US abandons African AIDS programme

[Gloria]

The Bush bait and switch yet again...promises, photo ops, take offense at something, cut funding...



http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=8172&TagID=2

US abandons African AIDS programme

uploaded 30 Aug2003


WASHINGTON: The United States government has cut off funds to an Aids programme for refugees in Africa - six weeks after President George Bush toured the continent promising to fight the disease - because it objects to the activities of one of the aid agencies involved, Marie Stopes International.

A State Department official said that US law prohibited the funding of organizations that support China's repressive population policy - a definition sufficiently elastic to include Marie Stopes, which runs family planning programmes there.

However, organizations that work on reproductive health and Aids argue that the decision betrays the Bush administration's wider hostility to abortion. Its commitment to a rightwing Christian agenda has led it to promote abstinence as a strategy against HIV-Aids in preference to condoms, they say.

(snip)

News of the cuts emerged barely six weeks after Mr Bush toured five African states to launch a $15bn Aids initiative. It was later cut back drastically, with Congress approving just $2bn of the $3bn sought in the first year.


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[ComerPerro]

1. Well, I think this was the game plan all along

Do something for the photo op and sound byte, then scrap it when no one is looking. Thats how Bush does everything.

Its not like his program was that effective, anyway. His method for combatting AIDS was teaching abstainance.

[bahrbearian]

3. It was Quicker than I figured even for Chimpy.

[donco6]

2. I remember earlier threads on this board that foretold this.

That Bush would promise aid, but it would be only in the abstinence realm. With no org to deliver such a program, the funding would be cut.

[Cha]

5. Yes ...we were right there predicting it!

[Cha]

4. See! I knew this! And all that diplomacy by Bono!

Wonder what he's saying about the bushster now?

[UCLA02]

14. I was thinking the same thing!!!

I'm rather obsessed with everything Bono does and says politically (I can say that. I'm among friends, right?) After the "Lie to the Union" address Bono congratulated * for including AIDS funding (just after Bono had a Washington Post op-ed on the subject). I've faulted Bono for giving * too much credit in the past. Maybe he'll learn this time.


Ol' Whistle Ass should listen to Bono more often. Sounds a bit like Baghdad, eh?:
"You plant a demon seed
You raise a flower of fire
See them burning crosses
See the flames higher and higher"

From U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky"

[Cha]

16. Yeah! I was paying attention to what Bono said, too! Because

he did give ol asterisk a lot of credit only to be stabbed in the heart!

I do hope we hear a statement from Bono on this!

[searchingforlight]

6. This man needs to be on Ritalin!

He thinks and acts like a load of buckshot. I spend the day shaking my head.

[ComerPerro]

8. NO NO No. Bad Idea

Do you really want a hateful, vindictive, cowboy idiot with a desire to play war and use "shock and awe" like Bush to take a drug that makes him focused?

[searchingforlight]

9. You're right. Where was my head?

[izzie]

7. Did CNN have this on?

n/t

[Clete]

10. Isn't this the reason Colin Powell signed on?

Oooh, that won't be good for Shrubya if uncle Tom gets pissed off. Bad move Mr. Rove.

[whathappened]

11. why would anybody

beleave anything that comes out of this lieing shit , his mouth is alway a going and nothing worth hearing comes out

[Cheswick2.0]

12. D'oh sorry, didn't mean it

what a creep

[aquart]

13. Golly. Another promise. Another lie. Another betrayal.

Damned monotonous.

[Isome]

15. Well how shocked am I?!

Hmmm, I'm not. From day one, left leaners with insight have said what would happen and we were right, once again.