by Courtland Milloy

WASHINGTON — A few questions, please:

Why are we so happy that Afghans can now fly kites, shave their beards and wear short skirts when so few of us seemed to care about their plight before Sept. 11?

What about the millions of Afghans who are in danger of starvation this winter? Are they, too, flying kites amid the land mines and unexploded cluster bombs?

Why does Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair get a warm embrace for helping us wage war, but when Gordon Brown, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, asks us to do more to help the world's poor, we give him a cold shoulder?

The answers wouldn't have anything to do with our selfish, short-sighted national interest, would it?

Women in Saudi Arabia aren't allowed to drive cars, and women in Kuwait can't vote. Is that OK because those countries provide us with oil?

For about $15 billion a year, the 125 million children worldwide who have never attended school could be educated, says Oxfam International, a leading advocacy group for the poor. So why is it so difficult to invest in something that could help prevent war and so easy to spend that much and more to wage war?

Of the 183 nations represented at the World Bank meeting in Ottawa on Sunday, all but one expressed support for a substantial increase in aid to developing countries.

That one was us. Why?

"Over the last 50 years, the world has spent an awful large amount of money in the name of development without a great degree of success," said U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill.

He wouldn't be talking about the billions in cash and armaments that we give to our dictator friends who — surprise! — steal the money and become our enemies when we don't need them anymore?

Or those countries that receive the monetary equivalent of straw and are then expected to spin gold?

Or those whom we help to develop products, and then offer to buy the products at insultingly low prices if not ban their importation altogether?

"We would agree with O'Neill that there has been a lot of misuse of aid, but much of that is because it has been given for political reasons," said Jo Marie Griesgraber, director of policy for Oxfam America.

She cited Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire as the worst example but could have included the Taliban and former U.S. pals Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden as well.

U.S. aid contributions to the World Bank total about 0.1 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, the lowest among the Group of Seven major industrial countries.

And yet, we lecture the world about combating terrorism — you're either with us or against us, says President Bush — even though others have been fighting harder and longer, frequently without our support.

At the World Bank meeting in Ottawa, Britain's Brown proposed a $50 billion increase in aid provided annually to developing countries to reach a U.N. goal of halving global poverty by 2015.

The proposal was aimed at feeding the hungry, reducing infant mortality and ensuring that children learn to read. The amount suggested is less than the world coughed up virtually overnight for the war in Afghanistan.

"We understand that for people to lead decent lives, a lot will be up to them and their governments," Griesgraber said. "But we also recognize that people need help. And if we have been given more, it's been given to share."

Half of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day, while the richest 20 percent consumes more than 80 percent of the world's resources, according to United Nations Development Program statistics.

We profess to care about this inequity. But when it comes to putting our money where our mouth is, we say, "Go fly a kite."

Which raises a final question: If we have no permanent values — if we show concern for others only when there is something in it for us, if friends and freedoms are made and discarded as matters of convenience — how can we expect to win a so-called war of "good vs. evil"?

Here's a fact: Beards can grow back.

Courtland Milloy writes for the Washington Post.

Copyright 2001 The Daily Camera

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