Dan Carrick 5th hour H. English 11 I-Search Paper Most people never see anything outside of this country.

It seems the only reason to leave the country any more is to go on some extravagant vacation. Me, Im different. I didnt leave the country to go on a vacation. I traveled to the Dominican Republic to go on a mission trip in order to help a local church. My interest in going to the Dominican Republic started as a kid; I was always so jealous because members of our congregation would leave and get to go to a foreign country. They always brought back amazing stories and events that happened to them while they were down there, so my passion to go became greater every passing year. For reasons I couldnt understand when I was little, my parents and the church said I had to wait until I was 16. But, I got older and became more mature and I began to find out more and more that a foreign country is anything but tropic. I experienced the trip and truly realized what actually happened in some third world countries. They are full of poverty, civil unrest, and crime. However, even with knowing the dangers and risks involved in going to the Dominican Republic, I was never deterred to go. Then, my junior year, my opportunity arose: IM FINALLY GOING TO THE D.R.! For ten days I would spend my time in the D.R. helping and trying to spread the gospel to a place where hope was very much needed. Ten people and I spent a good two years planning and prepping for the trip: raising the necessary funds, prepping ourselves for the

trip, and finally packing our bags to head down to the Dominican Republic. Some people claim that officially that he D.R. is a second world country) as opposed to a 3rd world country) because they are growing economically, revolutionizing themselves, and becoming more like the US culture wise. In other words they are getting a strong economy and greater advancements in technologies and medicines. But, my experience was nothing even remotely close to that. Santo Domingo, the Capital of the Dominican Republic, is a very modern city. It reminds you of a big southern U.S. city like Houston or Dallas. But, we were not going to stay in Santo Domingo. Where we went was two hours north. While Santo Domingo was modern you go 10 minutes outside of Santo Domingo and you are in a third world country. Houses are made out of garbage: Im not saying that to be mean; they literally lived in garbage! Things that had been thrown out or scraps of metal and wood that they found lying around are made into somewhat of a house. I spent seven days in complete disbelief and time and time again I was amazed at the suffering. The houses had large families living in a space the size of half my garage. You couldnt drink the water because you would get sick; even the people living there could not drink the water. Every day I became more and more thankful for what I have back here at home. People in a poor country can go through hell. But, they are some of the most content and happy people I have ever met. Though they suffer and have hardships, they persevere and fight every day for life. The poor people in the U.S. are rich compared to

these the people. The United Sates government is always trying to better help the poor and sick; by: enacting healthcare plans, protection, food banks, hospitals, and giving us clean drinking water. We take things like this for advantage every day here. Down in the Dominican Republic day to day life is completely different. Everything given to them (If given to them) they feel like they won the million dollar jackpot. I remember the people who came to the job site where we worked were so overjoyed for our help that they cried because they thought they could never thank us enough. The Dominican Republic is just one example of people all over the world that need help and are suffering, while we sit on our butts and feel sorry for ourselves because of things that are just so trivial. There are countries in the world where rights given to us here in the U.S. are taken from them or ignored. Things like your food, your house, your clean water, and your life. Some countries have dictators and tyrants ruling over them, and they have to live every day in fear. What I hope to accomplish with my I-Search project is this: I want to know what is Americas stand on foreign policy, how much does America give to a Struggling country and how does the country decide when to intervene and what do we do once we intervene? Foreign policy has a habit of changing basically from year to year based on incidents and misfortunes that happen upon either the US or a foreign nation. So what is the current guiding principle the US follows right now. An official correspondent at the White House he says this: President Obama has pursued

national security policies that keep the American people safe, while turning the page on a decade of war and restoring American leadership abroad. Since President Obama took office, the United States has devastated al Qaedas leadership. Now, thanks to our extraordinary servicemen and women, we have reached a pivotal moment we definitively ended the war in Iraq and have begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, we have refocused on a broader set of priorities around the globe that will allow the United States to be safe, strong, and prosperous in the 21st century. To advance Americas national security, the President is committed to using all elements of American power, including the strength of Americas values (White house). Since the war on terrorism began in 2001 a lot of the countrys foreign policy has been based on dictions to combat these acts and prevent harm to the US. But, what about struggling countries that we arent trying to fight how do they fit into our foreign policy? So I decided to tackle the question of just how much does the United States spend assisting foreign countries. My research lead me to the US official business file on foreign policy from 2000-2010. While I didnt have time to read through the 600 page pact Vaughnor Aubuchon, who breaks down all sorts of official government documents, gave me a ton of help. For starters I found out one-third of all United States aid goes to Israel and Egypt (The majority of which pays for armaments); yet, neither is a "developing" country. These two countries, at this time period, received between 1.5 billion and 3.2 billion annually from the United States. Also combining with Israel and Egypt military support the United States spend in total 5.3 billion dollars in military aid,

and that number has been increasing by 200 million every year for the past 10 years (Aubuchon). Thats just two countries out of the many many many countries we lend money to for aid! This goes back to our countries fight against terrorism our policy has changed to shoot now think later. While humanitarian efforts around the world get 4.9 billion annually... So we gave an extra 400 million to supplying countries with weapons as opposed to helping them in a non violent way. While this seems uneven the amount given in humanitarian aid in 2010 was higher than any other country around the world (Luxenberg and Richlin et. Al). So we might give them more money for weapons but at least we give the most money for humanitarian aid... that counts for something right? These two foreign spending numbers are just a small part of the 30 billion dollars spent in 2010 to assist in foreign countries (Luxenberg and Richlin et. al). It seemed to me like everyone would jump at the chance to help someone in need but I found out that wasnt true. I read book called Vietnam War Opposing Viewpoints. The
book, which a collection of opinions during the Vietnam war by David Bender, showed me that many of the concerns about foreign policies back in the 60s and 70s are still prevalent. Not

because someone is a jerk or anything but because there are some legitimate reasons for not helping in certain situations. One of the biggest arguments against giving aid to other countries is that the current United States debt is $16,793,740,341,914.75 and with 314,827,097 estimated people living in the United States each citizen's share of this debt is $53,342.74 (Bixby). So why are we sending 30 billion to countries when we have such a huge dept?

We are very fortunate to live in a country like the US. We complain about the pettiest of things. Like darn my I-phone isnt charged or I wish my air conditioning made it 60 degrees in the summer instead of 65. Lately we have had protest and marches on Wall Street claiming that 1% of Americans control the wealth in America Actually in an article published by the World Institute for Development Economics Research by James Davies and his colleagues says: the bottom 10% of the U.S. income distribution falls in the upper 30% of the global income distribution. In other words the 10% of the poorest people in the US are in the top 30% of the worlds wealth, which means 70% of the 7 billion people on this plant are poorer than the poorest people in America. With more than a billion people around the world now living on less than $1 per day( Davies and Sandstorm), the Occupy protesters are living in better conditions than many of the global poor. The Occupy Philly protesters are postponing a move to a new site until they can ascertain whether they will have access to water and electricity. So our so called 99% is complaining about not having enough water or electricity so they can protest when they are richer than 4.9 billion inhabitants on this earth who every day dont have water (or the right to protest for that matter). 900 million people, or three-times the population of the US, around the world still do not have access to clean drinking water and one-third or about 4.7 billion people dont have electricity. Pour us with a 99% of people having both clean water and electricity. The U.S. represents 4.5% of global population but nearly 30% of its total GDP. The 99% may not control the wealth that is concentrated in the United States, but we all benefit from the outsized role the U.S. plays in global economic, financial, and trade policy. So while we consider what reforms are necessary to rebalance

our domestic wealth, we should be mindful of the conditions of those who are truly at the bottom of the global income distribution. Or we may soon find ourselves face to face with the true 99% (Davies). But even if we are in dept we have witnessed other sufferings and situations where the US didnt get involved with; I know look at some of these instances and say, why the hell not? I have had the pleasure of knowing Fikile Mpofu, who lived in South African during the South African Apartheid. This was a time when racial segregation was enforced to the extreme. She was very open to questions but at times I could tell what she said was very painful for her. One answer that she gave to a question still haunts me. The question was did you fear for your life? I dont want to go into great detail but some of the things she said where this: Fikile has had a gun held to her head and watched people she loved gunned down by police and said of course I was scared. A question I felt dumb for asking but she understood. She said, I wouldnt expect people to know about the suffering. No one really knew what was going on. I had an utter sense of lost and abandoned. Do I wish someone would help? Of course every day I prayed for relief. It is estimated that 14,000 deaths and 22,000 casualties occurred between 19901994 in South Africa (O'Connor). So where was America? The beginning of the apartheid, the United States basically did everything they could to avoid any confrontation. However, following the 1960 Sharpeville massacre the US did vote in the UN against the apartheid. The US then decided to put severe embargoes where we would no longer trade with South Africa. But America saw great opportunities to invest

economically in South Africa. Our space program became huge in South Africa. We put satellite tracking equipment in Krugersdorp, and we built telescopes for lunar probes. Imports and exports between the two countries came to many millions of dollars. (OConnor) Richard Nixon than adopted the policy Tar Baby Option, which meant we kept a close relation with the white rulers in South Africa. Ronald Regan continued to support this idea; however he did consider the ANC as a terrorist origination. But, good old congress forced pressure and the two governments slowly drifted apart. So we didnt really do anything because we didnt want to upset the leaders of South Africa and we were making money??? When I started this project I thought I would find a rhyme or reason as to the involvement of some foreign countries. Our idea and philosophy when it comes to foreign policy hasnt changed over the years. We still are giving more military aid than humanitarian aid. Our country is in countries fighting wars that have become extremely unpopular. But, most of all there are still a lot of countries that truly need our help but arent getting aid. Its come to my attention that I think our current foreign policy is all based on what betters the US; just has it has for the past century. But I will say there are policies and aid in places where they need to be its just our focus is not on all the good reasons for foreign policy. We protect our interest. The war on terrorism in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq has now been going on for 12 years. We cant focus all are time and energy fighting a war that we cant win at this point. Instead we should I dont know help the 4.9 billion

people on this earth who are struggling to survive. And not use forces as a mean of diplomacy. The Us has a state of mind of mine mine mine! We take for granted that we are a tiny fraction of the world yet we act like the greatest in the world. We frown upon countries that oppress people yet we dont really do anything to help in a way that actually contributes to the betterment of the people living in the country. There's a quote from one of my favorite movies ever call Hotel Rwanda. The movie is based on the Country Rwanda where two groups of people fought for the same land and it ended with 1 million people dead. There is a reporter from Europe talking to the manager of the hotel (who is a native of Rwanda) and he just got footage of a genocide in a village. He apologizes to Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager and says sorry you had to see that. Paul than says I am glad that you have shot this footage and that the world will see it. It is the only way we have a chance that people might intervene. Jack, the reporter, than says Yeah and if no one intervenes, is it still a good thing to show? Paul than comments How can they not intervene when they witness such atrocities? Jacks comment I think sums up what I have come to believe on how we as Americans treat foreign policy I think if people see this footage they'll say, "oh my God

that's horrible," and then go on eating their dinners. The idea of foreign policy to a lot of American is as long as it doesnt affect me why should I care. Its kind of easy to see now why America is known around the world as argent, greedy, and self gaining people.

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