“Foreign development aid is critical to our national security strategy”

Mar 16th, 2010 12:00 PM UTC
By Steve Wilson

ONE member Will Bennett from Florida served 12 years in the Air Force as a technical sergeant supporting peacekeeping and wartime missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. In an op-ed in today’s Miami Herald, he writes powerfully about the connection between smart U.S. global poverty-fighting efforts and U.S. national security. Says Sgt. Bennett:

As a war veteran, I know that choosing to forgo the benefits gained by investing in foreign development could ultimately result in increased spending in the form of military action or emergency aid in the future. By curtailing our investments to save a relatively small amount of money in the short term, we are simply putting off and increasing the eventual cost of leaving conditions like extreme poverty, illiteracy and widespread disease to fester and grow.

Instead, we should invest now in efforts that we know work, like funding for the fight against HIV/AIDS and malaria, helping poor countries put children in school and expanding trade opportunities so those people can escape pull themselves out of poverty.

While serving in Iraq, I witnessed on a daily basis the results of successful implementation of development projects organized and funded by the military and completed by our Iraqi partners.

You can read the full op-ed here.

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