Quote:
Originally Posted by Archaea
What I don't understand is how you equate current AIDS policies with homophobia.
Current policy funds AIDS research exponentially greater than its US impact. In fact, it receives preferential treatment, far greater than its impact would predict.
The policy is more one of Africaphobia. Because Africa is not economically beneficial to the US, we do not look to change matters there. And that is how a government should act. Individual action, including charity, should not convey transitively those attributes to government, as government poses a different function. If individuals wish to render charitable acts, that makes sense but religious injunctions are rarely instructions in good government. They are instructions in personal character.
Whenever a government tries to engage in charitable acts for a long term policy, without examination geopolitically, then we are not wise with our limited resources. All government acts of long term duration, should have ties to them.
Africa, as a resource, is NOT geopolitically important to the US interests, outside of perhaps Egypt, maybe South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. If some significant resources are discovered for exploitation, then we could reexamine.
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What is interesting to me is that the same people to whom it seems obvious that we can't be getting into adventures around the world where we can't control the outcome (and additionally think it imperialist, immoral, jingositic and arrogant for us to do so) also want very much for us to cure all of Africa's ills from aids to the genocide occurring in Darfur. Darfur that is in the middle of a sectarian (or close enough) civil war (or close enough) that will ultimately make additional bloodshed unvoidable because they just don't want to live together peacefully or share power. Darfur that is run not by the Sudanese government, but by the Janjaweed (a militia). Darfur that poses no threat to us and has never attacked us. Starting to sound familiar?
I think that as between those who hypocritcally say we have no business in Iraq but should intercede in the Sudan and those who cycnically say that we have interests at stake in Iraq and nothing at stake in the Sudan I probably give more credit to the latter because at least there is a cogent thought process behind it.