Budget & Finances .... re: foreign spending

Samson, AL - In a preceding post I quoted an article from Channel 2, in Washington, D.C.  The article for what ever purpose, was skewed and did not include all of the relevant facts.


The message points to a State Department document that lists recipients of the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation Awards in 2010. According to the State Department website, the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation "provides direct grant support for the preservation of cultural sites, cultural objects, and collections, as well as forms of traditional cultural expression, in eligible countries around the world." U.S. ambassadors nominate projects to be funded.
But the program isn’t the brainchild of President Barack Obama. The program was created by Congress in late 2000 under President Bill Clinton, and the first grants were announced under President George W. Bush in 2001. The State Department says that, in total, the fund has contributed nearly $26 million to approximately 640 cultural heritage sites in more than 100 countries, and more than half was given before Obama took office.
It’s true that mosques are among the cultural sites that have received grant money under this program. But temples and churches around the world also have received funding, contrary to AFA’s claim that the "secular left" would be upset if "these monies had been spent to repair Christian churches." When we searched the State Department’s database and lists of 2009 and 2010 projects for "mosque" and "minaret," we found that 30 mosques or minaret restoration projects had received funding under Bush, and seven such sites had been funded under Obama. Also, 29 projects for churches and cathedrals were funded under Bush and 13 under Obama. Those totals do not represent all Christian or Islamic historical and cultural sites, however — our search for "mosque," for instance wouldn’t pull up funding for an Islamic monument or conservation of ancient manuscripts, and our search for "church" didn’t pull up restoration of convents or monasteries. Plus — as anyone who has visited the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul or the Mezquita, a mosque and cathedral in Cordoba, Spain, could tell you — there are many ancient sites that were Islamic and Christian places of worship at different points in time. In fact, our searches of "mosque" and "church" both pulled up the $33,455 awarded to the 14th century Mosque of Old Dongola in Sudan, which was a church in the 9th century. And one of the "cathedral" projects in Uganda under Bush was the documentation of "historic buildings," including "cultural sites, unique architectural designs, cathedrals, Hindu temples, mosques, state buildings and ancestral homes," according to the State Department database.
The AFA e-mail points out that the State Department gave $76,000 to help restore a 16th century mosque in China in 2010 (the amount was $76,135), but it doesn’t mention that the document it links to also lists $72,600 that went to an Episcopal basilica in Macedonia to help with the conservation of early Christian frescoes. AFA says that a mosque in Pakistan got $67,000 — actually it was $67,500 — but doesn’t mention an $81,990 grant for "Restoration of the Late 17th‐Century Church of the Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign" in the Russian Federation, or $94,827 to restore a high altar and cloister of an 18th century convent in Guatemala City. Among the State Department’s "large grants" is $625,000 for the Church of the Holy Redeemer in Turkey.
The AFA says that the Associated Press reported on this program to fund cultural sites, including mosques. And the AP did report in August that "the Obama administration will spend nearly $6 million to restore 63 historic and cultural sites, including mosques and minarets, in 55 nations, according to State Department documents." But that article cast the mosque-funding as "part of the U.S. government’s efforts to reach out to the Muslim world," and the AP said the amount spent on Muslim sites was a "fraction of the total" given to worldwide cultural sites.

Thank you Lin on EarthBoppin.net  for posting the update on this. However, whether it is just mosques, or mosques, churches, aquaducts, steeples, towers, etc., since when did the US spend funds on foreign antiquity sites, when we have our own national parks and historic sites falling into disrepair, not to mention being closed because of budget cuts.???