AMEN, W.W.W.!  This photo of ‘Wrongworst’ can’t be pushed down the ‘Reports’ stack soon enough!

Sorry, but calling Bush Africa’s good friend over his role in AIDS prevention is naive and inaccurate.  Depending on the motivation, it could just be called an outright lie.

The truth about Bush and AIDS relief is that his interest is in Big Pharma, not ending the devastation of the disease.  Under the Bush AIDS relief plan, it was illegal to sell the cheaper generic drugs, so only the high profit drugs were available.  So although AIDS medications reached around 2 million people, the 25 million who got none could have if it wouldn’t have been for Bush’s restriction on generics.

Further, aid was contingent on “economic austerity” measures from these poor governments, which complied in part by cutting health services to the people who needed them most.

According to a joint report issued by 39 NGOs, Bush’s Africa AIDS relief plan allows 5 people to become infected for every 2 it helps, based on its ideological (religious) approach.  Among recommendations in a letter written to Senators Reid, Lugar, and Biden are:

1) Remove all requirements and language governing distribution of funds for prevention of sexual transmission. The original PEPFAR legislation contained an earmark requiring that 33 percent of all funding for prevention activities be allocated to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs despite any evidence supporting this practice.

2) Remove the refusal clause (the so-called “conscience clause.”) The Global AIDS Act of 2003 includes a refusal clause or so-called “conscience clause” allowing organizations to receive scarce public funding to carry out prevention programs that are based on their own philosophy, even if it is in conflict with evidence-based interventions.

3) Remove the “prostitution pledge.” Though to date both the House and Senate have been disinclined to address it, imperatives of both public health and human rights compel us to remind you of the enormous negative impact of the anti-prostitution pledge. Current law requires groups fighting HIV/AIDS overseas to pledge their opposition to prostitution and sex trafficking before receiving U.S. money.

4) Include explicit language strengthening the linkages between reproductive health services and HIV prevention.

These are highlights from the letter, which was signed by 39 NGOs.  You can get the list here:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/07/11/forty-ngos-urge-change-bush-aids-policy

I am not sure what the motivation was for writing this article.  If it was legacy-building for Bush, forget it.  Bush was the worst president in America’s history and his approach to every single problem was to evaluate it for its political ideology first and business impact second.  His disregard for US and international law is famous, and he should and probably will be prosecuted for war crimes including an illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign state, torture, and a raft of other charges including illegal wiretapping, disregard of Article VI paragraph 2 (Supremacy Clause),  and outing a CIA operative for political purposes.

No, it’s not “cool” to bash Bush.  But it’s ignorant and dishonest to apologize for him.  After the outright atrocious, dangerous, and lawless government we’ve suffered for the last 8 years, I’m not going to stand by and let his legacy be whitewashed by half-truths about a feel-good AIDS relief package, either.  This approach was ineffective, dishonest, and ideological and it ended up costing people’s lives… just like everything else Bush did.

-Wexler

Guess we needed to see Bush’s smiling face once again.

This comes on the heels of a week-long bash Bush conference. Or at the very least, a “we don’t know that man” celebration. How sad when the very people who so hysterically supported Bush are now hysterically trying to distance themselves from Bush. He must be feeling a twinge of abandonment. And seeing the hopelessness of looking to his base to help him, he turns instead to the rest of us. Could the reality that those loyal supporters are all completely nuts be lost on him? Could it be that Bush is not near so stupid as we all thought he was? That in fact he simply worked hard to portray himself as, dumb enough to deserve the position of leading the even dumber?

Look who his former base elevates to a mock position of authority. Newt Gingrich! Sarah Palin! Joe the plumber! Rush Limbaugh! They are so fractured and befuddled, they even celebrate Ron Paul as one of their own! And the fact that Ron Paul accepted that elevation, showed up and spoke to CPAC’s collection of burned out light bulbs is telling. Can we suppose Bush was expecting an invitation to speak? Or should we suppose one was extended and he refused.

Recognition comes late to Bush. Maybe that should be the title of his memoir.

Gbemisola Olujobi, is a recipient of the first IWMF fellowship for international women journalists. This article reports a reality in Africa we hear about, but pay little attention to. Reporting a portion of that reality is responsible journalism. That the man featured in the positive happens to be Bush is simply just what it is. PEPFAR has had positive effect on the lives of many in Africa, suffering from AIDS. So maybe this story isn’t about Bush, so much as it’s about a journalist who reminds us not everything Bush did was followed by disaster.

Or, maybe Bush really is as dumb as a board and like so many morons, accidentally does something good once in a while. I doubt Bush focused on PEPFAR any more than he focused on anything else. But it might help his staff find something to focus on.

But even PEPFAR has it’s critics. As Joshua Kurlantzick points out in the September/October 2008 Issue of Mother Jones,

“Foreign assistance to African nations hard-hit by AIDS could have been the administration’s greatest success. Then ideology interfered.”

” - while PEPFAR has done wonders for aids treatment, it has missed the boat on prevention by insisting on moralistic rather than epidemiological strategies - until recently, one-third of its prevention funding, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, was squandered on premarital abstinence programs that research shows don’t work. - PEPFAR has revolutionized aids treatment in Africa. When it comes to prevention, however, the White House has ensured that the aids program is governed by a counterproductive moral standard.

To run his aids initiative, Bush chose former Eli Lilly CEO Randall Tobias, who was indifferent to his own staff’s on-the-ground experience. Tobias’ reign ended with his resignation in April 2007. Turned out the man who’d been promoting abstinence around the globe was a client of the infamous DC Madam.”

In general, at least two-thirds of all foreign aid funds never leaves the United States, according to a Congressional Research Service report in 2006, The money buys U.S. products, pays U.S salaries, overhead, benefits packages, travel, American-made vehicles, office expenses, computers and other equipment. USAID awards 87 percent of its consultant dollars to U.S. based firms. In addition 30% of PEPFAR funds have been given to ideologically driven groups who inhibit prevention and treatment with an abstinence only and NO sex education policy.

During the campaign, Obama released a plan to combat global HIV and AIDS pledging that “best practice, not ideology” would drive US funding for HIV/AIDS programs. Perhaps that plan will include reducing waste in money’s held here and actually deliver more money there.

I guess the only thing I can say is that this is the broken clock syndrome: Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Amidst all of the havoc and despair that George W. Bush wrought during his catastrophic 8 years there are few items and actions for which he cannot be condemned (amidst the cornucopia of ones for which he MUST be condemned).  This is one of them. Could it have been done better? Of course.  But at least he did it.

He also set aside the Mariana Trench as a protected area so it isn’t contaminated. That’s good—small, but good.

He also did his best to evade and avoid the Hard Right’s push for draconian immigration laws and enforcement against Mexico and illegal immigrants (primarily Mexicans and Latin Americans).  As an offshoot of that in a rare moment of political insight, he warned that the GOP was seriously alienating a critical support base: The largest minority in America, Hispanics.

Of course, even birdbrains like James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Warren G. Harding had minor things they did well, amidst the disasters they otherwise foisted upon the US.

At last, somethong good that Bush did.

Strange! Very strange indeed that Bush is viewed by some Africans as a friend of Africa when he could not be a friend of at least half of the his own American people and most of the world at large!

I would suggest that the writer of this piece lead a campaign among his African brothers and sisters to appoint Bush as a king-for-life over all the continent so per chance they would really experience Bush’s benevolence at a larger scale!

Is this the beginning of Bush trying to change how history will judge him?  He is a shameful human being and I will NEVER forget his part in the destruction of this country, our freedom and the many lost lives of our fellow citizens as well as human beings all over the world.

I promise to never forget and I will never stop doing my part to help others to remember.

God have mercy on us all…all over the world.