George Walker Bush has gone. We have said our goodbyes. Some have uttered more colourful words. The war, his "war on terror" that defined his term in office, has left a trail of disaster: the deaths of more than 100,000 civilians; the abuses of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib; the pummelling of critics by means legal or otherwise; the clumsy dividing of the world into supporters and enemies; and the management of Iraq, undertaken with all the skill of a drunken ex-boxer doing intricate embroidery (yes, with his gloves still on).

In international aid, however, the United States remains the largest donor country ($21.7 billion in 2007). So perhaps that shows that despite the war, the U.S. under Bush remained the country the world could turn to for humanitarian aid and guidance.

The $21.7 billion is a handsome enough amount and equivalent to 0.16 percent of gross national product. Yet on closer examination it ceases to be quite so impressive.

Firstly, it's a fall of more than $8 billion from peak spending in 2005 when the U.S. dished out $28.8 billion on aid - or 0.23 percent of gross national product. Secondly, we should remember that the U.S., along with other developed countries, agreed in a U.N. declaration to "progressively increase its official development assistance...to reach a minimum of 0.7 percent of GDP...by the middle of the decade."

The declaration was made in 1970 and is thus more than 30 years behind schedule. Such a lack of commitment to reaching global targets is unmatched in all areas except perhaps the environment. For the United States, the current rate of "progressive increase" suggests it will be asking for aid from other countries around 2018.

We also need to look a little closer at exactly what this aid is being spent on.

A large chunk of the money appears to have gone on rebuilding things recently destroyed. In that peak aid year of 2005, $8 billion was spent on "official" aid to Iraq. Yet even this is not a true picture since much of the 2005 and 2006 figures ($12. 2 billion in total) for Iraq actually comprised debt relief - writing off money that would never be repaid and was not being serviced.

According to ActionAid, the U.S. remains one of the worst culprits in terms of "phantom" aid for developing nations, where official aid not only includes debt relief but inter alia subsides on exports, surplus agriculture supplied as food aid and administrative costs.

The Centre for Global Development has evaluated U.S. aid in the past and suggested that more than half was all that half-hidden debt relief, admin costs, surpluses and so on.

Actual humanitarian aid - for the life-saving and recovery initiatives most often talked about in the media and most often claimed as national altruism by politicians - actually accounts for only 13 percent of this money, just under $3 billion for 2007.

GUNS AND CHAMPAGNE

Of course, the headline figures are only part of the picture. What is $21.7 billion anyway? In 2006, Americans drank $534 million worth of champagne. That's 40 times less than the country spent on international aid. In 2006, Washington poured $547 billion into the military. That's 25 times more than its international aid bill.

According to Newsweek, the United States will spend $8 trillion in financial stimulus packages this year. That's 312 times more than on international aid.

It is not so much the amount of international aid doled out over the past eight years that has been criticised as exactly "how" it has been spent. What has defined the way the U.S. has undertaken humanitarian funding? The answer here is of course the "War on Terror".

Nation states have always half acknowledged that their aid programmes have had more than the lives and suffering of others at heart. Self-interest has often ruled the day, whether development aid is used to force through trade deals, military contracts or support for U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The U.S. has already been criticised for using development aid as a carrot and a stick forcing countries (such as Cameroon and Yemen) to support its stance or activities on the "war on terror". One might hope, however, that humanitarian aid has been insulated from this kind of self-interest.

After all, the United States is party to the Good Humanitarian Donorship code, a basic guideline of 23 principles for funding humanitarian interventions. At its core, the code contains four ideas: humanity (saving lives is paramount), impartiality (aid should be based on need alone), neutrality (no side should be favoured over another) and independence (autonomy from other objectives).

In fact, humanitarian interventions are frequently traded off against other needs, usually political ones, and especially in conflict zones.

In Colombia, a blind eye is turned away from government's use of civilians for military purposes. In the Palestinian territories, humanitarian aid is used to try and force Hamas to the negotiating table.

Yet it is where the "war on terror" has intersected with humanitarian need that attempts to follow the donorship principles have proved not only impossible but quite ludicrous, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, the U.S. breaks 21 of the 23 humanitarian principles it has signed up to, which suggests something less than full commitment.

It fails to do humanitarian work based on need alone, nor for the reason of just saving lives.

Its own military is responsible for "humanitarian interventions". A village may be blown up but at least afterwards a well or a school might be built for surviving inhabitants.

NGOs are seen as mere "force multipliers" (Colin Powell's infamous words) in the ongoing war. (No wonder they have become targets; after all, if you are identified as part of the enemy force you are surely a legitimate target.)

Abuses of human rights, including civilian deaths, have been sold to the public as the cost of warring to protect human rights.

The blurring of lines between killing and saving lives is a baleful legacy. A full assessment of the military's involvement in humanitarian activities in war zones has yet to be done.

The increasingly isolated position of the U.S. under the "war on terror" has, meanwhile, continued to reinforce its unilateralist tendencies. Multilateral action, another key part of the humanitarian donorship principles, has largely fallen by the wayside.

In 2005 and 2006, every cent of U.S. humanitarian funding was given directly to agencies and marked for specific projects rather than provided as part of jointly managed mechanisms.

Of the 2008 budget for the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund (the U.N.'s first-call for underfunded and forgotten emergencies), Washington's commitment was a paltry $5 million out of a total of $452 million. And of this, it has only coughed up $2 million. The island nation of Tuvalu, with a total population of 11,992, has paid its $1,000 commitment in its entirety.

PUTTING SELF INTERST FIRST

Of course, George W. is not to be solely blamed for a lack of humanitarian achievement. One could argue that the U.S. has always had unilateralist tendencies and only comes to the multilateral world when it needs to. The "war on terror" has simply exacerbated this.

Nor should the States be singled out alone for the way it gives aid. Many countries have failed to meet international aid pledges (in fact, only five countries are notching up 0.7 percent of GDP or above) - although to be ranked behind Portugal, the perennial pauper of the EC, should be an embarrassment.

The United States is hardly the only country to put self-interested first. France favours funding to Francophone countries and Japan to its Asian markets. The U.S. is not the only country that has broken its pledges to fund humanitarian interventions under agreed principles; an independent review of donors' humanitarian action in 2008 suggests that many countries have broken these guidelines.

Finally, other countries (especially Britain) could be criticised for blurring the lines between the work of soldiers and humanitarians.

Bush does deserve a few gold stars. In his other war, the one on HIV/AIDS, an investment of nearly $19 billion over the last five years has reportedly supported treatment for more than 12 million people. This is the one multilateral star in an otherwise dark sky. Through the Bush's programme, Washington funds almost a third of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The U.S. military, while castigated over its wars, has been widely congratulated on life-saving operations during natural disasters. After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, as many as 16,000 troops were involved in various operations. After the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, helicopters logged more than 3,000 flight hours, delivering aid and moving refugees to safety. In response to Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh in 2007, two U.S. ships and 2,400 sailors and marines were involved in an array of life-saving operations.

In 2006, the Pentagon reported humanitarian missions in 99 countries. This is an impressive scale of work. Of course, scale is the key here. There is simply no international humanitarian institution that has the logistical and operational resources of the military, and especially the U.S. military. And no amount of complaining by humanitarian purists will buy helicopter carriers for the Red Cross.

The United States remains the most powerful nation on earth, and it therefore can do more than any other country to right humanitarian wrongs - even its own humanitarian wrongs.

Former President Bush has laid the groundwork through unilateralism, the "war on terror" and narrow self-interest. What more could a president do to better galvanise global opinion around the need for humanitarian action?

And what more could a president do to remind us that this really is a global society we live in, that the terrors of the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan can just as easily happen in New York, Madrid or London? No one has inspired people to take notice of the world the way Bush has. This bodes well for the new man at the helm.

Enter Globama.

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