Africa bright spot in Bush foreign policy legacy

[flashl]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush travels this week to Africa, one of the few regions where he can claim globally recognized successes for efforts on AIDS and development in a foreign policy legacy dominated by the Iraq war.

But conflicts in Kenya and Darfur will intrude on a trip intended to show the positive impact from U.S. investment in health and development programs in the largely stable countries of Benin, Tanzania, and Ghana as well as Rwanda and Liberia, once ravaged by civil war.

"The trip will be an opportunity to demonstrate America's commitment to the people of these countries and to Africa as a whole," Stephen Hadley, White House national security adviser, said. "There's more hope in Africa and the American people can be proud that many of our innovative programs are making a real difference."

The February 15-21 trip will be the second for Bush to Africa, and the fifth for his wife, Laura, as they promote aid programs by visiting hospitals, schools and businesses, and it will also offer Bush a chance to highlight his "compassionate conservative" credentials.

Reuters

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1118527520080214

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OK.... Somehow, I missed this 'bright spot' entirely.

[unhappycamper]

1. After seven years of this putz, I doubt there's anything he can touch

without fucking it up. Oh BTW, howse things going in Chad these days?

[Demeter]

2. Somebody's Seriously Delusional

The best thing for Africa is that Bush basically ignored it.

[mwb970]

4. bush has met with more African leaders than any other president.

A surprising stat, but apparently true. Of course, nothing dramatic has actually come of it, but what do you expect from a neocon?

[izquierdista]

7. Maybe more African leaders are bald??

Disclaimer: The man in the photo is not an African leader. But if Mao were alive, don't you think W would want to go on a state visit to fondle his cranium?

[mwb970]

9. That's probably about as deep as these "meetings" have gone.

Somehow I can't see meeting with bush as accomplishing anything. It's not like he learns from other people, or from history, or from facts or evidence, or anything else the African leaders might have to say.

[flashl]

11. Meetings like?

Jack Abramoff asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of a West African nation to arrange a meeting with President Bush and directed his fees to a Maryland company now under federal scrutiny, according to newly disclosed documents.
Truthout

[ixion]

3. Oh, that AIDS program that Bush under-funded... yeah, smashing success, that

:eyes:

[tanyev]

12. Not only that, but most of it was not even new money, but money repackaged

from other programs and infested with abstinence-only ideology. What a bright spot.

:eyes:

[Xipe Totec]

5. Africa shines from his absence

The less he visits, the better off they are.

[acmavm]

6. Hey hey hey, I must be losing my mind. I distinctly recall that

bush** made all these pledges of aid and money for HIV/AIDS sufferers and then later everyone was bitching because the administration didn't cough up the cash that they promised to give. Am I cracking up? Have I got this administration confused with another traitorous bunch of sticky fingered criminals? Has Alzheimers finally set in for good?

[Doctor_J]

16. No, but you do have Big Media confused with journalism

they've already started to polish the steaming turd that is *'s legacy.

[acmavm]

17. True. From the way they describe bush** and the economy I

sometimes get the feeling that I'm in the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits.

[Earth_First]

8. Bush + Africa = legacy?

Perhaps in our upside down world of reality this holds true.

However in the reality that most of us live in, this couldn't be any further from legacy...

Who remembers when the * mis-administration pledged 10 billion in the 2003 SOTU to Africa that we reneged on?

[hooraydems06]

10. If Africa is a "bright spot" for Bush...

... it's because he avoided touching it with a ten-foot pole, thus avoiding his chances of turning it to shit, as he does with everything he touches.

[flashl]

13. Oh, he has touched it.

Rumsfeld's Africa Command

One of Donald Rumsfeld's final acts as secretary of defense will be to put the finishing touches on an Africa Command for the U.S. military.

It will be the first post-World War II command covering the African continent, which is currently split between European Command, the Middle East's Central Command and the Pacific Command.

The creation of a new Africa Command to join the five other regional military commands is far short of a dream Rumsfeld expressed to his aides after Sept. 11, 2001, to develop an "America's Command" to handle homeland security, Canada and Mexico, and the strategically quiet Latin American region.

Washington Post

'We' are there to help fight Al CIqaedA

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. Wa The Fu?

who wrote that crap?
Not only was AIDS $$ never paid, after being promised, his abstinence policies were a total failure, and he allowed three US drug companies to experiment on African kids, leading to their deaths, and also allowed the same companies to dump drugs that were not fit for USers to use on them.

Sudan - a great suckcess.
Zimbabwe - damn, he's done so much good there.
Angola
Zaire
Nigeria


This is simply insane.

[Doctor_J]

15. Well, it's bright compared to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan,

Darfur, Pakistan, South America (all of it), and Old Europe.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

18. the muddle west suffers the most.

but you are right about the others.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. April Fool? No? Too early?

In that case I'm at a loss.

Perhaps they meant "not such a total disaster as everything else Bu**sh** has stuck a finger in, therefore, by contrast, a bright spot."


ON EDIT: It was something of a jaw-dropper to see this headline on the same day I posted these two tidbits:

The lives of up to 15,000 children are at risk in Somalia unless emergency aid arrives in the next two weeks, the UN children's agency, Unicef, has warned.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2863579&mesg_id=2863579

Poor countries could see their cereal import bill rise by more than a third. Africa as a whole is expected to see an estimated 49% increase this year.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2863559&mesg_id=2863559

[daleo]

20. Bush was busy screwing up the middle east and central Asia

Therefore, he couldn't screw up Africa quite as much as he wanted to.

[Ghost Dog]

21. China will change Africa profoundly.

Bushco* lends moral support to election-fixing in Kenya and elsewhere. And to electronic snooping everywhere.

So, which country is going to host the new putative unilateral US "Africa Command", anyone?