August 18, 2011, - 2:05 pm
English Language Exclusive: US Tax $s Pay for Ramadan Farmers Mkt in LEBANON!
Happy Ramadan wishes and spending courtesy of the U.S. Government. Yup, you’re paying for it. The USAID (US Agency for International Development) is wasting nearly $150,000 dollars on a Ramadan gift of a farmer’s market for Benin, a Sunni village in the Akkar area in Northern Lebanon. In fact, the market you are subsidizing operates on “Ramadan hours,” as it opens at “breakfast”–or the night-time Ramadan Iftar dinner–until the “second dawn,” which is the official beginning of daylight in Islam as it marks the time of the Fajr (dawn) prayer.
A close friend of mine, an immigrant from Lebanon, sent me this article from Lebanon Files, a Lebanese news site in Arabic (I’m providing you with the English translation, below). My friend, a Druze Arab, was wondering why he–a U.S. citizen and taxpayer who was forced to flee Lebanon because of Muslim violence and extremism–is subsidizing Lebanese Muslims and giving them the Ramadan gift of a farmer’s market. He asks:
Why do we need to help them out? Oh, I forgot–so they can make more money with which to kill us.
Indeed.
The United States Celebrates the Opening of the “From the Farm to the Consumer” Market in Benin
17 August 2011 08:37
On 16 August 2011, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the community in Benin celebrated Ramadan with the opening of the new market, “From the Farm to the Consumer”–the festival to promote local food products and handicrafts–in the town. The festival included about 30 local exhibitors, and cultural activities and attracted visitors of all ages. The festival receives visitors every day after breakfast at 10:00 p.m. until the second dawn, through August 19th.
The market was created and equipped through a grant of U.S. $145,000 under “Enable,” the capacity building and municipal services provision program of the U.S. Agency for International Development. It includes a market selling vegetables and fruit wholesale and retail on a land area 350 square meters donated by the municipality, sixteen viewing platforms, two stores for cooling, a water treatment unit, and the Office of Management. The market is part of a plan of local economic development established by the Development Committee of the Municipality of Benin, in coordination with the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides opportunities for more than 150 farms to sell their products directly to consumers and increase their profits. In addition, it is expected to result in annual market income to the municipality of up to $19,000, helping them to do more in the development of the market and the town.
Dr. Jim Barnhart, Lebanon Mission Director for the U.S. Agency for International Development, toured the show before heading to breakfast in the courtyard with the municipal mayors and community leaders from the region. During the opening ceremony, Dr. Barnhart on the importance of responding to the needs of society, and encouraged partnerships between the public and private sectors in order to increase the capacity of young people and create a better living environment.
It should be noted that this grant is part of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s $11.3 million “empowerment fund,” which is implemented by the Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF) in order to rehabilitate communities in more than 44 villages to improve the economy, raise incomes, and create employment opportunities.
When the Congress–Republicans and Dems–claim there was nowhere else to cut (as they just did in the budget deal), you should ask them why they didn’t cut the USAID budget and contributions. Read this article and ask yourself if your local farmer’s market gets Christmas, Easter, or Chanukah gifts of $150,000 to operate according to a religious schedule.
As I always say, the American government is strongly committed to the separation between church and state . . . but not the separation between mosque and state.
Happy Ramadan from the Benin farmer’s market. Hope you’re enjoying the Iftar Dinner/”Breakfast at 10:00 p.m.”
Oh, and by the way, the U.S. gives Lebanon’s Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims a gazillion more of your money. And that’s just in Lebanon.
Can you imagine if we funded Nazi groups around the world during World War II? Same thing here.
“U.S. Agency for International Development’s $11.3 million” and don’t forget that the actual monies distributed is only the tip of the taxpayer money iceberg. It costs an extra 4 – 12X of each dollar spent on government disbursement by way of bureaucratic overhead.
Warms the cockles of my heart to know that I’m working 60 hrs. week and still have to keep the air conditioner at 86, forgo vacations for the last 3 years and eat ramen noodles 3-4 X/week so i can keep pumping up the government coffers so they can giv emy money away to muslims in foreign lands.
DS_ROCKS! on August 18, 2011 at 3:03 pm