On returning from a private aid mission, Don Slesnick, the mayor of Coral Gables, Florida, complained: "We were saddened to see rice bags travel no more than 20 (meters) from the gates of the distribution site before ending up in the back of a pickup truck presumably headed for the black market. To our further dismay, we returned home to read news stories that those very same donations were undercutting Haitian rice farmers who needed income to support their own families."
Worse is Somalia. Reported the New York Times last year: "As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members."
Two decades ago Michael Maren worked with private aid organizations in Somalia and concluded: "Separately we'd arrived at the conclusion that the relief program was probably killing as many people as it was saving, and the net result was that Somali soldiers were supplementing their income by selling food, while the [insurgent force] — often indistinguishable from the army — was using the food as rations to fuel their attacks into Ethiopia."
Washington and other industrialized nations, like Japan, should reconsider the aid business. Financial transfers rarely are necessary for the West's defense. The Cold War is over and America's allies, including regional powers Israel and Turkey, should have graduated from U.S. assistance years ago.
Most Third World nations are tangential at best to American or allied security. While it's harder to criticize humanitarian aid, private money spent by private organizations is the best way to help those in need around the world.
As for economic development, officials in wealthy industrialized nations should focus on improving their own economic policies and easing access of other nations to the international marketplace.
Despite foreign aid's abysmal record, the Obama administration continues to back the program. Clinton should listen to her own rhetoric: "It's time to retire old debates and replace dogmatic attitudes with clear reasoning and common sense."
One of those dogmas is the assumption that foreign "aid" acts as assistance rather than hindrance. With America drowning in red ink, Washington must cut unnecessary programs. So must its friends and allies. Misnamed foreign aid is a good place to start.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of "Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire" (Xulon Press).
