No but keeping Ebola from becoming a world wide problem is in the US interests and USAID was a very cheap way to advance that goal. We funded USAID out of decency (and to gain a reputation for decency, which is worth a lot of money) sure, but also to protect ourselves.

> (and to gain a reputation for decency, which is worth a lot of money)

And how is America's reputation for decency doing these days, a mere year into cutting some of this funding?

Sounds like a job for the WHO - maybe the UN can do it's job.

> Sounds like a job for the WHO - maybe the UN can do it's job.

Ah, the WHO that has recently lost money from its largest contributor, a contributor that unexpectedly stopped its contributions without explanation.

There you go again -you want the US government to solve the world's problems. Also, you're passively calling the WHO an infective organization because it can't handle this outbreak on its own without US funding. That implies it's a useless organization and therefore the US was justified removing funding.

Maybe you should be advocating for the 194 member states of the WHO to contribute more so the world doesn't need to rely on the political winds of the US election cycle.

I replied to one of your sibling posts. You can re-interpret these facts as you wish, but the WHO was working in December and radically transformed in February.

I think that indicates inefficacy and poor insight, but not in the WHO.

> you want the US government to solve the world's problems

It's called leading. You've voluntarily thrown in the towel on US leadership. Good job.

Good thing it's called the World Health Organization and not the American Health Organization, that way the 95.9% of the world that is not America can contribute to it.

> Good thing it's called the World Health Organization and not the American Health Organization, that way the 95.9% of the world that is not America can contribute to it.

First, imagine that your boss/largest customer decided, on a whim, to reduce your remuneration by half on the first of January. Where are you making up that money if there's nowhere else in the world that you can immediately turn to?

Anyway, other nations are spending more.

The World Health Organization and UN are just politically convenient names. These organizations were created by a victorious America to project power, like the takeover of UK military bases and exportation of US culture in the Marshall Plan.

How reprehensible that we throw away such power without receiving anything in exchange.

[1] Helpful example - we initially blocked penicillin production in other countries, despite having joined WHO, in furtherance of American interests https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-cold-wars-lasting-effec...

> No but keeping Ebola from becoming a world wide problem is in the US interests and USAID was a very cheap way to advance that goal. We funded USAID out of decency (and to gain a reputation for decency, which is worth a lot of money) sure, but also to protect ourselves.

Foreign aid also sustains armed conflict in DRC, because international health groups have to bribe military groups for security... perpetuating the civil war, a fallout of the Tusti Genocide in Rwanda.

The situation is bad... 6 million people died since 1996... the majority from indirect consequences of the conflict... (thus disease, famine and co), and to access these victims and help them, international organisations have to pay off the very military groups that wage that civil war, thus sustaining them...

>> It receives relatively little attention now, but in terms of sheer numbers the cuts to the USAID program have had and will continue to have the largest death toll of anything this administration does.

> The US is not responsible for fixing every world issue. Just because they've helped in the past doesn't make them morally responsible for every current and future crisis.

Your answer doesn't quite respond to the GP but instead feels like an expression of political opinion.

From a moral stance, the action of stopping something seems quite distinct from a position in which the thing had never occurred.

That which you did not do for the least of these, you also did not do for me.

I'm not a highly religious person so I may well be wrong about this, but my understanding of Christian principles (as you referenced in your Bible quote) is that you, the individual, should do these kind things to other individuals personally; and in that act of doing so personally, you become closer to God.

What we have instead is that taxes are collected by an entity with the monopoly on violence (and of course, it's understood that the people making more than you are not paying their "fair share") whether you like it or not, spent by people who generally have boundless disdain for the very people who pay those taxes, on people and causes on the other side of the planet. There's no connection between people, or between people and God, in this scenario.

> I'm not a highly religious person so I may well be wrong about this, but my understanding of Christian principles (as you referenced in your Bible quote) is that you, the individual, should do these kind things to other individuals personally; and in that act of doing so personally, you become closer to God.

Why not read the verse and see that this refers to collections of people? The source material is readily available, no reason to speculate.

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/matthew/25.htm

I have read the source material. It says nothing about the morality of an intermediary forcibly redistributing wealth.

Again, the onus is on the individual to act kindly. If anything, handing that duty off to a third party is a reduction of morals. You are also speculating if you claim that there is a moral equivalence between the two.

I think we're going to disagree, which is fine, but I'll post the text and let others assess what the meanings of 'nations' is in the context of the quotation.

--

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/matthew/25.htm

31“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the [c]holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.

[...]

41“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

44“Then they also will answer [d]Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

It's easy to demand that other people be generous with their resources.

>> That which you did not do for the least of these, you also did not do for me.

> It's easy to demand that other people be generous with their resources.

This is a reference to the Bible, a sentence that Jesus delivered.

I think helping control ebola pays a few dividends for the US. It was not completely selfless.

No dollar was ever spent by the US government outside of the US if not in self interest. Failing to see these cuts as sabotaging US interests is very, very naïve.

It's simple self-interest. Sure, sit on your money and smile while your neighbors die of Ebola. It won't happen here? Sure it could. When the chumps in DC tear down the infrastructure that managed things like this, then we become massively vulnerable.