MrLasVegas wrote:
Why? A debt is a debt. Don't borrow money if you cannot pay it back. Be it person or country. As bad as the immediate financial future is in so many parts of the US, that money is badly needed, in the US.
Yes, a debt is a debt and CR is one of the few countries that consistently votes in support of US positions in the UN. You don't suppose those votes, including their ones backing us going into Iraq, came for nothing. Hell, we give a lot more in aid to countries like Egypt, Afghanistan and Colombia and what do we get from them - the Muslim Brotherhood, the harboring of Osama Bin Laden and cocaine. Only Israel, which gets more aid than any of them, is more consistent in its support of the US despite our many phucked up foreign policy positions and that is probably as much because of our vetoing all the resolutions against them as it is because of any money we give them. No, I think for $26 million we're getting off pretty cheap.
Of course, another way to go would be to not alienate every other country in the world by taking such positions as opposing the Kyoto Protocol while at the same time being the leading producer of greenhouse gases. Then maybe we wouldn't be so hard up for other countries' support. Not only would we save the $26 million we're writing off with CR, but we'd be doing far more for the environment then we'd ever do by saving a few trees in CR (as noble as that may be).
Here's another thought. You don't suppose that the timing of this debt write-off, coming so close on the heels of CR finally going along with CAFTA, is just a mere coincidence. That agreement, which we essentially rammed down their throats, will mean FAR more than $26 million in additional profits for OUR corporations. A debt is a debt and this $26 million could really be seen as just a down payment on what WE really owe to CR rather than the other way around.
There! What do you all have to say to that?
BTW, the US may be the world's largest provider of official development assistance in absolute terms but relative to it's economy it ranks way behind many other developed countries (e.g. Germany, UK, all of Scandanavia, Australia, etc.) (source:
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp#RankingtheRichbasedonCommitmenttoDevelopment)