Foreign Aid
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Americans who support the slogan “America First” obviously think that the choice their country has to make is between spending money for international priorities that have no direct impact on the lives of ordinary U.S. citizens, or investing the same money in resolving the problems arising from the present-day recession in the U.S. I believe this is an illusory choice.
The real choice that the American nation faces today, especially concerning the problem of urgent aid for Russia and the post-communist world, is whether to spend small money today for food supplies and expert help or spend very big money tomorrow to cover nuclear proliferation or the threats arising from the authoritarian regimes that come to power on the shambles of the fragile democracies in that part of the world.
If anyone doubts this, he can convince himself by opening any textbook in 20th-Century American history. The worst thing of all is that big money has always been accompanied by the loss of human lives, with suffering and sorrow in America and all over the world.
OGNYAN MINCHEV, Visiting Fulbright Scholar, Department of History, UCLA
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