Sunday, July 17th, 2005...6:43 pm
Shafted in Africa
First Lady Laura Bush made a visit to Africa this week where she spoke out against the genocide in Rwanda. Nice timing on that one.
It has, unfortunately, become the style of conservatives to blame every foreign policy failing of the last quarter century on something Bill Clinton did or did not do. Funny thing though, I didn’t hear too many conservatives mouthing off about this one at the time.
For example, Christopher Hitchens wrote a recent article in Slate on the occasion of the anniversary of the Srebenica massacre. He goes on about how Bill Clinton did nothing about it, and the neo-cons were the only ones who wanted to do anything about it. He’s right, but after the events in both Rwanda and Bosnia, Clinton decided to take action in Kosovo. Hitchens and those oh-so-morally-decisive neo-cons condemned him for it. Maybe the Republicans wouldn’t remember this, since they were too busy impeaching him at the time. (Yes, hard to believe, the Republicans were undermining the President while brave American boys were at war.)
Instead of handwringing, the First Lady may try to put a bug in the ear of her husband to do something, anything, about the on-going genocide in Darfur. I know, not as glamorous as Iraq. No oil, and Omar Al-Bashir never tried to kill George’s daddy.
Embarassingly, the First Lady decided to use the opporitunity to lecture world governments on spending more money on the African AIDS pandemic. This finger-wagging would be welcome if her husband had met his own promises on this issue. Some of you may remember that in 2003, Bush pledged to spend $15 billion on AIDS in Africa. His “pledge” was mostly money that was already being spent (that guy Clinton again), and wouldn’t be fully funded until after the end of his term. To make matters worse, his budgets have consistently not met his own pledges. When a normally stingy congress tried to spend a bit more money, the administration fought it tooth and nail.
To most of us in this country, this is an obscure budget fight. But for the leaders that Mrs. Bush met, this issue is paramount. It shouldn’t suprise any of us if these leaders stop trusting anything that this President or any future President says.
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