International welfare reform

How fortunate it is that the Almighty should fate me to share a column day with none other than the president of the UW College Republicans (CR). And why not? American Muslims, as a group, vote Republican in all presidential elections and almost all federal and state elections. One could safely classify us as conservatives, if not downright traditionalists. Tough on crime, religiously anti-tax and family-centered are some common adjectives that we share. In fact, I would venture to state that I am, in a classical sense, more conservative than any two members of the CR put together.

I view myself as a pretty reasonable guy. I mean, I never turn down anyone's request to a polite discussion, and as many people who both fervently agree with me or disagree with me will testify, I always attempt to stay civil. Honestly, I hate to disagree with other people, if not for anything else than for the super-courtesy gene built into every person of South Asian descent. Harsh disagreement really can ruin a session of tea and cookies. It is for this reason, among others, that the whole Israel-Palestine thing has me miffed. So, instead of drawing massive amounts of flack from those who rabidly support Israel and mild scorn from people who don't take kindly to handsome young men in black turbans sermonizing on the HUB lawn, I have a solution.

Here is where the first two paragraphs meet. The former speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, a renowned conservative, champion flag-bearer for the mid-'90s Republican Congressional comeback, during his tenure as speaker, among other things helped push through a series of measures that fit under the banner of welfare reform. The basic idea was that a person should get off his or her duff and earn a living instead of mooching off hardworking American taxpayers. (Forget the fact that Gingrich's own constituency, Cobb County, Ga., at the time was the third-largest recipient of federal subsidies in the country, mostly in a category known as corporate welfare.)

Why should the same idea not apply to countries?

As far as countries go, the Middle East is full of what we call "welfare freaks." At number three in dollar amount we see Turkey, which is conducting full-scale war on its own Kurdish population (just like our favorite Iraqi dictator), repeating gross human-rights abuses while chumping the dollar. At number two we have Egypt, a fast-hustling fascist dictatorship. An entopic police state, where often the only thing more dangerous than crossing an intersection at a red light is stopping at an intersection during a red light.

Of course, at number one we have the welfare queen, Israel. About the size of Rhode Island with a functional citizenship of about 4.6 million people, Israel receives about $6 billion in direct aid from our pockets. This is the same country that recently brought us massacres in several refugee camps including Jenin (from which they recently barred U.N. inspectors), and insults our leader daily with impunity and disregards his requests, and to top it all has used our money to amass one of the world's largest military arsenals, which includes, among other things, massive nuclear capabilities.

Wait a second. Let's step out of the argument for a moment. If those countries want to do that stuff ... cool. I just don't want to pay for it. Instead of spending on nuclear armament, let's send that money to Pell Grants, or better yet, not tax it in the first place.

At any rate, if we aren't paying for the crazy stuff going on in the world, I'm willing to drop the subject.

Humza Chaudhry is president of the UW Muslim Students Association. Opinions expressed here are his own.