1famine.JPG
In this Monday, Aug. 29, 2016 file photo, a malnourished child is weighed on a scales at a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Maiduguri, Nigeria. The United Nations children's agency warned Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017 that almost 1.4 million children are at "imminent risk of death" as famine threatens parts of South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen.
(AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
Mike Kane's recent letter on the danger of famine in four struggling countries says that we have a moral responsibility to feed the hungry ("Nothing to spare for the hungry," March 16). He's absolutely right! As he points out, the Trump administration's plan to cut foreign aid--while demanding money for corporate tax breaks, weapons, and walls along the border--is a moral catastrophe. But it's also a foreign policy blunder. Over 120 retired generals and admirals just reminded Congress of the importance of diplomacy and development aid, as did Republican Marco Rubio in a speech on the Senate floor. A recent column by Nicholas Kristof, making the same point, compared war-torn Yemen, one of the countries facing famine, with neighboring Oman, now a "boring," peaceful country that decided to educate its boys and girls. We can help to create prosperous, stable societies, or we can try to figure out how to end the brutal regional wars we read about in the headlines. It's a choice between win-win and the Trump alternative, which (to put it bluntly) is lose-lose.
Randolph Splitter, Northwest Portland