GeorgeWBush.com :: Agenda for America – Chapter 4
Promoting Development and Reform – Through the Millennium Challenge Account, President Bush will increase America’s development assistance by 50 percent to support nations that demonstrate a commitment to governing justly, investing in their people, and promoting economic freedom.
The Blame America First crowd are fond of telling us that the roots of terrorism are in poverty. They do it simply to excuse the current terrorist with sort of a battered-wife-syndrome-writ-large defense for the otherwise indefensible and not as the foundation for any real long term plan to change things. At best they advocate more US handouts, continually doing for the poor of the world what they can and should do for themselves. The Bush administration recognizes that you don’t excuse the rich mastermind because he uses poverty to recruit. Faced with that you do two things. First, you fight the terrorist with force, as is right, since no amount of poverty excuses mass murder. We may forgive a man for stealing a loaf of bread if his children are hungry. We do not forgive his killing our children while his followers children, now orphaned, continue to starve. Second, you cut the legs out from under his recruiting with an agenda that empowers people, creates economic opportunity and expands freedom.