Bush's Out-of-Tune AIDS Plan

Unfortunately, domestic AID/HIV rates are appalling, but while we advocate abstinence and monogomy (which we should, I'm still old fashioned to some degree!), such vows break more often than condoms (which many should use more). That coupled with short sighted politicians that oppose needle exchange programs in order keep in tune with outdated party mandates and curry favor with overzealous religious groups in lieu of sound advice from medical professionals; allow AIDs/HIVs infection rates to maintain a high rate. Teach safe sex, educate children based on science and facts in addition to home faith teachings. Let the furry of CD bloggers begin! Peace now, peace out

Thank You ticonderoga, yes, Bush's smiling,....while slaughters benefiting corporations enriching him and his axis of evil spin onward, around the globe, that was my point.

bligh2
You may not know as much as you think about Congo/Sudan/Rwanda/Burundi. So what if Rwanda has no coltan?

Look at your maps. The DR Congo locales (where coltan is "mined")of concern are bordered by endless forests and swamps to the south & west but alas Sudan/Rwanda/Burundi sit conveniently to the north and east. Where there is a will there is a way.

Hence, the general warfare whilst mining corporations loot the world's poorest people for our cell phones.

Australia may export more coltan, but the Congo, the most mineral rich country on Earth, has about three fourths of the world's known coltan reserves. Millions have died there and throughout Africa while Bush has invaded and occupied Iraq.
The mined coltan primarily benefits an Ohio company.

Same old story, but AFRICOM, is new. Our base in Djibouti is just a beginning...for now planned but new "jumping off points," throughout Africa. But today Bush is in Ghana getting his picture taken with smiling healthy kids talking about "no new military bases in Africa"

FYI Rwanda and Burundi have NO deposits of coltan. Due to the movement of the Rwandan Hutu's after the genocide into the Congo,however, Rwanda and Burundi smuggle large amounts of the mineral from the Congo onto the world's market. So the idea that the Rwandan genocide happened because of the world's need for coltan (Australia is the chief exporter) is not true as the Rwandans did not control production at that point.

NRA Freedom, the attempted interjection of rightist beliefs will find no traction here. The rights venom will not kill here, nor even raise an eyebrow. Aggressive ignorance is reason for quiet laughter and mild entertainment. Although I do feel a slight tinge of sorrow for those whose maturity stopped abruptly only half way through the precess. I cannot imagine wasting the gift of life on fear and loathing. Bullets are not replacements for words, nor is hatred and fear a replacement for common happiness.

Hey NRA guy.

I welcome your boldness. It takes guts to hang out with your opposition. We can learn a lot more if we listen to eachother instead of insulting and hating one another.

Actually, I was in that part of the world when the genocide started. Many of my Tutsi friends were killed.

I remember wondering just then "What could the imperialist warlords want out here in this godforsaken land(the super rich who prop up the trilateral commission and supply the tribalists with tanks and bullets)?

The media and I didn't pick up on coltan-cell phones-laptops-Xboxes until years later.

I had a feeling something was pushing the war all along and now I know it was so. Did you ever read The Dogs of War?

This is a very important topic, trivialized by the author with comparisons to a music album, when there are no "album, songs, singles, or releases." Good points on important topic---bad theme of delivery.

Bush's spokesman? speaking in Africa during this latest "Bush World Tour"

"Of course we are interested in obtaining your oil" but we want to obtain it on the open market.

How come they never said that about Iraq?

Anyone know how much fuel Air Fork One has used since 2001?

if I remember right, Bill Clinton tried to get condoms and sex ed to Africa but the Republicans would not fund it unless it was a no condom/abstinence only deal. I'd imagine bibles are part of the deal as well.

Black Africans supposedly made no connection between sex and AIDS, what good did telling them not to screw do?

NEO Cons want to get rid of 4/5 ths of the worlds population. They know abstinence does not work, thats why Conservative Christian families are so big.

ABSINANCE ONLY WILL NEVER WORK.

marrage is archaic and a waste of money anyway if its only going to last a few years there is no point at all

EVERYTHING IS bush's fault.

"I'm certainly no fan of Georges, but can someone acknowledge that he is doing something, rather than previous administrations doing nothing?"

NO. Nothing that evil sonovabitch does is without ulterior motive.

NRA, although Bush is not directly responsible for the vast numbers of lives lost in Darfur, Rwanda or the Congo, he is directly responsible for the vast numbers of lives lost in Iraq.

So, since the catchphrase used by the Bush administration to con us into allowing the US to kill vast numbers of people in Iraq was "Operation Iraqi Freedom," maybe the point mikepeters is trying to make is that Bush is hypocritical with his wandering around in Africa, claiming he has the best interests of Africans at heart (if I got it wrong, mikepeters, I apologize). If altruism was the name of the game for Bush, why didn't his people come up a catchphrase like "Operation African Freedom" and send troops to Africa? Not enough oil, maybe?

And by the way, there IS a vast right-wing conspiracy, so vast that it's almost impossible to see it all at once. It's so big it's like trying to tell that the world isn't flat by looking at the horizon.

This conspiracy is all around us. It permeates our lives and takes our money and harms our environment and corrupts our churches and kills our soldiers, and its name is Corporate Control of Politics.

What else can one expect from one who stole the presidency and is manipulated by the oil, tobacco, drug cartels, and the list goes on . This is the most destructive administration in our history.

Who is to blame?
The inept voters who helped him steal two elections, the five Supreme court justices who betrayed their trust by planting him in office, a defaulting legislator that has stood by while his reckless zealot and his corrupt administration have inflected more damage to our republic and the world than any American in history,and a populace that has tolerateed these unprecedented abuses.

More Orwellian obfuscation from Dubya & Co., yawn!

Ended about 1998-99. Not the Congo though, or Darfur-those bloodbath's have been going on whilst your man preened and strutted and talked about the "sanctity of human life."

Now it's your turn Redneck, put down the Budweiser, stop fondling the Confederate Flag and answer the question; what does NRA stand for COWARD? Are you ashamed? Anyone with a brain would be. But for you, that should be no problem.

So Answer, unless you are ashamed.

Me Also He was an aid worker in Kigali. And NO he did not discover Aids. AIDS was named in 1981, but to anyone that has two synapses firing it makes sense that the disease existed BEFORE it was ever named. He described three patients that displayed symptoms of Aids. Did you happen to be in Kigali in 1979, or are you just talking out of your ass?

Dr. PEPFAR's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

C'mon, George! If you really want to be nice to those African people, be nice to them. Take some of that money you give to the military for killing people in Iraq and use it to buy medication for those people and GIVE it to them. And while you're at it, use some of that money to take care of the people in New Orleans. After all, it's our money, money you took from us in taxes. And that money you borrowed from China so you could kill people in Iraq? Why don't you do something useful with it, too, instead of killing people in Iraq with it? After all, that money is our money, too, since it's going to take us 50 years at least to pay it back.

Or should we all make ourselves signs that read "My Taxes Kill People" and put them on our lawns, and be done with it?

NRAFreedom, You check the facts; Since Bush took office, millions have died in the countries I listed. Period.

In Rwanda there are 90 deaths per 1000 live births alone, even if "this year's genocide" is next door in the Congo, where it has been under King George's bloodrenched reign.

You call me dude and Mikeyboy? How freaking stupid you truly are, but one question moron, does NRA stand for National Rifle Association? Or maybe Naturally Retarded A******? That works huh!

"As far as the "smallpox vaccines gave them AIDS" lunacy, my brother was in Rwanda in the late 70's and told us about a mysterious malady that left the sufferers skeletal and didn't respond to any known treatment- AIDS."

So your brother (Doctor? Aid-Worker?) actually Discovered AIDS, and Years before that British-seaman [I said 'seaman', not 'semen'!] as the first-recorded-case in medical-history? Or, did he Discover "Starvation" in Africa (as in post-WorldBank/IMF-starvation)?
[Many DO also believe that Starvation (or now-common TB) turns otherwise-benign HIV-into-AIDS -- Google-it!]
And, this was in Rwanda? [LOTS of 'mysterious-stuff' in that-country, for sure -- even in the '70's!]
Who did you say your brother was working-for, again?
Wall Street?
A whole lot of African leaders/doctors/academia/epidemiologists ARE currently saying: "Yes, please, 'to hell with them, keep (y)our life saving drugs to (y)ourselves', and give your own-kids Autism" [as, more recently, are the Chinese/Libyans/Indians/Japanese!]...(but, as we both know, They are the "knuckleheads").

SHAWN: I guess they figure it's all about the power of prayer, and if they pray "efficiently" enough, they will not get pregnant from "the usual method."

BLIGH 2: It's not just a rumor. I remember sitting at a coffee shop in NY and having nothing available to read by ROLLING STONE and lo and behold, a quite erudite study there published on the testing of the Salk vaccine on Rhesus monkeys from India. Thousands of monkeys were slaughtered to grow the vaccine which was tested on the Black population of South Africa at the time. Due to a growing consciousness against the killing of so many monkeys, the test was altered and the same vaccine implanted in a different monkey from Africa. The author of the article (I can't recall the name) said that it was understood that a virus can mutate quite substantially when it crosses species. Therefore the test gave rise to some unexpected viral logistics that some believe began AIDS.

I sat in on a session with a well reputed trans-medium and asked the channel in front of about 25 intelligent people whether AIDS was something natural or a biological experiment gone awry. The "source" answered, "Some of both." I am satisfied with that answer. Many times genetics, chemicals or weapons are played with and unintended consequences result. This is why I fear the playing fast and loose currently with cloned food, biogenetic plant technologies, and biological weapons. The legendary Atlanteans opened this Pandora's box and the story of the great flood found in so many ancient traditions likely explains THEIR fate. At a time like ours when greed and money dominate all levels of discourse, morality is on the auction block. This is a sinister combination when LIFE and its DNA building blocks is what's being sold to the highest bidder. Slavery of the microbe kingdoms? Lining up genes at will just as monoculture dominates too much of a once flourishing diverse landscape? These orchestrations that take the natural world and abort Her inclinations in the direction of more militaristic enforcements of uniformity at such primal levels comes back to bite any civilization reeking of enough hubris to mess with these sacred formulas in the ass.

I so-wish he would bring out an Album (I so liked Wm. Shatner's and Lenard Nimoy's!).
And, I so wish he'd just openly trade-Roles with Cheney and stay-another-8 (rather than Hill&Billy trading-their-roles).

To have this mouse-eared stumblebum of a fascist talk about "care," "Democracy," or a previous favorite, "compassion," is to hear him spout the very worst blasphemy! As Mark Twain is reputed to have said, "How can we hear what you say when what you ARE thunders so loud?

I'm certainly no fan of Georges, but can someone acknowledge that he is doing something, rather than previous administrations doing nothing?

As far as the "smallpox vaccines gave them AIDS" lunacy, my brother was in Rwanda in the late 70's and told us about a mysterious malady that left the sufferers skeletal and didn't respond to any known treatment- AIDS. This is as bad as the rumors that the government was sending doctored soft drinks to the black community to make the males sterile.

Spreading wild, knuckleheaded rumors doesn't help anyone. Would everyone feel better if we just said "to hell with them, let's keep our life saving drugs to ourselves"

I mean, come on.

George W "cares" more about his "legacy" in Africa than he does about the citizens of the USA.

Its a crying shame that George H., and Barbara Bush didn't practice abstinence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

culling the herd! this is not news. eugenics has been practiced and promoted by americans going back over a century. and they are not unique, just one of the biggest, if not The biggest perpetrator. foreign policy is about taking over resources and getting rid of the people in order to have access. the game plan for access to the tin and other mineral mines in peru, some years ago, including inserting iud's in the native women of the mountain villages and then leave: they had time to wait a generation for the indigenous people to stop reproducing themselves. does anyone remember the rockefeller group, the club of rome? it was about promoting the myth of population explosion. in the usa it was the middle-class liberals who began to breed themselves out of existence while the wealthy kept producing in large numbers. getting rid of the educated middle-class was a game plan.
in africa aids was the gift of this country ala smallpox vaccinations. it is only americans who refuse to see that truth. the minister of health in s. africa pushes education and nutrition to deal with aids. fyi, aids in africa does not look like aids in this country--very different disease syndromes. in kenya there is a small growing movement to treat with homeopathy and nutrition. needless to say all these protocols are given little media coverage and the minister of health in s.africa takes a lot of
heat for arguing against toxic drugs.

anything that comes out of the neocons in particular, but this government in general, is very suspect since we no longer have a human-caring democracy but have morphed into a total corporate state. propaganda, media spin, censorship--all designed to keep americans in the dark about reality. monies are being withdrawn from human services at lightening speed by people who think we, the people, are only here as consumers to support the corporate state. not just as purchasers of goods and services, but to pay for the ongoing wars that go against our core interests.

Souixrose, your comment: "Given that in our own nation the Bible belt states have high teen pregnancy rates, i.e. abstinence campaigns fail miserably, one can only assume that it will fail in countries where HIV transmission rates are already high.", is right on the money. I happen to live in one of those Bible bet states (Texas) and the abstinance only programs have been in place evsr since Bu$h came into office. You are right about the results. Prior to "abstinence only" there were seven high girls pregnant. Now there are seventy and the debate over abstinence ony is raging like wildfire. The evangelicals STILL insist on abstinence only whie the more sane members of our community are demanding a program of sex education *gasp* in addition to abstinence. Why our idjiot preznit cannot understand reality with as simple of an issue as this is makes the simplist of the simple scratch their head in disbelief.

How many millions have died in Darfur, the Congo, Rwanda while that murderer BUSH'S slaughter in Iraq distracted the world?

Cobalt, Diamonds...blood knee deep our multinationals wade through to get to Africa's raw materials.

Google 'Project Censored' anyone interested in reading a quick illumination of BushAmerica's role in the new Killing Fields. The new role The US military plays.

Within the section 'Top 25 Censored Articles for '08' the third article. The other 24 are scary as well. AFRICOM.

Khiam.

NRA Freedom;
Linking to a White Power website dosen't give your argument much credibility. We've got enough unsubstantiated theories on this side of the center without nutty ones from the extreme right, or from the extreme racist side.

andrew herman, it's worse than that. You don't hear anything about it here, but many Africans believe that America spread AIDS through "smallpox" vaccinations in the 1980s.

AIDS was unknown in Africa until then, although we're told that it came from Africa and spread to San Francisco, New York and Haiti because of a Swedish flight attendant. (Yes, that's the official story).

Smallpox was officially declared extinct in 1979, thanks to a worldwide cooperative effort. Good for the world. But, then why did they continue to vaccinate in the 80s?

You're right. Henry Kissinger did say that Africa was a basket of riches, and it needed depopulation. He also said similar things about Brazil, coincidentally the second place (along with Africa) that AIDS spread after the initial New York, San Francisco, Haiti start.

The US is the single largest provider of anti-retroviral drugs on the contintent.

I rememder when our V.P., Dick, had a cow about poor Africans making their own ARV drugs. This way the American treasury is plundered by the Big Drug Lords over and over again. The Theocorporate gang takes it's third and the chances of any sort of a cure are still exactly zero - 25 years of flushing money and lives down the corporate toilet. Nothing to show for it except a 'gross' domestic profit.

If I were an African with HIV I would be leary of medicines from Pepfar. Bush and pals clearly are all about world economic domination and helping people is way down on their list. Also, Bush still meets with Kissinger once a month.

Ol' Henry once suggested that in the end times (when the world gets crazy) resource-rich lands with impovershed populations, such as Africa, may need to be culled. Would this explain the unflinching insistence that Africans receive CIA, er-um, American-made drugs. They could put some nasty poison in the meds to clear-out the world's wealthiest continent for expliotation by God's chosen people.

Remember the early Americans used to "trade" small pox infected blankets with the native Americans...

JPBREEZE: Right on! I'd like to add that it truly is plausible as other CD posters have pointed out in response to other articles, an argument boosted by the rationale behind The Shock Doctrine, that what poses for humanism in the guise of "abstinence only" may well be a ruse that directly causes harm. Given that in our own nation the Bible belt states have high teen pregnancy rates, i.e. abstinence campaigns fail miserably, one can only assume that it will fail in countries where HIV transmission rates are already high. Derailing condom use is like condemning individuals to premature deaths or lives on medical assistance. US capitalism is most comfortable supporting media (a web of false conjecture), big pharma (drugging people, rather than contributing to the basis for health!), and the nefarious prison-industrial/military-industrial complexes which either incarcerate people, maim them or kill them. As has been written in esoteric texts, "All of the ill-begotten wealth will HAVE to be given back." I can't say if it's Gaia who makes the reclamation or a burgeoning world aggregate that finally stands up to US imperial controls, as if this nation given so much had the right to play slum lord to the world and the resources bequeathed to other lands for their own peoples' usage!

Dubya creates these programs that are controlled by the White House so that they can give American Taxpayer dollars to their partisan cronies, who then return the favor by donating our tax dollars to the candidate (republican) of their choice. Nepotism is the operating word whenever the elephants are in charge.