When war began, first in Afghanistan and not long after in Iraq, we read allegations of prisoner abuse at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and of rendition to countries notorious for practicing torture. We saw the horrific images from Abu Ghraib and learned of gruesome acts performed in the name of gathering information. Sometimes the torture itself was couched in the government's euphemisms -- calling waterboarding an "interrogation technique."... To the outgoing administration's record on torture we must add a string of other policies that have damaged the standing of the United States in the world: its hostility to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases; its refusal to assent to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing the ICC's role in prosecuting war crimes; its restrictions on the use of U.S. funding to fight AIDS; and the arrogant unilateralism it has employed in declaring to be enemies any countries it deemed "against us" because they were not "for us."
Oh yeah f*cking *sshole? Sorry you blistering old fool. The war did not begin in Afghanistan nor in Iraq. It began in New York, on 9/11. May I also draw your attention to the fact that your revered Kyoto Protocol is a sham and that over the period 1990-2004 greenshouse gas emission by China and India - signatories to the Protocol - actually rose by 47 and 55% respectively (compared to the US's 15.8%)? As for "the horrific images from Abu Ghraib", how about this?
One of the 1,600 murder victims, the overwhelming majority of them white, in over 10,700 attacks by blacks on white-owned South African farms since 1994. Now, one has to be very cautious by suggesting a link between these horrible murders (plaasmoorde in Afrikaans) and the ANC-dominated government, but it is a fact that the sheer brutality aimed specifically at white farmers is starkly reminiscent of the Zimbabwean example whereby the government, with disastrous results, deliberately let loose gangs of thugs on its white farmers as part of its "land reform programme". The official aim of the SA government is to transfer one third of white-owned farmland to black farmers by 2014. The friendly ties between the Zimbabwean and South African governments are well known, and the ANC has always been a hotbed of radical murderous terrorists. Isn't it entirely plausible that radical ANC elements in the SA government, with the silent approval of the "decent" cadres, have been simply applying Mugabes tactics to scare and chase away the Boers in order to facilitate South African "redistribution"? A telling ANC slogan was "Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer" by Peter Mokaba, an ANC youth leader later turned Deputy Minister for Environmentalism and Tourism (he was also an AIDS denialist, ironically he died a couple of years back from that same disease). And then there is of course the example set by that old commie hag of a Nelson Mandela himself, caught here on tape advocating the murder of whites:
There's a gigantic body of evidence there hinting very strongly at involvement of ANC elements and even South African Police in the "plaasmoorde". Tutu must be aware of this.
But even the scandalous dismissal of the horrible murders on white farmers as random acts of murder by the SA government and important black personages like Tutu is trumped by the sheer negligence and denial with which that government treats the country's greatest peril: the AIDS endemic. Here are some conservative (?) estimates on the prevalence of HIV in the New South Africa:
National estimates based on all surveys
Based on a wide range of data, including the household and antenatal studies, UNAIDS/WHO in July 2008 published an estimate of 18.1% prevalence in those aged 15-49 years old at the end of 2007. Their high and low estimates are 15.4% and 20.9% respectively. According to their own estimate of total population (which is another contentious issue), this implies that around 5.7 million South Africans were living with HIV at the end of 2007, including 280,000 children under 15 years old.
The ASSA2003 model produces a similar estimate of 5.4 million people living with HIV in mid-2006, or around 11% of the total population. It predicts that the number will exceed 6 million by 2015, by which time around 5.4 million South Africans will have died of AIDS.
Of course, the picture is no different in the rest of black Africa, but South Africa presents an especially grave case, even more so in light of the position of relative prosperity vis-à-vis other African countries that white rule has given the nation. But of course, what can you expect if for years on end ANC thugs can produce no one better than a Manto Tshabalala-Msimang for Health Minister, whose recipe in 2006 against AIDS was... eating garlic and beetroot. It took the departure of Thabo Mbeki as SA President for Tshabalala-Msimang to disappear from the scene... in September 2008.
Along the way of Africa's plight something happened though, in 2003. That was the year PEPFAR was launched. PEPFAR stands for the "President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief" and involved a $15 billion commitment over five years (2003–2008) from President Bush to fight the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, with an almost exclusive focus on African countries. PEPFAR initially aimed to give antiretroviral treatment (ART) to 2 million HIV-infected people in the worst affected areas, to prevent 7 million new cases, and to provide care for 10 million people (the "2-7-10 goals") by 2010. PEPFAR was a very effective initiative, increasing the number of Africans receiving ART from 50,000 in 2003 to 1.1 million by March 2007 and an estimated 1.4 million by early 2008, at about the time that Michelle Obama deemed this accomplishment as yet another US feat she, as a African American, could not be proud of. Even though 1.4 million is still small compared to the roughly 33 million HIV/AIDS sufferers worldwide, it's not exaggerated to state that PEPFAR is one of the most successful medical/humanitarian programs of the past decades.
Actually, by early 2008 he money spent was rather 18 billion dollars, 3 billion up from the original goal of 15. But you wouldn't know that from the MSM. Nor would you know from them that, as PEPFAR I expired earlier this year, President Bush had a PEPFAR II in the scaffolds:
(HealthNewsDigest.com) - WASHINGTON - AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), hailed President Bush for signing legislation to re-authorize PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). The measure, which was signed in a formal signing ceremony earlier today in Washington, increases funding for the successful global AIDS program from $15 billion up to $48 billion over the next five years. As a result, PEPFAR, which is likely to be among the President’s most successful and lasting legacies, will save five to seven million lives over the next five years.
“Passage of this historic legislation is a crucial turning point in the battle to control AIDS around the world,” said Michael Weinstein, President, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which provides medical care and services to more than 79,000 individuals in 20 countries worldwide. ”Over the past several months, AHF worked diligently to persuade legislators to restore PEPFAR’s priority on treatment. We take our hats off to everyone who helped ensure that this lifesaving global AIDS bill became a reality.”
It was all to no avail.
On November 9, 2008, Desmond Tutu was allowed to write in the Washington Post:
Today Africans walk taller than they did a week ago -- just as they did when Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994. Not only Africans, but people everywhere who have been the victims of discrimination at the hands of white Westerners, have a new pride in who they are. If a dark-skinned person can become the leader of the world's most powerful nation, what is to stop children everywhere from aiming for the stars? The fact that Obama's Kenyan grandfather was a convert to Islam may -- shamefully -- have been controversial in parts of the United States, but elsewhere in the world, Obama's multi-faith heritage is an inspiration.
And the president-elect has one additional key quality: He is not George W. Bush.
Someone tell this... f*cking fool, asshat superdeluxe, ignorant dimwit, overrated fourteenth rank "bishop", blistering idiot with long overdue porridge for brains... THAT IF MILLIONS OF AFRICANS ARE TODAY WALKING TALLER THAN THEY DID FIVE YEARS AGO... IT IS BECAUSE OF GEORGE W. BUSH!!!
In Flanders, we have a saying: "Ondank is 's werelds loon" - Ingratitude is the world's reward.
It most certainly is.
MFBB.