by James Glaser
January 3, 2005

I am not talking about all the kids that Bush's war will be killing in Iraq. No, I believe that number will stay pretty constant and heck that will only be a few thousand children that the United States kills. But even that number is enough so that every American can have a spot of blood on their hands.

What I am talking about is how just two days before Christmas, on December 23rd it was reported that as a result of budget deficits and the need to cut back on spending, the Bush administration is cutting back support for global food aid programs.

Christopher Brauchli, a Boulder, Colorado Lawyer who writes for Knight Ridder news service reports, "Cutting back on food aid is a good way of reducing spending without impacting the wealthy whose pleas for help are heard and heeded. The cries of the poor are barely audible and cannot be heard in Washington. That's why George Bush could let it be known, two days before Christmas, that contributions to global food aid will be cut."

On New Years Day President Bush will wish everyone a Happy New Year, while estimates of the cut in food aid are $100 million.

UNICEF gave a report on December 9th titled "Childhood Under Threat." The report stated that over half of all children, more that 1 billion, suffer extreme deprivation because of war, HIV, and AIDS. Sure most of these kids are not Americans, but remember we are supposed to be a Christian nation and there is something in that Christian belief system that talks about loving your neighbors.

The report tells us that on average 29,158 children under the age of five die each day and that 3,900 of them die because they lack access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. That is why it was such a crime when American bombers destroyed Iraq's water and sewage system in the first Gulf War and how terrible it was that our embargo on the country would not let Iraq repair that system. Then in this new war, George Bush's War, we bombed some of those same plants and destroyed much of the electrical grid. Electrical power is needed both to get clean drinking water and to power sewage treatment plants. So, some of those 3,900 little kids dying every day from lack of clean water and sanitation, are little Iraqi children.

It is reported that over $900 billion is spent every year by the governments of this world on the military and that another $300 billion is given to wealthy farmers in one government program or another, at the same time, those same governments spend only $56 billion on development assistance for the poor. Our government in Washington still believes that terrorists attacked us because they hate our freedom, while at the same time billions of people are living on less than Two Dollars a day.

People who live in mud floor houses, who watch as many of their children die from the lack of basic needs like food and clean water, look at America and wonder why we can have so much and they so little. When George Bush cuts the little we give to the rest of the world, (don't kid yourself, we do give less that almost any other industrialized nation) Americans hear almost nothing about it, because Bush announces it two days before Christmas when most Americans are thinking Peace on Earth and Good will to Man. But the poor people of the world hear about it, because every terrorist organization is out there telling them about it.

We are called the Great Satan and there are some good reasons why. When ever I am going through the Net reading, if I see something of interest, I write down a quote or statistic and keep it for some column. Well here is an interesting one. "The minimum number of times the United States has deployed troops abroad in its 226 year history, 277 times." That comes from the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

The rest of the world watches, knowing that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on wars all over this globe and we do it year in and year out. The poor of this world see that we are the "Haves" and they know they are the "Have-nots," They see where ever our troops go, they bring either clean water with them, or portable treatment plants and they wonder why the world is the way it is.

Poor people the world over have watched as tens of thousands of innocent people die in our wars and they listen as we claim that we are bringing peace and freedom to them. Go back and look at some of the places we have been. Look at Haiti or Somalia, how about Iraq, or Panama, and you will see a lot of hate for our country. Yes, we have had successes, like South Korea, but their nation is still split in half 50 years after we signed an end to hostilities, not a reunification or even a peace treaty. Sure we can talk about Germany and Japan, but that war was 60 years ago and the people of the world are asking, "what have you done for me lately?"

The world population is getting bigger and competition for resources is getting stronger. George Bush and his group believe that America can take and hold what we need by force of arms and we can, as long as people like you and me are willing to give our sons and daughters to the cause, but when it gets to the point that we no longer feel we can pay that price, then it would be good for us if we had built up some good will the world over.

Cutting the Food Aid budget by $100 million is really nothing to us, it is really a drop in the bucket when you think of our almost $500 billion deficit last year. In fact I believe we spend more than that every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is a big deal to the thousands of children who will die because of Bush's cut. It is an even bigger deal to those children's parents. They know what we have and what they don't have. They know what we claim about our belief in God and they look at our actions and that is why they call us the Great Satan.

We have a choice, the poor of the world do not. We can help the people the world over have a better life and when we do that, we are building up good will, good will we will need some day.