There is some angle on this. I'm not sure what it is, but trust me -- there is an angle.

My guess is that the $225 million is not charity, but is an actual profit-making purchase from some company, and that very little of that money will actually trickle down to the people of Darfur in the form of food. There is probably some service company like Haliburton or Bechtell that is going to be paid to do the distribution, and their contract is included in the $225 million figure.

Our government loves to do that. They love to take taxpayer dollars, and find ways to give it to corporations. For every dollar they spend, 30 cents goes into the pockets of some rich corporate stockholders.

The reason they do not use the money to help feed the starving in American cities is that we already have programs in place for that sort of thing, and they are structured so that nobody profits. They are run by social workers (who get paid very little) and charity volunteer workers. The current trend is that they continue to cut the budgets for these domestic programs, not increase their budgets.

If the Bush Administration could find a way to privatize these domestic programs, you would see them suddenly increase their budgets through the roof the same way they did 2 years ago when they figured out a way to privatize Medicaid and triple the amount of money being spent on it.

Charity is only good to them if someone can make a buck doing it. If it is non-profit, they see it as a waste of time and money.