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"Rocking My Life Away"
Can Bono hold Bush to his promises?
When Bono traveled to Africa last year with then Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill I wrote a column warning that he was being manipulated by a cynical Republican administration eager for a public relations boon and short on any real commitment to relieving the AIDS crisis on that continent. O'Neill was later fired -- what a surprise -- and not much changed. President Bush promised half a billion dollars for drugs to help prevent transmission of the HIV virus from infected pregnant women to their babies. That program ended up being cut from the budget -- again, what a surprise. It was also loudly trumpeted that President Bush himself would visit Africa in January 2003 to assess the problems there first-hand -- a promise that was frequently repeated after Trent Lott, who was about to become the Senate majority leader, stated how much better off our country would be if a segregationist had been elected president in 1948. Strangely Bush's trip to Africa got cancelled once the furor over Lott's remarks died down. As for AIDS, well, that was destined to be the focus of another PR offensive.
Bono is now justifiably being lauded once again for his role in lobbying the Bush administration about the need to provide AIDS medicine and other assistance to Africa. In his State of the Union address, President Bush recommended that Congress appropriate $15 billion over the next five years to combat AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. In analyzing the president's announcement, which caught both administration critics and supporters by surprise, The New York Times declared that "in recent months, a string of people from inside and outside the administration -- including Colin L. Powell, the secretary of state; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; and Bono, the Irish rock star -- made a passionate case to persuade Mr. Bush that the time was right."
That's pretty heady company for the "Irish rock star," and the very casualness of his inclusion in that list is a testament to the dedication, seriousness and persistence of his efforts. Bono himself has greeted the President's offer with appropriately cautious enthusiasm. "If we can turn the President's bold long-term vision into near term results, we're excited," he said. "Any delay in increased funding means more lives lost and an even bigger check in the future . . . at least $2.5 billion needs to be appropriated in this year's budget, if we're to start saving the lives of two and half million Africans who die each year of HIV/AIDS . . . The devil will be in the details of the 2004 budget."
In addition to those remarks, U2's Web site (U2.com) provides a link to an article on the web site of DATA (datadata.org), the activist organization (whose acronym stands for Debt AIDS Trade Africa) that Bono works with. While, again, expressing support for the President's pledge, DATA raises important questions about when, how much and where the promised money is going to be allocated.
But those are just some of the bedeviling details Bono talked about. It assumes, for one thing, that the money will be budgeted at all -- and even if it is budgeted, that it will in fact be delivered. The State of the Union address was such a laundry list of expensive humanitarian causes -- $450 million to mentor the children of prisoners! -- that if a Democratic president had ever proposed them, Bush and his right-wing cronies would have lambasted him. The point of the President's moving recitation of suffering at home and abroad, of course, was just another public relations gambit -- this time designed to blunt the perception of the U.S. as an international bully and war monger. And it's worked. Nearly as many stories after the speech recounted the generosity of the president's promises to Africa as the now inevitable ramping up of the U.S. war machine against Iraq.
But that war will be far more costly -- in every sense -- than the Bush administration is letting on. And once those costs start to mount -- and the economy continues to sputter or worse -- anyone who believes a conservative president and a Republican-controlled Congress are going to send billions of dollars to help AIDS victims in Africa is living in a dreamland. This administration fully believes in the amnesia of the American public and the short-attention-span news cycle: Make the promise, calm the critics, reap the benefits of appearing compassionate, do very little or nothing.
As Massachusetts Senator and presidential hopeful John Kerry stated after Bush's speech, "This isn't the first time this administration has spoken the right language about AIDS, but too often their actions have lagged far behind their photo opportunities." Bono, who provided perhaps the most memorable of those photo opportunities, no doubt realizes that at this point. If he wants results from this administration, he's got to keep the heat on -- and hold Bush's feet to that fire.
ANTHONY DECURTIS
(January 31, 2003)
"Rocking My Life Away"
Can Bono hold Bush to his promises?
When Bono traveled to Africa last year with then Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill I wrote a column warning that he was being manipulated by a cynical Republican administration eager for a public relations boon and short on any real commitment to relieving the AIDS crisis on that continent. O'Neill was later fired -- what a surprise -- and not much changed. President Bush promised half a billion dollars for drugs to help prevent transmission of the HIV virus from infected pregnant women to their babies. That program ended up being cut from the budget -- again, what a surprise. It was also loudly trumpeted that President Bush himself would visit Africa in January 2003 to assess the problems there first-hand -- a promise that was frequently repeated after Trent Lott, who was about to become the Senate majority leader, stated how much better off our country would be if a segregationist had been elected president in 1948. Strangely Bush's trip to Africa got cancelled once the furor over Lott's remarks died down. As for AIDS, well, that was destined to be the focus of another PR offensive.
Bono is now justifiably being lauded once again for his role in lobbying the Bush administration about the need to provide AIDS medicine and other assistance to Africa. In his State of the Union address, President Bush recommended that Congress appropriate $15 billion over the next five years to combat AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. In analyzing the president's announcement, which caught both administration critics and supporters by surprise, The New York Times declared that "in recent months, a string of people from inside and outside the administration -- including Colin L. Powell, the secretary of state; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; and Bono, the Irish rock star -- made a passionate case to persuade Mr. Bush that the time was right."
That's pretty heady company for the "Irish rock star," and the very casualness of his inclusion in that list is a testament to the dedication, seriousness and persistence of his efforts. Bono himself has greeted the President's offer with appropriately cautious enthusiasm. "If we can turn the President's bold long-term vision into near term results, we're excited," he said. "Any delay in increased funding means more lives lost and an even bigger check in the future . . . at least $2.5 billion needs to be appropriated in this year's budget, if we're to start saving the lives of two and half million Africans who die each year of HIV/AIDS . . . The devil will be in the details of the 2004 budget."
In addition to those remarks, U2's Web site (U2.com) provides a link to an article on the web site of DATA (datadata.org), the activist organization (whose acronym stands for Debt AIDS Trade Africa) that Bono works with. While, again, expressing support for the President's pledge, DATA raises important questions about when, how much and where the promised money is going to be allocated.
But those are just some of the bedeviling details Bono talked about. It assumes, for one thing, that the money will be budgeted at all -- and even if it is budgeted, that it will in fact be delivered. The State of the Union address was such a laundry list of expensive humanitarian causes -- $450 million to mentor the children of prisoners! -- that if a Democratic president had ever proposed them, Bush and his right-wing cronies would have lambasted him. The point of the President's moving recitation of suffering at home and abroad, of course, was just another public relations gambit -- this time designed to blunt the perception of the U.S. as an international bully and war monger. And it's worked. Nearly as many stories after the speech recounted the generosity of the president's promises to Africa as the now inevitable ramping up of the U.S. war machine against Iraq.
But that war will be far more costly -- in every sense -- than the Bush administration is letting on. And once those costs start to mount -- and the economy continues to sputter or worse -- anyone who believes a conservative president and a Republican-controlled Congress are going to send billions of dollars to help AIDS victims in Africa is living in a dreamland. This administration fully believes in the amnesia of the American public and the short-attention-span news cycle: Make the promise, calm the critics, reap the benefits of appearing compassionate, do very little or nothing.
As Massachusetts Senator and presidential hopeful John Kerry stated after Bush's speech, "This isn't the first time this administration has spoken the right language about AIDS, but too often their actions have lagged far behind their photo opportunities." Bono, who provided perhaps the most memorable of those photo opportunities, no doubt realizes that at this point. If he wants results from this administration, he's got to keep the heat on -- and hold Bush's feet to that fire.
ANTHONY DECURTIS
(January 31, 2003)
