Saturday, January 04, 2003

UNRWA, terrorism, and poverty

I was looking at UNRWA's website today. It was mentioned in the times. They have a whole page defending themselves against the allegations that they are really supporters of terrorism. They never really deny the allegations, they merely deflect the criticism saying things like they do not know of any . . , and they have not been officially accused of . . . .. Anyway, According to their site, over 60% of the population is malnourished, and dying, and they are providing all sorts of assistance. It is alwo a well known fact that the birthrates in the areas under UNRWA's control (ie, the Palestinians) have skyrocketed. Theories about this abound, but essentially the reason is obvious. UNRWA is keeping everyone alive just enough to reporoduce. The rates of malnutrition, poverty, and disease would greatly be reduced if the birthrate was lowered. But the UN has little interest in providing birth control to the populace. At least they do not mention it on their website. UNRWA ought to distribute condoms. This will do much more for the long term health of the Palestinians than providing millions in susitance-level aid to each individual.

This is actually just as true for other impovrished countries. Mother Theresa would have done much more good giving out condoms than food. She made sure that everyone can live enough to produce numerous children who would also be supported long enough to give birth to numerous children.

In India the problem is a little weirder. In places like Calcutta, historically a family needed to have 10 children so that two of them would live to adulthjood and provide for the family. At this rate the population was kept stable and poor. Now with the interference of "do-gooders" like the late Mother Theresa, the population skyrockets and everyone is way below poor, they are impoverished and malnourished. They are kept impovrished because they have not learned to solve the problems. They provide more and more money, and so more and more people are alive. Now eight of ten children live to adulthood and they all have eight children who live to adulthood. so while the world has learned to help, the local populations have not done their share by adjusting their birthrates accordingly. This is the nourishment and population and enviornmental problem of the 21st century.