Though President Bush’s legacy will be dominated by Iraq and Afghanistan, he deserves credit and praise for helping Africa. Bush has increased direct development and humanitarian aid to Africa to more than $4 billion a year from $1.4 billion in 2001, the Washington Post reported, and he recently vowed to increase it to nearly $9 billion by 2010. “He should be known for the largest single investment in AIDS and malaria, the biggest health investment of any government program ever,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. Well done. One area where Bush must do more: stopping the genocide in Sudan.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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55 Comments
Wow Bush did something good. I”m happy to hear that, but he also blocked family planning that included birth control, which might have helped prevent the spread of AIDS too. Maybe Ethiopia will take on Darfur since they took over Mogudishu. That’s a big story, how come we’re not discussing that?
I forgot. No one cares about a bunch of half dressed natives running around poking their heads into the bellies of dead animals.
What exactly is he supposed to do about Sudan? Is there no one in Europe or Africa that can take care of it? This is exactly the type of problem the UN is supposed to take care of, where are they?
Bushy has given a hell of a lot more money to Halliburton.
Africa can choke. The compassion train has de-railed. The UN should, but can’t, help.US. OUT. OF. UN. NOW.
I’m glad we can help, but….Bush is bankrupting our country with spending borrowed money on EVERYTHING.Tax cuts included.
Oh sure, they talk about how they saved millions here and there by whacking some pork now and again.But the fact remains….everything we spend on anything is borrowed money.We keep this crapolla up, and the great depression is going to seem like good times.
I would like to know what his motivation was to increase this aid? Was it pressure from his Christian Conservative base or was it politicians like Sam Brownback who think this issue will win some voters for them?
Or did he think if he helped Africa then the focus would be off of what he has been doing and is still doing in Iraq?
George W. Bush’s legacy will be Iraq and according to Bush himself, he has stated that history will prove he is right. We’ll just have to wait and see on that one.
While Bush might be able to claim some good things the fact remains that, like LBJ and Nixon, his legacy will be dominated by the war.
http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/15
THE OIL FACTOR IN SOMALIA; FOUR AMERICAN PETROLEUM GIANTS HAD AGREEMENTS WITH THE AFRICAN NATION BEFORE ITS CIVIL WAR BEGAN. THEY COULD REAP BIG REWARDS IF PEACE IS RESTORED.
Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside.
That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the U.S.-led military mission can restore peace to the impoverished East African nation.
According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia’s pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration’s decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there.
Officially, the Administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as “absurd” and “nonsense” allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part, by the U.S. corporate oil stake.
4 billion dollars . . . that’s 2 and one-half weeks of funding for the Iraq War.
Okay, it’s better than nothing.
By sheer law of averages, if Bush is in the office of the presidency long enough, he will end up doing something right.
But look at how hard the reich-wing has to search to find something that Bush did right.
Worst.President.Ever.
There is an old saying that even a stopped clock is correct twice a day. That is better than Bush is doing.
Fleets enema, I agree that someone needs to get in there and do something and it shouldn’t always be US, but to say the compassion train is derailed, well maybe yours is Mr Christianity, but mine is not. How very pro-life of you.
I guess we don’t have to worry about Somalia anymore since Ethiopia will be running that show for awhile.
Again, at 8:23am a posting was made that is NOT mine. I don’t know what possible thrill this troll is getting out of doing this childish and boorish behavior but it is really getting old.
And, frankly, it shows the troll does not possess much intelligence.
lucee,We can tell when you post. don’t even give the troll acknowledgment
I’ve become suspicious of every move this administration makes. Today I start out wondering what their hidden motive is, and when I find something to agree with and support it surprises me. I didn’t want to feel / think this way. I’ve been looking up to and respecting presidents for six decades. I didn’t want that to change but it has. The scare tactics, feeding people misinformation to get them emotionally charged up and behind issues our government shouldn’t even be involved with define this presidency. This president and his cohorts have assaulted our civil rights and encouraged a fight over religion and science. Maybe those aren’t separate topics but all tangled into one that even includes the misbegotten war in Iraq – all summed up by stating that I’ve seen too much lack of respect for people who are already born.
Torture. Bush&Co make me ashamed of America for the very first time in my life.
Patriot Act. An all-out assault on the Bill of Rights this legislation ensures he and his cohorts won’t face prosecution for their war crimes. This legislation has done much to hurt Americans and make our hard-fought freedoms disappear. I don’t want to live in a Police State and I’m sadly beginning to feel it’s time for another revolution to ensure our freedoms.
Only veto of the entire presidency slows down hope for many. Even the do-nothing congress passed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research – only this president and his pandering to the RR stand in the way of really getting behind the science that will bring treatments and cures to benefit mankind.
Abstinence only policies that cause great harm. Pressure to not make the morning-after pill widely available. Pressure to not make sure the vaccine that is 100% effective in protecting against four HPV types (which together cause 70% of cervical cancer) is widely available. This vaccine prevents a horrible disease and saves lives and in no way encourages casual sex.
Legislating morality.
I could go onandonandonandon… I won’t because those who agree understand and those who disagree understand their opinions. We are polarized and I blame that on this president too. He has done much harm to my country, to religion, to many innocent people. He is the worst of the worst.
pmom-The compassion has de-railed and has burnt all up.For one- I am not Christian. For two- I am only a three month pro-lifer, after that, I am a 6 month no choicer.The money to Africa goes into a rat hole. Enough is enough.
bush’s legacy will be a mideast that will bubble and churn until it explodes into a full blown regional general war.
linda’s post above shows why you people cannot be trusted to protect this country against our enemies.
“You people.” Would that include everyone who is smart enough to see the failures of this president?
Fleettthotwood’s post shows why the KKKonservatives just keep creating more and more enemies against America . . .
fleetie?
The adults are in charge now.
Sit down and shut up.
Looks like my post stands.Better put some ice on that.
Linda has every right to voice her opinion just as fleetwood does. Just because she is concerned and is questioning the direction Bush and the Republicans have taken our country does not make her unpatriotic or a fool. She is a smart person, with a mind to reason things out. Linda has demonstrated that she is thinking about policies and their consequences. I just wish every politician, including George W. would do the same.
Fleettwood apparently wants to “put ice on it” because it hurts so bad where he got pounded . . .
I hope all of these comments are archived so that we can pull them out in four years. Listen to Pelosi if you think GW is a big spender. I hope I never get to say ‘I told you so’. This is a new year and hearing some optimism would be great. NO president has ever been completely right or completely wrong. Only history will tell the end of the story.
Bush is trying hard to disprove your theory that no president is ever completely wrong.
But, ksgrm, George W. Bush is never wrong and he has stated that fact several times.
When asked, GWB stated that he could not think of one thing that he has done wrong.
Just for the record I don’t approve of the way the Iraq war has gone. I do think we have accomplished some positive things there. But the thread is about Bush’s legacy and he does indeed have one. The economy. I can hear the boos and hisses aready but the facts are this. We had been in a recession since March of the year before he took office (this was Clinton’s recession). Under him the NASDAQ fell almost 60% in a few short months. Even after going through the worst terror attack we have ever suffered on our own soil we have recouped to the point that the DOW is at a record high, the unemployment number is at it’s lowest (in a range that most economists call full employment) meaning that anyone who wants to work is. Taxes under Bush are much lower – for the rich and the poor alike, the child tax credit is higher for middle class families, the marriage penalty is gone, business small and large are able to make capital improvements because of the exelerated depreciation and tax breaks under Bush. All of this together has worked to give us a very good economy. I could go on but I do feel that Bush has left a good legacy and history will treat him kindly.
ksgrm, the Iraq war will determine the legacy, notwithstanding anything else he and the Congress did during his term See, e.g., LBJ.
Vaughn you are right in some of what you say but as the dems work hard to raise taxes and roll back some of the changes made by this administration they will always be referred to as the Bush tax cuts. LBJ had the civil rights advances to hang his hat on but many people claimed part of that. How many times have you heard the tax cuts referred to as ‘Bush’s Taxcuts’? By trying to malign him they will help cement his legacy.
“By trying to malign him they will help cement his legacy.”
The Bush legacy has already been set in stone – the Worst President Ever.
He has the lowest approval rating since Nixon, he started a war that is an absolute disaster, he has been the most divisive president since Nixon or before, the economy only favors the already rich, the wage and take home income gap between haves and have’nots is growing daily, spending has increased by double the rate it was under Clinton and the deficit has soared beyond control.
History will record Bush as the Worst President in American Hostory.
Period.
I don’t understand how anyone could address the economy without including talk of the deficit. Tax cuts coupled with reduced spending makes financial sense. What Bush has done during his term does not make sense and we and future generations will pay for his lack of finanacial responsibility.
And, that lie about inheriting the recession is just that — a lie.
“[To define a recession,] economists rely on the…measurements of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of recessions and expansions. NBER has been run since 1977 by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, an architect of the Bush tax cut and an intellectual mentor to many prominent Republican policy-makers, including Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. According to NBER’s definition, the recession did not begin until after President Clinton left office….According to NBER, the economy peaked and started shrinking in March 2001; two months after the Bush presidency began. “The determination of a peak date in March is thus a determination that the expansion that began in March 1991 ended in March 2001 and a recession began in March.” So according to NBER, the most recent recession did not start during the Clinton administration. (Nor did the expansion begin under Clinton; rather, it launched during President Bush the Father’s term.)
germie
I keep hearing your side talk about this great economy.
See? You need to qualify that. You NEED to say “As a buisiness owner and financially secure person, the economy under bush has been great for me and others like me.”
THAT statement would be accurate. But to call the economy in general great? That’s not anywhere near true.
Watch. I’ll prove it.
Anbody but ksgrm better off now than they were 6 years ago? And how about optimism? Do ya see things getting better or worse?
My ansers are “No and “worse”.
But what say you bloggers? Is this a boom time that you will remember bush for?
Wow–Bush did something nice? That’s good.
One striking aspect of the Bush legacy will the shameless attempt to redefine and discard lonstanding doctrines of law, within the rubric of an imaginary “war on terrorism.”
Two concrete examples: The unlawful long-term imprisonments of Jose Padilla and Yasir Hamdi, both Americans, the latter born abroad. Two OBVIOUS test cases, to try to create ominous, expanded, executive-branch powers over the American people, all based on “a new kind of war,” with the rules all written from scratch.
And it’s not over, folks.
Same answers as yours, JR — no and worse. Although investments have made some gains during the last year they haven’t yet caught up to where they were before the losses of the five years before. And I worry about my children and grandchildren. We can’t keep spending like drunken sailors. Does anyone remember the days of accountability? The days of vetoes, checks and balances? The days when lawmakers wrote the legislation instead of leaving it to the lobbyists? I even remember the days when I could disagree with a president and still respect him…
Clinton Recession: ‘Bill’ Comes Due for 8 Years of CorruptionCharles R. SmithWednesday, March 21, 2001Despite the media effort to pin the 2001 recession on President Bush, the fact remains that he had little to do with the last eight years of economic policy from the White House. The infamous miracle bubble of Bill Clinton’s economy burst last summer when OPEC oil price increases rocked the world economy.
This article goes on to say that it was the agreement Bill Richardson and Bill Clinton made with the Saudi to raise the price of oil that started the recession and also the tech bubble burst as people like Terry McCaulife took their inflated stock options from companies like Global Crossings.
Saying it ain’t so doesn’t change the facts. What was Clinton’s legacy and for that matter what was Carters. They both did a number on the economy and history will point that out for Clinton as it has done for Carter.
Sorry, Grandma, but you can try to trash Clinton, you can try to blame Clinton, you can go all the way back and try to blame Carter, but your boy is still the Worst President Ever.
And nothing you can say or do will change that… George W Bush, the Worst President Ever.
Just think, your Georgie Boy has two more years to sink to Nixonian levels.
Go, George, go!
J R you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to others circumstances. I along with a lot of other people are better off that we were six years ago and not because I set on my backside and waited for the government to hand me a check. Stop whining and get busy. In the country we live in there is absolutely no excuse for a person with any ambition at all to make a good living. And yes my retirement funds took a major hit when the tech stocks tanked and took the mutual funds with them. This wasn’t Bush’s fault it was on Clinton’s watch. Talk to yourselves and tell each other how you are so miserable because of big bad bush.
Jeez, Grandma, and they accuse me of smoking too much dope.
I wish I had some of the stuff you’re tokin’
Check your calendar, ksgrm. It’s 2007. Five years of no gain in the Dow is pathetic.
It has finally moved up to 12 thousand something, but most of that move is just from a recovering GM that was about ready to go belly up last year with high oil prices.
Census data proves that the vast majority of Americans are financially worse off today than they were four years ago. The barely reduced taxes (300 dollars on average for people making less than 90k a year) doesn’t begin to make up for the lower wages they earn.
They are carrying more debt than any time in history. Savings are at an all-time low.
Ditto for the national spending. The war is up to 2 billion a week. National debt is at an all-time postwar high.
Considering that deficit spending is economically stimulating, the economy should be way better than it is.
What the investors and the economy valued was when Clinton-Gore balanced the budget and paid down the national debt.
That’s four votes my way and one yours so far germie. Hey dear I grant ya. Those in the investor class are making a KILLING. The 401k from my last steady work has made more money in the last two years than I have struggling in a bush job market. Let’s remember grandma, it was georgie boy who granted most favored trading status to China. It’s also georgie boy who has done NOTHING to address immigration. The combiantion of those two left long unchanged? Well this nation will have had it. EXCEPT for those who already have money making more of it. I guess that’s fine with you. Keeps your workers from being more demanding? High employment? Uh huh. Sorry deary I live that reality every day. When was your last time in the job market? Whatcha got there is one person who used to do one job now working two or three. That and millions who are not counted who have simply given up. Yup it’s a wonderful economy you and yours are builiding there germie. I’m sorry your concern does not extend past your own circumstances. That makes you a pretty “poor” American, my book. bush at least proves he’s an equal opportunity breaker when it comes to nations.
(From Hee Haw) Gloom, despair, and agony on me; Oh…Deep dark depression excessive misery; Oh…If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all; Oh… gloom despair and agony on me. …
C’mon lighten up!
One of our main challenges that we face as a country is a global economy which will continue to put downward pressure on wages. On the other hand, we have historically low unemployment, even with the influx of illegals, (which none of our current so-called leaders have the balls to address).For future generations, higher education and training are going to be a must since we will be competing with the rest of the world.
Incidentally, George Bush may have extended China’s MFNTS, but they already had it.
I am not better off than I was 6 years ago, nor is anybody I know. If I knew people who made over $300K/year, then the second part of my answer might be different.
Anyone who is a consumer, and not a marketer, of gasoline is not better off than 6 years ago. So my guess is that only Wichitans better off now, are the Kochs.
Unlike the current occupant of the WhiteHouse, Bush I campaigned for a “kinder, gentler nation” – because he knew the Bush way of government was hard on the middle class.
grm, you really ARE desperate aren’t you?
Life was GOOD under Clinton, do you think that all the people who moved up in class during the Clinton years just suddenly decided to get productive because he was in office? And then just decided to get lazy again after Bush came into office? No.
And it’s a farce to believe that anyone can be successful just because they want to. Face it, we have to have a lower class to provide for our nation the services we want. The playing field is not level, everything is graded on a curve in real life. However, they should not be as poor as they are. Those people work just as hard if not harder than the wealthier. They just haven’t had the same circumstances or opportunities.
that’s hilarious.
“the playing field is not level”"everything is grades on the curve”"you can’t be successfuljust because you want to”
If you believe those fallacies, you’ll be forever destined to live in the trailer park of life.
Stalking P Mom again, Nutz?
Isn’t your fixation a little embarassing?
Psst, Testicles, I really do not live in a trailer park. I was just hoping you’d go drive around and try to find me in one.
But you know, even if I did, there is a reason why people live in trailer parks, because they’re poor. And I’m sure they’d rather live in a trailer than on the streets.
It’s your story, Pee…
Tell it any way you like.
PMom, please don’t encourage him. It’s like the old story of the braids dipped in the inkwell. Please ignore him, maybe he will go away. You have much to add and do whenever you have time, he has nothing to add and proves it in every (all-too frequent) post.
goof?Your infantile obsession with political mom is becoming rather scary. Incidentally? My great aunt lives in a trailer park. She’s 89 years old, a sweet lady, and a delusional believer (but gladly not a voter for because I would have to disown her) in bush and Republicans. Actaully LOTS of rednecks who live in trailer parks vote Republican. Keep helping me show them why that is stupid will ya? Outie? I know it’s all good for you. No matter how bad it MIGHT get you got your rapture coming. Thanks but I don’t take advice from people who are eagerly awaiting the end of the world. Figures you’re a heehaw fan. And why don’t you name for me……ANY technical job that is not being outsourced? Why are you not standing in defence of America and your fellow Americans? Oh ….that’s right. GOD is gonna make it ok for you and yours. And for everyone else? Well the world needs ditch diggers too? These are the people who still embrace george bush. This is his legacy. Not company I’D want respect from. But I guess the shrub will have to take the dregs.
Yeah I just had an argument on another forum where the conservatives were saying how fabulous outsourcing of jobs was for America.
And Linda, I know, he’s just a big bully.
I should ignore him. I just like keeping his true colors showing.
outsourcing of menial mfg jobs IS good for america.
that’s why computers are $400 and toys are $2.99.
“Outsourcing is good”
SELL IT GOOF NUTS!
“Only history will tell the end of the story.”
Ah, yes, but we’ll all be dead by then, won’t we? So it doesn’t really matter.
Or at least that’s what your pretzeldent said.
I served as a marine rifleman in Viet Nam, 1968-69. I’ve read much Viet Nam war literature and published a collection of war poetry, On The Way to Khe Sanh, (three of which appeared in The Iowa Review, Spring 2005), and a memoir, Nam Au Go Go – Falling for the Vietnamese Goddess of War.
Nam Au Go Go is different. It talks about something no one I can find has written about – what violence does to war fighters. How, if combat soldiers and marines see too much, do too much, they can cross a threshold into an adaptation to violence and become addicted to it. When your emotional self is killed off by the insanity of war, survivors of this addiction have a hard time re-connecting with society. Combat is a one-way door. Once you go through, you cannot go back. You are changed.
For a glimpse, go to http://www.johnakins.net
Find Nam Au Go Go on booksellers’ websites.e: jacolesdad@comcast.net