Read "Hill, Aid Groups: One Opaque System Replaced Another," Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, July 22, 2007.

Excerpts:

"The fight over U.S. foreign aid has been largely hidden from the public, but it is likely to emerge Tuesday, when the Senate holds confirmation hearings for Henrietta H. Fore, the undersecretary of state for management and the nominee to replace Tobias as the deputy secretary of state for foreign assistance.

The bulk of the $23 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid goes to a handful of key countries, leaving about 120 nations to battle over $3 billion of the pie. India, for example, is one of the big losers in Rice's foreign aid revolution. All U.S. aid to assist India in education, women's rights, democracy and sanitation is terminated under the new system. Overall aid to India -- where 80 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day -- would be cut 35 percent in 2008, to $81 million, on the theory that India has one of the best-performing economies in the world."

Comment: Let us work to bring attention of the public to the perversion of foreign aid that has occurred under the Bush administration as a result of its war oriented foreign policy, and its lack of humanitarian and environmental concerns, not to mention its lack of a reasonable long term strategy in the international arena. JAD