British overseas aid in an age of austerity
By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
None of those places that we are pumping money into, which often disappears before it ever can do any good, will ever come to our aid is and when we need help. Charity begins at home and not in some far flung corner of the globe.
Libya is not our business and neither is Afghanistan and especially not drought and hunger in Africa, e.g. Somalia or wherever. There is hunger and poverty enough right here at home to get on with and keep busy for a very long time to come.
People in Britain certainly do not agree with the ring fencing of the Foreign Aid budget and the fact that we are sending funds abroad for often dubious development projects while people at home are losing their jobs and children live below the poverty line.
If individuals and companies wish to support good causes and charities working in development then that is up to them and that is charity proper but the country, the government, has no business in sending tax monies abroad as “development aid”.
Neither does the government have any business being involved in a conflict that we have created by invading the various countries, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
There is no threat to the realm coming from those tinpot outfits over there and if then the defense of the realm begins in the territorial waters and not in Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither are part of the realm and it is the British Army's brief to “defend the realm” and not to “go forth and conquer”.
We are not becoming safer on the street of Britain because of our military involvement in the various places, the opposite is rather the case. And development aid does not do anything either.
Our armed forces should be based in such as way as to be able to defend the real, as it should be, but not be dying for no good reason on some foreign field, in the “defense” of oil, for that is what it is all about.
Charity begins at home, as does the defense of the realm.
I rest my case, it is getting heavy...
© 2011
