... eschewing the talk, unlike so many so called black leaders (and yes, I include Obama, who is clearly NOT his brother's keeper):
WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH traveled to sub-Sahara Africa in February he was
greeted by large and tumultuous crowds of admirers - which mystified
many of his critics, who believe that the animosity toward his
administration abroad is universal. But polling data from the Pew
Foundation shows something different: Approval ratings for the United
States exceed 80 percent in many African countries, some with large
Muslim populations. In Darfur, many families name their newborn sons
George Bush.
What is it that the Bush administration did differently in Africa than it did elsewhere?
Certainly
one factor is that Africa is not the Middle East or central Asia where
America is fighting two unpopular wars and where polls show America at
an all-time low in public esteem. In Sudan, the United States played a
central role as peacemaker in ending a 20-year civil war between the
Arab north and African south, which killed 2 million people.
It
was the Bush administration that first raised the alarm about the
atrocities in Darfur, organized a massive humanitarian relief effort to
save people in the displaced camps, and rallied an international
coalition to send peacekeeping troops to restore order through the
United Nations and the African Union.
While the civil war
continues, casualties have declined and people are being fed by aid
agencies, thanks to US government generosity, which may explain why
Bush is so popular among the Africans in the camps. America has played
an important role as mediator in Burundi, Liberia, Northern Uganda,
Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo after civil wars
devastated all five countries. Administration policy in Africa has not
been without its failures: its military campaign in Somalia has been an
embarrassment, putting vulnerable people at risk.
However
important these diplomatic efforts may be, Bush's enduring legacy in
Africa rests on humanitarian and economic, not political, foundations.
More than anything else it has been the revolution in the US
government's development assistance that is responsible for Bush's
popularity.
The Bush administration doubled foreign aid worldwide
over the past eight years, the largest increase since the Truman
administration, and used it to encourage poor countries to undertake
political and economic reform.
Total US government development aid to Africa alone has quadrupled from $1.3
billion in 2001 to more than $5 billion in 2008, and is scheduled to go
to $8.7 billion in 2010, principally for education (primary school
enrollment in Africa is up 36 percent since 1999), healthcare, building
civil society, and protecting fragile environments.
Africa has
received $3.5 billion in additional funds from Bush's Millennium
Challenge Corporation initiative, which rewards poor countries that
encourage economic growth, govern well, and provide social services for
their people. The president's HIV/AIDS program, principally focused on
providing Africans with anti-retroviral drugs to treat the disease (1.7
million people are on the therapy), has been such a success that the
program has been extended to 2015 at $48 billion. His five-year, $1.2
billion effort to combat malaria has provided 4 million
insecticide-treated bed nets and 7 million drug therapies to vulnerable
people.
The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, approved in 2000
and reauthorized in expanded form in 2004, provides trade benefits with
the United States for 40 African countries that have implemented
reforms to encourage economic growth. Since 2001, US exports to Africa
have more than doubled to $14 billion a year, while African exports to
the United States more than tripled to $67 billion, of which $3.4
billion has been in goods other than oil. USAID has provided more than
$500 million in trade capacity building for poor countries to access
international markets, which is the only way Africa will escape the
poverty that has for too long oppressed the continent.
Interesting is it not? While Obama makes speeches to a Democratic party holding power yet doing next to nothing to assist those they champion, Bush has quietly done what they've not done a damned thing about.
And yet... and yet... where are the Religious Leftists? Where's Jim Wallis, Greg Boyd, Mike Todd, and so many others who are also quite adept at giving lip service to causes (and to jetting around the globe time and again in so called support) and yet do very little else?
I'm sick and tired of these pious putzes wagging their guilt ridden fingers in our faces and manifesting their Bush Deranged Syndrome induced rants that are so obviously ignorance based. And you should too.
For Christ's sake.
The next time a leftist talks smack (and that's all they have... smack) about how George Bush has not helped the poor, knock them about their pointy and out of touch heads with this piece.
Then tell them to go straight to hell.
H/T to Leslie and Sigmund, Carl and Alfred for the Boston Globe piece.
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