Instead of ensuring a strong America for our posterity, our posterity is ensured a feeble future. Leaders elected to promote the interests of the American people have committed treason. Our officials in Washington seem not to work for us, but rather for various other countries around the world. US national interests are not being promoted. This is especially evident from the war in Iraq. Iraq is draining the US treasury, engendering terrorism, and marring our national image.

Bone dry is the US treasury. However the Bush administration continues to squeeze out every last sweet drop. Foreign borrowing has allowed us to spend beyond our means, the US budget deficit skyrocketing. In 2006 the deficit was $248.2 billion dollars. Tack that onto the US total foreign debt at $4.8 trillion. Although overspending is rampant in all sectors of government, the Iraq War has cost Americans almost $500 billion so far and may double to $1 trillion according to some estimates. Since the largest economy in the world cannot foot the bill it is financing it, leaving the premium plus interest to future generations. Most stunning of all is that America and its future citizens are paying for the liberation of another country—the burden born solely on America.

Since the onset of the Iraq War terrorism has taken on the properties of fissionable material. Iraq was once devoid of terrorist cells, despite the false assertion of ties to Al-Qaeda. Saddam’s reign imposed a balance of power in the country preventing terrorist insurrection. The American assault liberated pent-up aggression, unleashing havoc in Iraq. Terrorists in Iraq include volunteers from neighboring countries and a vast number of Sunni insurgents who are alienated from Iraqi society and the Shia-controlled government. There are more terrorists today than prior to the invasion in Iraq and elsewhere. According to the National Intelligence Estimate leaked to the New York Times, the Iraq War has exacerbated the threat, enlarging the global jihad movement by galvanizing Muslims to hate America—rightfully or not. This chain reaction of hatred will have to be quelled by future Americans.

Anti-Americanism is spreading about as fast as terrorist cells metastasize. It seems that going it alone was not worth the cost in tax dollars, human lives, or American prestige. Our former European allies have long abandoned the republic that saved them from fascism. Similarly even our staunch supporter in Saudi Arabia has recently altered its rhetoric from highly supportive to somewhat critical. Our key allies—ones we support even though they finance and harbor terrorists—have been infected by Anti-Americanism. Throughout the world Anti-Americanism is spreading and it will take a long time to regain the world’s trust—trust that is integral to American positioning and negotiation abroad—just one more ill Americans will have to cure in the future.

The solution is simple: revive realism; put America first. A realist foreign policy avoids costly crusades that weaken the nation. Democracy is an abstract concept that should be spread by example not American blood. Americans died for our democracy, we should not have to die for the Iraqi’s too. Military force and American lives should only be used to preserve the nation. America must not wait for the future to solve its problems. America must act now to reverse its course. America must demand that its leaders put American self-interest at the forefront of foreign policy.

The gasping has begun. 2008 marks the 25^th anniversary of U2’s legendary Under a Blood Red Sky concert at Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado. Fans are already frantically trying to woo U2 to return. If U2 refuses, Red Rocks plans to recreate the event with a tribute band and video of the original. Why would fans want to recreate the same event in the same way? It appears that to be a U2 fan you must appreciate songs that all sound exactly the same.

But it’s not only U2’s songs that sound identical. Bono’s tirades are wearing thin as well. At the conclusion of the G8 summit last month, industrialized countries committed $60 billion to African development. The US promised to foot half the bill-- $30 billion. Immediately African aid campaigners and, of course, Bono bellyached and blasted the amount as ungenerous.

Contrary to Bono’s ranting, foreign aid has proven to be a massive failure. American elites like Bono, other celebrities, and government bureaucrats, demand that American taxpayers’ wealth be converted into aid for foreign nations. As a result, an enormous amount of aid is sent overseas without any signs of progress. It seems that while the African masses suffer from starvation, American elites suffer from asphyxia.

Washington bureaucrats and foreign aid crusaders are suffocating from a lack of innovative ideas on third world development. The two consistent delusions: that foreign aid is successful and the insistence that aid be transferred to foreign governments.

Foreign aid rarely accomplishes development goals. In the last forty years the U.S. has poured $480 billion into developing nations; $51.2 billion went to sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Heritage Foundation. For Africans, however, there has been little progress.

The World Bank estimates that between 1990 and 2004 the number of poor sub-Saharan Africans increased by almost 60 million. Africans still die at a rate almost 15 times that of Americans. Sub-Saharan Africans’ yearly income is still a meager $746 and, according to UNICEF, 45 percent still live on less than $1 per day.

Zimbabwe, for example, received an average of around $440 million in aid per year between 1980 and 1999, according to the OECD. In 1980 average annual income was $950. By 2003 it had plummeted to $400. When the government initiated “land reform” by seizing private land from farmers, it sent the economy into a tailspin. Today Zimbabwe has the highest inflation in the world and a negative growth rate.

These dismal results beg the question: Where does all the aid go?

It goes directly to corrupt governments. Governments in Africa are the most corrupt on the planet. The Sub-Saharan region is ranked dead last for freedom from corruption in the Wall Street Journal’s Index of Economic Freedom.

The Kenyan government, for example, estimates that between 1990 and 1997, one third of public funds were embezzled by the former president’s regime. If the Bush administration pilfered a third of the U.S. budget it would equal $900 billion. Our country could not function under that level of corruption no matter how much aid we received.

While U.S. foreign aid has had little positive effect in Africa, the story is the same in Latin America and the Middle East. Across the world foreign aid from U.S. taxpayers is squandered in far-away lands by crooked dictators.

There is hope.

Foreign aid can be resuscitated by a breath of fresh, innovative ideas. But—innovation does not come from government. For several reasons private organizations are better suited for foreign development.

One, private organizations are flexible to change approaches more easily than the vast foreign aid bureaucracy. Two, private organizations work from the bottom, up—empowering the masses, not subsidizing tyrants. Three, private groups specialize in different developmental areas— by geography, or in health, economics, education, etcetera. Bureaucracy lacks the amount of specialized knowledge required for development. Four, private organizations are accountable to their boards and their donors for progress. Bureaucracy is accountable to no one.

There are many innovative private organizations that confirm this. One example is the Grameen Bank, a microfinance organization started in Bangladesh. With microfinance, poor individuals borrow small amounts of money to start businesses. According to a 1998 World Bank study, 10,000 Bangladeshi loan recipients were escaping poverty per month. Microfinance fosters entrepreneurship and self-empowerment.

Another example is Village Care, a group with an office in Colorado that specializes in rural Africa. Village Care empowers individuals from the bottom, up, forming partnerships and promoting education in villages. Village Care measures progress through census-like, scientific surveys to assess improvements in health, education, and village economies. Due to its success, Village Care has spread throughout Kenya and Nigeria.

Whether or not Bono and the boys return to Colorado next year is still indefinite, but one thing is certain: government foreign aid has failed. Bono does not disparage private aid, but he preaches fruitless government aid as gospel. The delusions that foreign aid is successful and that it should be given to foreign governments is asphyxiating American elites who don’t understand the remedy; U.S. aid must be completely imparted to private organizations. How many aid programs must fail before Bono and other elites understand?

Ryan Olivett, a senior at Colorado State University studying economics and political science, is an intern at the Independence Institute in Golden, CO and has traveled to Africa four times for development work.