[Cloudbringer]

Hiram, thanks for your post! You should NEVER feel squeamish about posting your thoughts or ideas. That's ostensibly what the forum is for! I get the feeling you were afraid to post that because you've seen so much criticism of America on the whole aid matter (not to Afghanistan, but to the world as Ronn pointed out), that you were expecting a barrage of criticisms of your position on the matter. Well, I do hope that it isn't the case, because you made a point that is often overlooked. One reason that our govt doesn't do alot more (and it isn't mentioned much by US detractors when complaining that Americans don't 'give enough' to others), is that our politicians DO face a strong "US FIRST" attitude in their constituency. And that stems from the feeling that if we can't help our own citizens out of poverty, illness, disasters etc., then how can we save the world?

I used to be one of those people, but these days I feel we must do our best to help whenever we can and if an entire country (like Afghanistan) is in such dissaray that our aid can do some good, we surely must try. Still, you are right in that we do not do enough (at least effectively) for our own citizens sometimes.

Cloudy

PS, Ronn, do you check your pm's? [img]smile.gif[/img]