Tom, Tom, Tom. You look at just this tiny part of the big picture. Certainly we give aid to the Palestinians but we also give equal or larger amounts of aid to people they view as enemies and it's in the form of armaments. I am not saying it's right or wrong to deal arms around the world. My personal opinion hardly counts in this argument. What I'm saying is that our aid comes in the form of extremely mixed messages where the net effect seems to be ending up detrimental.

Consider the humanitarian aid that does get done in the Mideast. A large part of it comes from religious organizations (primarily Christian that now get governmental funding through Bush's Faith Based Initiative) which might just be seen as a threat by Muslims. Most are probably doing work for the best of intentions but you also have to know that the fundamentalist religious right would see opportunities to push their agendas on the area's victims as well through these aid organizations. It's certainly my guess that, if that opportunism exists, it takes only a few bad examples to sour the overall impression of the mostly honorable intentions.

I've always thought that every American needs to give something back to their country and the World. Maybe it's time to compel every citizen to put in at least 2 years of national service in the area of their choice. Instead of it being just the military option, foreign aid or ambassadorship could be one of the areas. The organization would be non-secular and devoted to service in a foreign country designed to help the locals pull themselves up by their bootstraps by building schools, farms, and other forms of commerce. They could get on the job training in medical work or engineering and at the same time create an immense amount of good will. There would be risks of course but a life of substance carries those.

I'd be proud if my sons chose such a calling even though it'd be extremely scary seeing them ship off to volatile parts of the world. But, it would certainly less than them enlisting to an army that makes them hated targets by a larger portion of the world.

Art