A Review of Philip Stiefer’s “The War on Terror and Foreign Aid Cost Too Much”

          In this Blog author, Philip Stiefer, proposes that the logical method to decrease national spending is to cut the two largest government expenses, Foreign Aid and Defense.  Stiefer begins his argument of decreasing defense spending with the often unknown fact that the war in Afghanistan is the longest war in US history, as well as the most expensive at close to $11 billion a month.  His proposal is a withdrawal of all US troops from all theaters of action, and while this may seem like a good idea to some I simply cannot agree.  The removal of US troops from Theaters such as Kosivo, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan would result in those countries being thrown into an even more serious state of chaos.  It would also seriously jeopardize the lives of all those who made the mistake of helping us in those conflicts, as well as seriously threatening our national security. 

           

            I think that a more reasonable proposition would be the downsizing of US Troops in those areas by increasing the UN’s rolls in those theaters.  Readdressing the roles that American Soldiers play in those conflicts is another way to reduce our presence and overall expenses.  By shifting our forces into a training and oversight based roll we can reduce the number of soldiers in harms way as well as the economic footprint these actions leave.  These changes however will have to be done slowly to accomplish the goal safely, a lesson that was learned with human lives after a hasty withdrawal from Vietnam.

            Stiefer’s second argument of reducing and restricting US Foreign Aid is something that I whole-heartedly agree with and an issue that I cannot believe has not received more attention throughout the last election.  The projected spending on US Foreign Aid during 2010 is over 10 TIMES the national budget for education an idea that, in my humble opinion, is completely ludicrous. The author makes a very good argument about the fact that while our nation has the highest Defense and Foreign Aid budget in the World we are falling faster and faster in categories like education and incarceration.  This is a smart, well written, blog and while I may not agree with all the details the idea of reducing these expenditures is one that we cannot afford to ignore any longer.  I hope that you read this Blog and that you find it as intriguing and though provoking as I did, you can find a link to this piece below:

http://philipstiefer.blogspot.com/