President Bush pledged on Saturday to help Africa in its "courageous fight" against AIDS and called on the U.S. Congress to fully fund his $15 billion plan to combat the disease. Posted on 07/12/2003 10:56:40 AM PDT by Uncle Bill
Bush Calls for Full $15 Billion for AIDS in Africa
Reuters
By Patricia Wilson
July 12, 2003 10:08 AM ET
President Bush pledged on Saturday to help Africa in its "courageous fight" against AIDS and called on the U.S. Congress to fully fund his $15 billion plan to combat the disease.
At the last stop on his five-day, five-nation African tour, Bush also said Washington would stand with its friends and allies to end regional wars. He and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo were expected to discuss the possibility of the United States contributing troops to a mainly African peacekeeping force for Liberia at their meeting on Saturday.
Bush says he will join efforts to enforce a fragile cease-fire to end Liberia's civil war, but is waiting on reports from U.S. military experts in the West African state before deciding whether to send troops.
"Progress in Africa depends on peace and stability, so America is standing with friends and allies to help end regional wars," he said in his weekly radio address.
But Bush focused mainly on AIDS, a disease he said posed "one of the gravest dangers" Africa has ever faced.
He said the need for help was urgent, with almost 30 million people in Africa living with HIV/AIDS including three million children under the age of 15.
"People in Africa are waging a courageous fight against this disease," Bush said. He cited progress in Uganda, which he visited on Friday, saying the country had significantly reduced the rate of infection through a program of abstinence, faithfulness and education.
"Yet current efforts to oppose the disease are simply not equal to the need. ... Africa has the will to fight AIDS but it needs the resources as well."
CONGRESS UNDER PRESSURE
Bush's pledge came after Republicans in the House of Representatives moved bills backing his request for $2 billion next year to fight the global pandemic -- $1 billion less than the amount provided for in a plan he signed in May.
The $2 billion is in line with the White House request for the first year, but White House officials have said Bush would seek greater amounts in subsequent years.
"I urge the entire Congress to fully fund my request for the emergency plan for AIDS relief, so that America can help turn the tide against AIDS in Africa," he said.
In May, Bush signed into law a $15 billion plan to help combat the disease in Africa and the Caribbean, tripling U.S. spending over five years.
The new law, a surprise priority in the president's State of the Union address, means anti-viral treatment will be available to about 2 million HIV-infected people in Africa and the Caribbean who cannot afford the costly cocktail of drugs that can prolong and improve their lives.
It also provides hospice care for the dying, helps some of the 13 million children who have lost one or both parents and intensifies prevention programs through strategies like sexual abstinence, education and promotion of condom use.
The White House said the plan had the potential to prevent 7 million new HIV infections within a decade.
The AIDS initiative focuses principally on Botswana, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, as well as Guyana and Haiti in the Caribbean.
President George W. Bush - Biography
SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html
"George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. Formerly the 46th Governor of the State of Texas, President Bush has earned a reputation as a compassionate conservative who shapes policy based on the principles of limited government,..."
Most of the folks there are wandering around in the world of Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. How much is our compassionate conservative President spending on that tragedy?
What's that? These poor old folks don't vote? Well, Shrub can spend 10 time 15 billion and he won't make a dent in the black vote.
Bushies make me laugh/cry when they claim he's not a politician.
So are our vets.
When was the last time you visited a Veteran's Hospital?
I'm not talking about the primary care facilities; I'm talking about the long term care for those who are paralyzed or missing limbs or have severe brain damage.
Some of these vets don't have soap to take a bath or shampoo to wash their hair or false teeth to eat or eyeglasses to read the newspaper.
PLEASE wake up!
Charity begins at home, and we have hundreds of thousands of people in need right here in America!
The African bureaucrats have been corrupt forever. They can cover their trail so that there is no accounting for where the money actually goes.
We'll have a paper trail that leads to nowhere.
It will never be traced to the foreign bank accounts owned by despots in Africa.
This is a great way to suck money out of our struggling economy.
There's the rub. How do you propose we do that?
Sorry, but I have to agree with Old Fud - it's easy to be compassionate on my nickel. It takes a lot more intestinal fortitude to tell immoral jag-offs to keep it in their pants or they're going to rot in jail, and then back it up with the $$ to enforce the law.
Is it Constitutional?
Not that I'm aware of.
In the famous words of that great Indian scout:
"What's with this 'WE' stuff, paleface?"
*I* can't afford it!
If I want to spend money on humanitarian aid I'll buy some more supplies for the vets in the Houston Veteran's Hospital!
I OWE THEM just like every American does!
My heart is in America, and that's where it's going to stay!
Let me reiterate:
I lived and worked there for several years, in various parts of Africa. I know how they live.
Let me propose a scenario to you:
On the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, you have a crowd of 150 kids tagging after you ranging in age from five to fifteen.
All of them are starving to death; they live on the streets.
All of them are begging you for just enough money to buy a piece of bread so that they might live one more day.
Not like the beggars we see here in America standing on the street corner asking for money which will probably be spent on booze; these kids actually need a little money to live.
WHAT are you going to do?
If you have enough money to buy ALL of them a loaf of bread, fine....you've extended their life for a day or two.
What about after that?
The situation in Africa is hopeless as long as Africans tolerate the conditions in which they live.
Our misguided attempts to help them only increase the power of the local bureaucrats so they can exert more control over the masses.
Our efforts of aid to Africa are self-defeating, and we could bankrupt America without helping them one iota.
The problem in Africa is over-population, and we CAN NOT fix that with ANY amount of money!
So what is a solution? Throwing money at it doesn't work. Heck, the Dems have been doing that for years here.
I don't have a solution, but I agree with TexasCowboy on this one.
The root of Africa's problems is there are more Africans than Africa's resources are developed to decently support. Sending them $15 billion, or $150 billion for that matter will slightly improve things through Western food and medicine, for as long as the checks keep coming. The day the handouts stop, they will be even worse off then they are now - because thanks to that food and medicine we're going to ship them, there will be even more of them and their resources will be spread that much more thinly.
The only way Africa will get out of the hole it's in is the imposition of stable governments and rule of law to allow development of effective economies. This will never happen, because simple acknowledgement that this needs to be done is tacit admission that black Africa is incapable of running itself. Apparently watching them chop each other up with machetes and starve is preferable to being "racist."
There used to be countries in Africa that worked. Under European administration of course. But we called them racists and boycotted them while the Soviets propped up their enemies. Now the whites have had their property seized and left, the economies have collapsed, and the people starve in the streets.
There's progress for you.
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