Hey, I have a question, what should U.S. foreign policy look like regarding poverty and disease crisis in Sub – Saharan Africa?

I communities that have adopted his abstinence policy, the HIV rates are actually rising again.

domajot: Can you cite evidence to back this statement?

Over everything, hangs the disaster in Iraq and our treatment of detainees. It will be a long, long time before we can recover from these blows to our prestige.

(From a couple of years back)
George W. Bush has done more to help Africa than other U.S. presidents, says Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof.
Geldof made the comment in an interview in the current issue of Time magazine. The Irish rocker was relating how he had to defend Bush while he was in France.

“[The French] refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American president for Africa. But it’s empirically so,” Geldof said.

(From “The Independent” Jan.2, 07)
The foreign affairs legacy of President George Bush so far speaks most loudly of terrorism, Afghanistan and the quagmire of Iraq.

But statistics just compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reveal that since taking over the Oval Office, Mr Bush, partly under pressure from his Christian supporters as well as celebrities such as Bono and Bob Geldof, has dramatically increased US aid to Africa.

Indeed, African nations have seen both development and direct humanitarian aid from the United States jump from a total of $1.4bn in 2001 to $4bn (£2bn) a year today. Over the same period, trade between the US and the continent has more than doubled.

The development aid is complemented by Mr Bush’s rapidly growing commitment to fighting HIV and Aids in Africa, as well as malaria. In what has become the largest health initiative of his presidency – the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) – Mr Bush has pledged $15bn over five years to fight HIV in Africa and provide drugs for Aids victims.

It is a record that has not been widely noticed in the US, particularly by critics of President Bush who prefer to play up his image on the world stage as narrowly focused on Iraq and fighting terror.

Nor is there any obvious domestic political dividend for him in reinforcing his African credentials. “He should be known for doubling development assistance and tripling it to Africa after a period in which US development assistance was essentially flat for decades,” the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted recently. “He should be known for the largest single investment in Aids and malaria, the biggest health investment of any government programme ever.”

Pushing Mr Bush to step up his commitment to Africa has been his core base of Christian supporters, for whom the Aids crisis and continuing strife on the continent has become a central issue.

“Bush and his Christian supporters seldom get the credit they deserve for their role in the global fight against Aids,” the Los Angeles Times noted. “US spending on the disease overseas under Bush has risen tenfold, while Christian groups have given unselfishly to the cause.”

In an another example of accelerating development aid to Africa, President Bush signed a law just before Christmas pledging $52m annually for fiscal years 2006 and 2007 to the Democratic Republic of Congo following elections there. As with aid to other countries, it comes with strings attached, including a requirement that the government open up to trade and foreign investors.

Some African specialists complain that because of such conditions, American assistance is still more about self-interest than altruism.

“I know a lot of activist groups who believe that the President’s stated commitment to Africa is, at best, a play on words,” Nii Akuetteh, executive director of Africa Action, an advocacy organisation, told The Washington Post. “There are conditions that are attached where the emphasis is more on countries that open up their markets so American companies can go in and privatise things.”

There was also early anxiety that the Pepfar programme on Aids was overly influenced by its Christian backers, who insisted on a heavy emphasis on sexual abstinence, a strategy many health care experts consider misguided. But as Pepfar has grown in importance, many of those doubts are fading.

What about that obviously forgettable little incident in Rwanda? The Clinton administration bent over backwards to avoid labelling it a “genocide” and doing anything to forestall it.

The Rwandan slaughter, at its height, exceeded the killing levels of the Nazi death camps…largely with machetes. Hundreds of thousands of dead.

The Somalia fiasco anyone? Bush Pere insisted on getting in and out fast. He did. Then the activists got to Clinton, and he went back in. I recall the image of American bodies torn apart with the bare hands of Somalians on the front page of my Sunday paper.

Man, you could feel the “love and admiration” for America then.

Of course, Osama bin Laden referred to Clinton’s retreat from Somalia as shaping his view of the US as weak. In bin Laden’s words:

“After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers. America stopped calling itself world leader and master of the new world order, and its politicians realized that those titles were too big for them and that they were unworthy of them. I was in Sudan when this happened. I was very happy to learn of that great defeat that America suffered, so was every Muslim. When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”

Yah, Clinton did wonders in Somalia.

BTW: Bush has done more for Africa than Clinton ever did. There have been a number of articles in the mainstream press on this, often by amazed activists.

Also, isn’t it funny how liberals have picked Darfur as “a good fight.” Pelosi was hopping to her feet when Bush mentioned Darfur at the State of the Union. I suspect they love Darfur because they know there is not a snowball’s chance in hell the US would intervene. Would Clinton have intervened in Darfur…hahahahahahahaha

The Democratic mantra: “With great power comes no responsibility!”

Besides, what kind of a defense is it to say “they’re not helping either.” We’re the big dog, we should be leading. America can’t lead? Oh yeah, America can’t lead. Unless we’re leading with threats, war and divisive, inflammatory rhetoric that is pure trademark GOP.

And by the way, America was loved, admired and appreciated under Clinton. Under Bush, our diplomatic corp and development professionals are embarrassed to spout the lines they must, or lose their jobs.

Also agree with the above comments. Where is the EU?

What about the other countries?

Where are European countries? What are they doing?

That being said, indeed, U.S. policy has to change in certain respects, especially Africa (and Europe’s obviously as well).