The great charity robbery

Posted: November 27, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Opinion | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

It’s official.  With little time left to donate, Children in Need 2011 has raised a record breaking total of £26.3m; undoubtedly a worthy achievement.  The impact this money will have on some lives, families and organisations is immeasurable, although when compared with the UK foreign aid budget the money raised appears almost paltry in comparison.  Alarmingly, the impact of much of the UK’s 2011 £8bn foreign aid budget is measurable, often in terms of what it fails to achieve – a recent House of Commons report stated that with regards to British aid spending in Malawi, ‘evidence of the value for money of its spending… is hard to find.’  Even the United Nations has recently begun to question whether foreign aid is the best way to help countries.

Two of the biggest receivers of UK foreign aid are India and Pakistan.  In both countries severe poverty affects vast tracts of the population; although despite this both countries in 2011 were able to afford to research, build and maintain vast armies and large nuclear forces.  For example, Pakistan has just announced the purchase of two squadrons of J-10 fighters from China, at an estimated cost of $1.4bn.  Likewise, India has signed a $10.5bn fighter jet contract, allegedly one of the world’s largest on offer.

If India and Pakistan can afford to lavish money on capabilities which almost all Western donor nations have either cut or are considering cutting at a time of global economic uncertainty, how is it that they are unable to feed their own population and release millions from the clutches of desperate poverty?  Some respected academics such as the Zambian-born and Harvard-educated Dambisa Moyo have speculated that it is because there are often no caveats attached to foreign aid donations.  Often, these donations simply provide freely usable cash.

According to the hype that encourages the public to donate to Children in Need, many British charities owe their existence solely to the generosity of the public during the annual Children in Need money raising drive.  One of these charities is the Leeds Spiders Wheelchair Basketball Club whose aim is to promote inclusion in sport for disabled people in Yorkshire.  In an interview with the One Show, Paralympic basketball star and TV presenter Ade Adepitan discovered that were it not for Children in Need and the donations of the taxpaying public, the vital service that the Leeds Spiders provides to disabled people would have ceased to exist long ago. As of today, Leeds Spiders is a charity which receives virtually no public funding despite the tremendous work that they do.

The Air Ambulance. Often unknown by many that this vital service is totally reliant on charitable donations from members of the public.

Alas, it is not just the Leeds Spiders who do not receive public funding – there are countless numbers of other charities around the UK who provide a fantastic service to that are in need yet rely solely on public goodwill.  The British Heart Foundation, Marie Curie Cancer Care and regional Air Ambulances are just a few of the names that can be found on the high street, relying almost exclusively on public donations.  Such lack of support creates the question; instead of hosing down ungrateful and uncooperative foreign governments with increasing amounts of increasingly scarce cash, why does the UK not do more to help domestic charities?

In comparison, the £26.3m that Children in Need 2011 raised is a mere 2% of the £11.4bn the UK expects to donate annually as foreign aid in 2015.  There is even evidence that in some instances foreign aid harms countries more than it helps because it gives dictators a free, untraceable supply of money and therefore the means to remain in power and dominate their populations.  The same cannot be said for those British based charities lucky enough to receive donations from a well-intentioned public; even a charity which could be accused of ‘wasting’ money must still file their annual financial information with the Charity Commission so as to aid public trust and show transparency.

My point is this.  Whilst much of the mammoth UK foreign aid budget is designed to fund noble projects and eliminate severe poverty around the globe, why does the UK government instead choose to rely virtually solely on the generosity of the British public to pay to help people of Britain who are also in need of charitable help?  Why is Her Majesty’s Government unable to provide these charities with some of the capital they need to help domestic citizens?

After reading this article one could be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that I am promoting the abolishment of foreign aid.  However, this assumption would be incorrect.  When used responsibly and fairly, UK foreign aid has the potential to help millions of people around the world.  Likewise, if a fraction of this money were to be used to help British charities in the UK, such aid would also have the potential to help millions of British people.

After all, in a rational world providing partial funding to an award winning Paralympic basketball team is surely fairer than funding the military expansion of a nuclear armed country…

‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’

Posted: November 1, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: International Politics | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

And on the 2nd May, 2011 the people of the United States finally got their wish – the death of Osama Bin Laden, leader of the Taliban and orchestrator of the 9/11 attacks on New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.  Whilst few people are likely to have shed tears over his death, the ‘kill or capture’ orders from President Obama were presumed by many to have only had one outcome in mind from the start, that being the death of Bin Laden.  Now the fallout from the daring raid by the US Navy Seals has settled the question can be asked; should the United States have issued orders to kill Bin Laden if he resisted, or should orders to capture and bring to trial have been further encouraged instead?

If Osama Bin Laden had been captured, the United States would have entered into a legal and political minefield.  The problems associated with detaining and extracting someone from a sovereign state without prior permission would have no doubt given the United States a headache, although legal fears that Bin Laden would have had to be handed over to the International Criminal Court remain unfounded due to the absence of a US signature at the time of the September 11th attacks.

Additionally, security and impartiality at the trial would have been another troublesome issue.  The desire to not only prevent Bin Laden from escaping but also protect him would have required security on a monumental scale.  Likewise, all those involved would have needed to ensure that the trial did not descend into a farce similar to that of Saddam Hussein where the trial was seen as an extension of American influence and where sound coverage of Saddam’s rants was often edited.

Finally, when the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion had been reached, would the United States have pursued the death penalty and potentially martyred him to Islamic extremists, or would several life sentences ensuring that Bin Laden was never able to apply for parole have been handed out?

Whilst these questions can never be answered, it is clear that as a result of killing Osama Bin Laden instantly and not bringing him to trial the United States pre-empted the above problems and prevented a costly, problematic and potentially drawn-out trial through the eyes of the international media, organisations and governments.

Overcoming these problems through Bin Laden’s quick death does not however mean that the United States has been vindicated in not taking greater risks to bring the world’s most wanted terrorist to trial.  Obviously, events that took place during the operation cannot be trivialised and may never be fully known, although by issuing the order to capture only if there was no threat to the American assault team the Obama administration had effectively ordered his execution due to the likelihood of concealed weapons and explosives.  No doubt in an ideal world where morals reign supreme and the desire for revenge was not so profound, capturing and then placing Bin Laden on trial would have been the ideal response.

Assuming that Bin Laden would not offer any substantial information on the Taliban network if captured, by putting him on trial the United States would have had nothing to lose as his ideology and beliefs would have been laid bare for all to see.  By allowing him to be properly tried in an open court of law, the myth and legend of the man would have been debunked; he would have been seen as a fragile man who encouraged the killing of innocent civilians through his twisted interpretation of Islam.  Such a process has been done before; at the Nuremberg Trials of 1945 – 46 the remaining twenty four high ranking Nazis were placed on trial, their corrupt and racist beliefs being seen by all.

This is not how Bin Laden would have wanted to have been remembered.  He no doubt died with a smile on his face as he was killed by a Western ‘infidel’ bullet, not through old age and rotting in an American jail, kept alive in a country which he had frequently referred to as the Great Satan.

After all, had Bin Laden been placed on trial and convicted, what better way for the American public to get ‘justice,’ ‘revenge’ and ‘closure’ than by having Osama Bin Laden locked away in a New York high security jail – the very city his followers attacked in an attempt to bring about the demise of America fittingly being the location of his perpetual detention and demise?