Re: Irresponsible Crossposting

On Tue, 06 Sep 2005 01:47:06 GMT, Tony Cooper
<tony_cooper213@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>On Tue, 06 Sep 2005 08:50:40 +0800, Robert Bannister
><robban@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>In fact, US aid, like that from most western countries, usually comes
>>packaged with various trade deals that often recoup far more than was
>>"given". It is sheer propaganda that we "give" aid, at least in most cases.
>
>I've seen references to this, but I haven't seen anything factual
>about it. Just thinking about Sri Lanka after the tsunami, the US
>pledged something like US$950 million. That's the government's
>pledge, and does not include the private donations by individuals and
>organizations in the US.
>
>How would the US recoup this amount?
>

It's more subtle than that... I'm sure some aid is indeed altruistic
and given for all the right reasons, but I can cite two examples
from my own experience where there were other "hidden"
beneficiaries.

In the time when certain of the British colonies in Africa were
being granted independence, there was some concern that
the impending disappearance of the administrative infrastructure
(provided by expatriate civil servants) was going to cause a problem.

So the Good Ole USA ramped up its "aid to under-developed
countries" and presented Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika
each with a mainframe computer which could allegedly be
programmed to do all kinds of administrative data processing
such as compute and print the government payroll.

These computers were brand new, but in fact obsolete stock
that RCA still had in its warehouses. A machine called a MOBIDIC
(mobile disk file) designed for looking up artillery tables on
(what was then) a very large disk - looking up the results of
computations in a table was still faster than computing them
in those days. So RCA got a huge tax write-off, and we got
three brand spanking new mainframe computers (each housed
in a 5-ton military truck) which were essentially useless for
the administrative tasks people had in mind. And press releases
glowed about this munificence on the part of the Americans.

But I was gratefull - that was partially what got me into computers.

Another example. Locusts are a real problem in parts of Africa.
The problem is only serious in sporadic years. So it doesn't
pay to have a permanently fully-staffed organization to deal
with them. But it affects the crops which affects child nutrition
so UNICEF gets into the loop with an organization called
Desert Locust Control. A small permanent staff in Geneva set up
that can invoke a temporary army of pilots and sundry folks
when the need arises. But what about the equipment required?
Specifically aircraft? The USA comes to the rescue again.
A squadron of 12 shiny new aircraft were sent from America -
more aid to under-developed countries.

What they neglected to mention was that we were to be the
only people anywhere who would get to fly this particular
aircraft of which only 12 were ever made. Because it could
not be granted a C of A (Certificate of Airworthiness) in any
country that had such requirements. They flew alright... except
if one of the two engines failed in flight, they were almost
uncontrollable due to the strange tail configuration that
these planes sported. So Beechcraft had donated the
the few they had manufactured - took a handsome tax
deduction, and lemonade was made with lemons.
(The single-engined variant of this plane remains a
popular aircraft to this day and can be seen parked on
many an airfield)

But I was gratefull - I got to rack up a lot of hours
and get paid for it. And we clobbered a lot of locusts.
So the aid was put to good use. But it wasn't all as
altruistic as it sounded at the time. And it would have
been nice to warn the pilots...

Jitze
.

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