Yeah right. The US sure is "helping" a lot. The US is trying to help ensure the continued starvation and development of cancer in the children of Iraq by upholding the Economic sanctions against that country and by not offering to go in and clean up the depleted Uranium scattered all over what used to be fertile farmland. Iraq wouldn't need as much of the oil-for-food program as it does now if it wasn't for all the "help" it got from the US! And to top it all off Madeline Albright claims it was all worth it (Sanctions to try to oust Sadam Hussein). Well, so far you got a lot of pain and no gain. The Iraqi children aren't looking any beefier after this workout. And Sadam isn't looking any slimmer.

Afghanistan was a lucky PR break for the US. They watered down the coverage of the CIA-Taliban connection and managed to get away with only killing 3000 or so innocent civilians while liberating the country from the Taliban. Lucky for the US that they bought all the rights to the commercial Satelite pictures of the area so independent nosy journalists could not question the Pentagon's version of what was going on. Lucky too, that enough people came down from the mountains to bigger villages during the winter to make it seem likely that not too many people starved, as was being oh-noed about by Global Exchange and others just before winter 2001. Lucky too that there are 50 armed gaurds provided by the US Military to escort the new Afghani president through his "liberated" country. If the US had just left well enough alone when the semi-democratic government was in power in Afghanistan the early 1980's, the Soviets would not have needed to "help" the Afghanis by invading (they were asked to come in because the US backed Geurillas were taking over). And the US would not have needed to "help" destroy the Soviet Union, accomplished in part by deliberately sticking them with the Tar-baby called Afghanistan. (Some theorize that the events that led to the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets were put there deliberately by the US so that the Soviets could experience their own "Vietnam" and fall apart. The US military had a simillar problem with morale during the Vietnam war so they knew the potential of this, though they didn't talk about it much or want it to be revisted upon themselves.) The Soviet Union, while very repressive in some ways was a place where communist party members were slightly less likely to retain their parlament seats than congresspeople are in the US, and where everyone had something to eat and a roof over their head, unlike the "fair market" situation that exists now. Where organized crime is on the rise and life expectancy is falling. It's bad enough being homeless in the US where the temprature in many places doesn't get much below freezing. How would you like to try it in 50 below? So much for the US "helping" people in the Arab world.