April 7, 2009
American 'arrogance' on display in Africa
While President Barack Obama (D) apologizes for our "arrogance" to Europe and Turkey - the very arrogance that saved the former from Nazism and Communism and the latter from even more chaos - maybe he will credit America and his predecessor for this bit of truly inspiring American can do work. Nah! And neither will the Europeans or the Turks. Oh, who cares?
The result is truly inspiring.
A U.S. program launched during the Bush administration has cut AIDS deaths by 10 percent in targeted African nations compared to their neighbors and saved more than a million lives, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
(snip)
PEPFAR is the largest U.S. foreign aid program devoted to a single disease and has been lauded as a bright spot of former President George W. Bush's tenure. It pays for drug treatment for people infected with HIV as well as other steps such as prevention efforts.
Last July, the U.S. Congress voted to spend $48 billion to expand PEPFAR for five years to treat and prevent AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. About 33 million people are infected with HIV and 2 million die of AIDS each year, according to the World Health Organization.
Will the Africans appreciate America? Probably not. But we'll continue to fund and to help because Americans can rise above such pettiness; Americans are arrogant because they take positive actions while the Europeans sink more and more into passivity and helplessness while blaming their failures on others--the U.S.