I dont have a problem with this Africa initiative.

[TheBigGuy]

I know Bush is a bozo and his crowd is pretty "out there" when it comes to foreign & defense policy, but I do think this Africa trip might be a good thing for the USA.

It seems we usually really neglected Africa, unless we wanted to fight a proxy war with the commys (like in Angola), or we where interested in this or that natural resource. We sort of gave Africa the brush-off otherwise. In some ways the old colonial powerrs, France and Britain, have been way more involved than we have been.

So maybe this Bush trip is a good gesture and a beginning that a Democrat can follow up with after we dump W in '04.

I also don't have any problem with peackeeping in Liberia, as long as its at the invitation of the UN or some African coaltion (perferably a multinational force made up of Americans and Africans)....recall that Britain did, I think, something similar when it got involved in peackeeping in neighboring Sierra Leone.

[quinnox]

1. I think it's a good thing

I am surprised Bush is going there, the region is normally ignored by the presidents.

[tjdee]

2. He'll do this half-assed like everything else.

That's my problem with Bush, specifically, and his administration doing ANYTHING, ANYWHERE. He'll make it worse.

Rumsfeld doesn't want to do this, and since the troops would come out of his department, there's one screwup waiting to happen.

Bush will reap any benefit and leave the Democratic President the shit end of the stick.

[TheBigGuy]

3. Well, yeah, this is mostly symbolism right now.

But I think its at least a start.

It would be great if we had Dem who was really proactive when it came to policy toward the developing world...particularly Africa. We could generate alot of good will if we do it right.

[robbedvoter]

4. Other than being an empty pandering stunt not unlike the

carrier landing? The AIDS aid will emrich ELY LILLY and other drug companies (Lily's CEO is heading it to make sure). That of course, unless Congress slashes it from the budget altogether - as they are now considering - making it a primise as empry as the one made to Afghanistan.
Other than being done in bush's usual offensive way (herding the Senegalese off the photo op island, staying away from the summit where baddie Mandela was participating) - it's perfectly OK. As bush said in 2001: "Africa is a country with many diseases and problems"

[HereSince1628]

5. A convenient attempt to leave the story behing by "gettin' out'ta Dodge"

Just when the networks have realized that the WMD lies not only won't go away but really does promise to be the story of the summer.

Little does the Chimp know...the rest of the world likes him much less than we do.

[Kamika]

6. baad thing

when will we stop interfearing in EVERYTHING, and start fixing our own country??

First we die for iraq now were gonna die for some africans

[Maddy McCall]

10. I thought you were pro-Afghanistan invasion

hmmm...contradiction?

[DemBones DemBones]

7. You must have missed the thread at DU1 about gold, diamonds,

Carlyle, Barrick's Mining, Pat Robertson, and (of course) the BFEE. I can't link to it because all the DU1 threads are currently inaccessible but God_bush_n_cheney started the thread and had a bunch of links to info, supplemented by other posters. Greg Palast has done a lot of research on Barrick (Poppy Bush worked for Barrick after leaving the White House) so his page might be a start. Or Google Liberia, gold, Barrick's, etc.

FDR said something to the effect that nothing happens in politics by accident. A corollary axiom is "Follow the money!" I think this is about more than Eli Lilly's profits from AIDS drugs.

Edit: Forgot to mention that British and European involvement in Africa wasn't for noble reasons, either. Follow the money!

[CWebster]

8. Trade deals

Business lobbied to further their interests. Most likely similar deal as with China: slave labor and destruction of the environment. And of course, there's the oil....:


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Africa/Bush_BlackGold_WAfrica.html

[fshrink]

9. Like strictly everything the Resident does

it's 100% PR. Not 75, not 90, not 95. 100. If you don't get that, you don't get anything. It's the beauty of "compassion". It's exclusively virtual.