And if they ever do give her one of your gifts, they tell her it's from them instead of from you, and they also take the opportunity to remind her that you're a bloodthirsty baby-eating Zionist lackey. Sooner or later you might just decide that the parents have to go.
There is only so much money we can spend. Look at what we are spending money on:
*We are practically being peer-pressured by the UN to donate a crazy amount of money to the Tsumami victims. (I thought a donation was optional and when we gave 300 mil they said that was too low so we gave 1 bil.)
*We are spending money fighting the (what looks like) never ending war on terrorism in Iraq. Spending money on troops, missles, guns, ammo,rebuilding things we destroyed, and many more things that come with war.
*We ARE still spending money in Afghanistan believe it or not. There ARE troops in Afghanistan and troops don't work for free, neither do their guns.
*Besides war and disasters, America itself has a lot of things to do to support its own economy. Gas is going up, which means supply is low. When Supply is low, demand is increased which means price goes up. So in order to equal out the supply and demand, more oil things have to be built, which costs money.

Everything cost money people, weather it's $0.35 Winterfresh gum or it's a $1,000,000 McLaren F1, everything has a price and everything costs money.
First of all, Iraq didn't "terrorize", Saddam did. We're helping the people of the country, many of who, in fact, were victims of Saddam's reign of terror. We're helping the victims.

I was against the war in Iraq, but if we went in and took away their government, then we need to fix any damage we caused.

For the record, America does give away billions of dollars each year to third-world countries.
In response to Shades
Yes, and look what happened: World war I, then world war II! Imperialism only causes problems.
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