How many lives has the United States saved in your lifetime?

Huh?

I'm saying that since so much american technology has lead to an increase in the quality of life for generations (I gave one example with developments in water treatment), the number may be unfathomable. Whole generations over could be counted by this measure.

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I was actually talking about your rambling about morals (and moral checks bouncing, in an incongruous metaphor), a subject this thread is not discussing. But honestly I don't want any clarifications on that tangent anymore.

Thank you for your contribution. I will give it all the consideration it is due.

Balance... checking... admittedly it's not my best metaphor. Meh.

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On the other hand, how many countries has the USA bombed since 1945?

It's lot.

Different thread.

OK. I suggest the first one to be USAID and related programs. This one is pretty hard since like just about every topic we can follow we have to make some pretty unfounded assumptions about how many people would have died in the absence of help. This website says 13.3 million people are in need of immediate assistance right now due to drought in the Horn of Africa. Let's say direct US assistance is helping 5% of them and there are 5 of these types of events in Africa stretching across the years so I'll toss out there 3 million lives.

That one is pretty hard. I know more about geopolitics than the USAID programs and have started to research them.

On their site they direct you to http://gbk.eads.usaidallnet.gov/ for more information about their programs and I've been able to find a detailed list of them from here:

http://gbk.eads.usaidallnet.gov/data/detailed.html

I'd like to see if we can try to take a crack at estimating them off that list using the dollar amounts and research about the individual instead of the 5% of the 5x13 million. I have no idea if 3 million is off by more than 3 million and wonder if we can better substantiate our guess if we dig into the dollars spent.

Gonna come back and try to take a crack at it later.

Malaria is one of the world's biggest killers. Malaria killed at least thousands, and probably tens of thousands of Americans during our civil war. Because of resistances among African-Americans and white families long resident in the South, malaria was of little concern or interest after the war. However, after December, 1941, as the United States Army expanded dramatically, and millions of Americans passed through the many military bases in the South, malaria became a problem again. It wasn't a big problem for the Army in the South, but they knew it could become a problem overseas. So, the Malaria Control in War Areas agency was created.

In 1946, the MCWA became the Communicable Diseases Center, with half or more of its employees dedicated to studying and preventing malaria, and was installed in modest offices in Atlanta, Georgia. Today, it is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and i don't know how anyone could be expected to reasonably calculate the millions, and perhaps even tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people who have benefited from the CDC.

EDIT: If this has already been mentioned, my apologies. I've just skimmed the thread.

I started off in that vein of investigation. Realized I'd end up trying to dissect what countries' citizens contributed to the work that led to the work that led to ...

On the lived saved/lives lost calculation, I don't think I'd attempt to do a micro-analysis, but I am interested in determining if my gut feeling (U.S. on whole is of benefit to globe) is rooted in reality.

How many children are still being born with deformities due to the use of Agent Orange in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam?

How many in Fallujah and elsewhere due to the use in civilian areas of depleted uranium ordnance?

It's a lot.

EhBeth tried to give you a hint that there is a different thread for your line of discussion.

Yes, excuse me. But it's rather an odd thread for RG to start, taken in the round. Imho.

Wasn't it President Eisenhower who warned against the military- industrial conglomerate and it's baleful effect on his country. And he had never even met Dick Cheney. It's a lot worse now, so it seems to me, than back then.

Congratulations to all those Americans and others who are doing good.

You are excused. Now go find that other thread.

Here's the link, McTag:

http://able2know.org/topic/181358-1

Just trying to bring a bit of balance, is all. Christmastime is good, and you can watch Jimmy Stewart in that film. I like it too.
Some people prefer the Hollywood and Broadway view, and would like to forget about the darker things. But we shouldn't forget about them.
People do things in your name, and using your money, which they would rather you didn't know about, or if you do, would like you to quickly forget about.

One of my gifts, an unwanted one, is the apparent ability to bring threads to an end.

What about Bradley Manning? Is it fair, reasonable, moral, legal what has happened to him?

Is it fair, reasonable, moral, legal what he has done?

There is balance, Robert Gentel's earlier thread which now four of us have tried to tell you about, and I even gave you a link. You are being a dumpkopf, as the nuns would have told me.

Don't lecture me when you can't read.

Here you go, again -
How many people has the United States killed in your lifetime?
http://able2know.org/topic/181358-1

At least two of these. You could argue for four.