Monday, July 03, 2006
Generous USDA (Yes, There is Santa Claus)
The Gift Program "approved by Congress" * Our Friends In Somalia * Election, South of the Border
$1.3 billion is a large amount of money by any account. That is what our Dept. of Agriculture paid out to people as subsidy for not using their land to farm. The report in the Post made me gasp. "EL CAMPO, Tex. -- Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years. Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual "direct payments," because years ago the land was used to grow rice."
- Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.
- Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a seed. Mary Anna Hudson, 87, from the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston, has received $191,000 over the past decade. For Houston surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell, the total was $490,709.
Somalia is as good a place as any to spread some cash, buy some friends and win popularity. The details of why the U.S. paid money to a group of war lords in Somalia to enable them to arm themselves and, instead of reaping benefits, helped the return of a militant leader who is reported to have ties to al-Qaeda should not come as a surprise. The U.S. usually sides with groups hated by local people. Washington Post: "The Americans were in Somalia because of concerns about terrorism, not land. But when the gunfire rang out, the sources said, the U.S. officials wrongly concluded that they were under attack by Islamic terrorists and abruptly fled. It was a provocation, U.S. officials later told Somalis, that demanded a muscular response."
- "In the weeks that followed this little-known incident, which U.S. officials have refused to confirm or deny, the United States expanded its role in Somalia to levels not seen since it abandoned the country in 1994. The Americans helped organize a group of secular warlords into an "anti-terror coalition" and provided them with a large, steady diet of cash.
- The warlords, feared and hated by many Somalis, bragged about the money as they armed themselves as never before.
- The infusion of cash upset a fragile balance between the two sides -- but not in the direction the Americans had hoped.
- By March, the warlords were under siege. By June 6, they had fled. And by June 24, Hassan Dahir Aweys, a militant Islamic leader hostile to Western democracy and reputed to have ties to al-Qaeda, had taken control of Mogadishu. Late last week, Osama bin Laden boasted of successes there in an audiotape that singled out Somalia as a front in his war against Americans.
Too close to call. While officials are still checking numbers, both leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon are claiming victory. But Mexico is not likely to go through a repeat of Bush-Gore 2000.
