Bush deserves high praise for keeping Africa pledge

When President Bush pledged early in his administration that Africa would be on his radar screen, there were many skeptics in America and abroad.
After all, candidate Bush had barely mentioned the struggling continent during his 2000 campaign for president, and his support in the black community was soft at best. There did not seem to be any political advantage to be gained by him.
Add to that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America's mainland, which redefined the administration's foreign policy, and nothing else appeared to matter other than the war on global terrorism.
But without much fanfare and even less sustained media coverage, the president has been paying attention to Africa.
As the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported recently, U.S. aid to the continent has increased from 1.4 billion in 2001 to more than 4 billion a year currently.
Indeed, if the trend continues, President Bush's goal of 9 billion a year by 2010 will easily be met.
According to a story in the Dec. 31 edition of the Washington Post, beyond increasing aid to Africa, Bush has met with nearly three dozen African heads of state during his six years in office and has visited Africa in his first term. Aides told the Post that he hopes to make a return visit this year.
Why all the attention to a part of the world that is beset by problems, man-made and natural? Most nations in Africa are collapsing under the weight of poverty, joblessness, government corruption and killer diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria.
Moral obligation
The only plausible explanation, given that Africa is not viewed as important to America's national interest, is that Bush believes the U.S. and other developed nations have a moral obligation to provide assistance to people who have mostly only known death and destruction.
He no doubt has been deeply touched by reports from humanitarians such as Bill and Melinda Gates, rock star Bono and former President Bill Clinton of the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS and other killer diseases. Hundreds of thousands of children have been orphaned as a result of caregivers dying of AIDS, while about 2,000 African children perish every day from malaria, the mosquito-borne disease. Malaria infects 350 million to 500 million Africans a year.
Add to the mix the pain and suffering visited upon Africans by dictatorial rulers who have enriched themselves at the expense of the citizenry, and President Bush's view of that part of the world is on target.
When he and Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, paved the way in the 2005 meeting of the eight richest nations in the world for full cancellation of debt carried by many African countries, the message was clear: The rich can no longer ignore the plight of the poor.
Bush's continued commitment to Africa is not only a moral imperative, but it provides a foundation for the spread of democracy in a part of the world that is being targeted by Islamic extremists.