Death of a continent (Aids crisis in Africa)

Wednesday, July 03, 2002 - The AIDS crisis in Africa can best be compared to the worst wildfire the human race has ever witnessed - worse than the Black Plague of 13th-century Europe. Already more people have succumbed to it than were killed in World War II.

The approximately 20 million Africans who have died from AIDS are but a fraction of those likely to perish in the coming decades, if we who are able to do something - specifically, the United States - continue to do little or nothing.

Domestically, the United States has pioneered research into the treatment of HIV and AIDS. As a result, our AIDS patients survive longer than anywhere else in the world, and many of them are treated with taxpayer dollars.

On the African front, however, the U.S. had provided the least money per capita, among the G-8 nations, for AIDS prevention and therapy - that is, until Congress appropriated $200 million in 2001. Prior to that, there was a deliberate, complete silence in Washington.

Many American and African activists urged greater involvement and a leadership role for our government in the fight against AIDS in Africa. For a long time, no one listened. Long before the Bush administration happened on the scene, the Clinton administration sleep-walked across the international stage. Death in Africa - from genocide, massacres and disease - merited little response.

It's hard to comprehend why our nation and people have remained indifferent for so long despite the evolving AIDS horror in Africa. Some felt that pernicious racism was the best explanation for this indifference. To others, it was merely the indifference of a wealthy people toward the suffering of the poor. It's impossible to comprehend how a civilized people can watch a whole continent slowly disappear. But for whatever reason, we did.

The Bush administration has made some baby steps; the first was when Congress appropriated $200 million in 2001. Even though this was much less than the $1 billion that the U.N.'s Kofi Annan had suggested each G-8 nation contribute annually to combating the AIDS epidemic, it was a step in the right direction.

Only this week, on the eve of the G-8 meeting in Ottawa, the administration pledged another $300 million. It will be disbursed over the next three years. Compared to the enormity of the situation, this is but a drop in a bucket. Senators in the Appropriations Committee wanted more money allotted, but thanks to Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a physician, they failed in their effort.

It's incomprehensible to me that a fellow physician would veto the committee's wishes. As physicians, we have an obligation to patients wherever they are. And if the first tenet of our profession is to do no harm, the second must be to be good Samaritans, wherever and whenever that's feasible. This should give all of us pause, to consider the good doctor's reasons.

All the same, we must be grateful that our government and the American people have began paying some attention to the havoc this deadly disease has wrought in Africa and the rest of the Third World. The hope must always be that once we are engaged, our media might decide to shine a brighter light on what has heretofore remained unchronicled. And hopefully, with a more engaged public, the politician might find it politically possible to spend more of the taxpayer's dollars in a place few Americans know of, much less think about.

For years, some Americans urged our government's greater involvement with Africa. And for many years, we were rebuffed. For many years, we urged that giving aid and comfort to the poor was the best defense for America in an uncertain world. And for long, we were ignored, until Osama bin Laden and his henchmen burst on the scene. It now seems the moment has come to beat the drum a little louder, so the Bush administration can be convinced that a half-billion dollars is a mere token when a great deal more is needed from a nation that can spare so much more.

Pius Kamau of Aurora is a cardiovascular, thoracic and general-surgery physician. He was born and raised in Kenya and immigrated to the United States in 1971.

It sounds like what you're saying is that America has purposefully committed genocide by "culling" the African population for purposes of grabbing their resources.

No, that's what Kissinger suggested would be a good idea. I'm merely repeating ad infinitum portions of the GOP's national defense policies on population control. Books such as Excessive Force, which I purchased at CPAC from Steven Mosher's table, also are a goldmine of information.

Sudan is an excellent example of the the more brutal connection of depopulation to resources which sounds so matter of fact when detailed in policy memoranda such as Carter's GLOBAL 2000 or the motherlode that is Kissinger's NSSM-200/NSDM-314:


Part One -- Analytical Section
--------    ------------------
Chapter I   World Demographic Trends
Chapter II  Population and World Food Supplies
Chapter III Minerals and Fuel
Rapid population growth is not in itself a major factor in pressure on depletable resources (fossil fuels and other minerals), since demand for them depends more on levels of industrial output than on numbers of people.

On the other hand, the world is increasingly dependent on mineral supplies from developing countries, and if rapid population frustrates their prospects for economic development and social progress, the resulting instability may undermine the conditions for expanded output and sustained flows of such resources.

Chapter IV  Economic Development and
            Population Growth
Chapter V   Implications of Population Pressures
            for National Security
Chapter VI  World Population Conference

Part Two -- Policy Recommendations
--------    ----------------------
Section I   A U.S. Global Population Strategy

Section II  Action to Create Conditions for Fertility De-
            cline: Population and a Development Assis-
            tance Strategy
A. General Strategy and Resource for A.I.D. Assistance
B. Functional Assistance Programs to Create Condi-
   tions for Fertility Decline
C. Food for Peace Program and Population

Section III International Organizations and other Mul-
            tilateral Population Programs
A. UN Organization and Specialized Agencies
B. Encouraging Private Organizations

Section IV  Provision and Development of Family
            Planning Services, Information and Tech-
            nology
A. Research to Improve Fertility Control Technology
B. Development of Low-Cost Delivery Systems
C. Utilization of Mass Media and Satellite Communi-
   cations System for Family Planning

Section V   Action to Develop Worldwide Political and
            Popular Commitment to Population Stability
While specific goals in this area are difficult to state, our aim should be for the world to achieve a replacement level of fertility, (a two-child family on the average), by about the year 2000 [emphasis added]. This will require the present 2 percent growth rate to decline to 1.7 percent within a decade and to 1.1 percent by 2000. Compared to the U.N medium projection, this goal would result in 500 million fewer people in 2000 and about 3 billion fewer in 2050. Attainment of this goal will require greatly intensified population programs [emphasis added]. A basis for developing national population growth control targets to achieve this world target is contained in the World Population Plan of Action.

30. The World Population Plan of Action is not self-enforcing and will require vigorous efforts by interested countries, U.N. agencies and other international bodies to make it effective. U.S. leadership is essential [emphasis added].

Just as Kissinger made no bones (give or take 40 million American unborn) about the fact that abortion was vital to the solution, I'm saying that the US makes no bones about what is and is not in our national interest. Bodies can float like logs out of a bloody Rwanda of blacks run amok which some badass Boy Scout troop could tame and it's an "internal civil conflict into which we cannot intervene". Milosevic allegedly slaughters a mere 40,000 (okay, so that was never proven) and we go in and bust up bridges, target civilian infrastructure and a substantial amount of Collateral Damage and it's a moral war because our almighty National Interests (or those of the Stakeholders, anyway) are on the line.

A bit unclear? Let Brzerzinski have a go:

CHARLIE ROSE: So, we say to the Tibetans, ``You know, we can't do it because we don't want to get into a big deal with China, a fight with China.''

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: That's right.

CHARLIE ROSE: ``They're too big and strong.''

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: That's right.

CHARLIE ROSE: We said with Chechnya, ``We can't do it because morality plays no issue here because, you know, we don't want to get into a big conflict with the Russians.''

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: That's right. That is unfortunately--

CHARLIE ROSE: And we say to the Africans, ``We don't have a big stake here. It's Africa. It's not Europe, and so -- therefore -- we can't get involved.''

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: And we can support the African states doing-- You're absolutely right, Charlie. That's exactly the reality.

CHARLIE ROSE: It's not very tidy, is it?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: It isn't tidy. And reality isn't tidy. And look at our own society. Look at the presence of crime in certain parts of our cities. In certain parts of a city there's much less. In other parts of the city there is much more. In certain parts of the cities certain forms of conduct would not be tolerated in daylight. In certain parts of cities they are. Unfortunately you cannot deal with all of the problems of the world at the same time. But that's not an argument for doing nothing where you can.

CHARLIE ROSE: So, the Brezhnev principle becomes--I mean, the Brzezinski principle--

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: You're not the only one who has done this, Charlie.

CHARLIE ROSE: There is no Brezhnev-- The Brzezinski principle becomes, ``Do something where you can have an impact and where it most closely fits your national interest in terms of like people.''

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Well, where morality, practicality and interest coincide, obviously it's more possible. And I think it's even obligatory.

And last but certainly not least, as a Bloodhound, I'm happy to direct you to the sorts of Private Corporations (given his stint in Western Africa, Connaught's Thomas Hecht is a steller example of Stakeholder in the proces) of whom Kissinger repeatedly speaks. These Private Concerns -- with the guidance of folks at Rockefeller's daughter's Synergos Institute in conjunction with the World Economic Forum and the Global Philanthropists Circle help direct the billions in pop-control foundation monies from Stakeholders like Baroness Lynda Chalker, Bill Gates, Buffet and Turner to the right Targets.

These folks not only underwrite the researchers and academics who rotate out of "public service" (e.g., the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation floating the likes of Piotrow at Johns Hopkins and Foege at the Carter (GLOBAL 2000) Center at Emory) they act as partners of a sort in conjunction with the US, UN, USAID and other agencies charged with managing the "healthcare mechanisms" by which targeted nations could best be fast-tracked toward acceptable reproduction rates. No question but what the argument can be made that the AIDS epidemic is a product of the Blood Industry. Follow the money, as is always the case with "healthcare mechanisms".

So, given the evidence of US objectives and means as detailed in NSSM-200/NSDM-314 and carried out to this day -- particularly the protection and continued funding of the exact pharmas responsible for the epidemic -- I do believe the case can be made that the average USAIDS report on the depopulation effects of AIDS on certain African nations may well be a measure of success after all.

Despite the patently obvious agenda of so many of its cohorts and partners, even UNFPA's a bit confused, it seems:

Tuesday October 19, 1999

UNFPA MEETING JOKES ABOUT AIDS HELPING DEPOPULATION IN AFRICA
NEW YORK, Oct 19 (LSN.ca) - The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute reported Friday that at a briefing meeting of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), participants joked that AIDS was helping to do the work of population control in Africa. During the meeting a representative from Marie Stopes International, one of the largest abortion providers in the world, asked jokingly what a "demographer's approach to AIDS and STDs is since they reduce life expectancy."

A demographer and former UNFPA representative, Jan Fransen, emphasized at the meeting that, "individual rights" should not be "at the centre of development." Rather, the major concern from Fransen's view must be the number of "people which the earth can hold in a sustainable way," which he declared to be between only 700 million and 1 billion individuals. By extension, it would seem that those of like mind with Fransen in the UN, must favour extraordinary social upheaval that would be required in order to reduce the world's population by five billion people from its current six billion.

But who can begrudge the abortionists a little gallows humor as they go about their Humanitarian work on behalf of the Living?

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