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The Soon Coming Judgment Of God Upon America and How To Escape It 120
For many… countries, such a shifting of tastes is no small concern-it
makes long-term self-reliance even more difficult. South Korea became the
largest third world importer of U.S. agricultural goods after years of food aid
coupled with intensive marketing of wheat products by AID. This marketing
campaign changed the South Korean diet drastically by creating a growing
demand for wheat.
370
Disrupting foreign agricultural markets to bolster US farm exports is unconscionable but
it pales to the most significant cause of famine in the world. The most significant causes of
famine, hunger and hunger related deaths in the twentieth century were war and the decisions
and actions of brutal dictatorial governments.
371
Many of these dictators have been propped up
by US foreign aid. “For instance, [according to Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute] the aid
agencies never met a dictator that they didn't like and wouldn't subsidize—generously.
Mengistu's Ethiopia, Ceausescu's Romania, Deng's China and Mobuto's Zaire all received grants
and loans from bilateral and multilateral sources.”
372
US aid has also gone to “undemocratic and
repressive governments—in Iran, the Philippines, El Salvador, Indonesia, and many other
countries—only because they were loyal U.S. allies.”
373
This aid was in total disregard of the
consequences born by the citizens in these countries.
For example, when Ferdinand Marcos became President of the Philippines in 1966, the
Philippines, after Japan, was the most prosperous nation in Asia. There total foreign debt was
$500 million. In 1972, Marcos imposed Martial Law and according to the World Bank the debt
rose to $1.9 billion. After Martial Law was imposed the foreign loans flooded in over the next 14
years and the debt of the Philippines skyrocketed to $28.1 billion by 1986. What did the country
have to show for all that debt? Nothing!
374
Another example can be seen in Zaire, Africa. Under
President Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire received $8.5 billion in grants and loans between 1970 and
1994. It is believed that between $4 billion and $7 billion of this money flowed into Mobutu’s
personal Swiss bank accounts. The country is left with a massive international debt with no way
to repay it and nothing to show for it.
375
Although the propping up of dictators is horrible, it is the backing of wars that is the most
destructive. “Throughout the 1980s [US] official military assistance was flowing to more than
100 nations annually, far more than were strategically important even during the Cold War.”
376
US arm sales and military aid has contributed to the number one cause of famine in the world,
which is war. During the early 1990’s our arms sales “exceeded those of all other nations
combined. At times we have even armed both sides of a conflict as is shown in the quote below
by Congresswoman MacKinney:
…the United States contributes directly to armed conflicts around the
world-which are a major cause of hunger and famine…. [According to
Congresswoman MacKinney] U.S. arms sales in the early 1990s exceeded those
of all other nations combined…. For every four weapons involved in such
trafficking, three are estimated to come from the United States, many of them
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