Bush's Speech just now...mixed feelings
Well it was certainly a nice speech, pushed all the right buttons, and I'm glad that at least in principle he is moving on this.
Many parts of his speech I swore could have been directly contributed by Bono - YAY BONO!!!
However, I'm not impressed with the details of the plan.
In terms of sheer numbers of people who will live or die because of any given threat, AIDS seems to me to be the largest threat on the planet (well aside from a nuclear holocaust).
WILATW right now, I see 2 very real threats to world security, and one potential.
They are, in my opinion, ordered as follows:
1. AIDS - this disease is killing and will kill thousands DAILY. It is not a potential threat, or one that can develop down the road, it is one that is already devastating a continent and many parts of the world. It should be viewed as PUBLIC ENEMY No. 1.
2. North Korea - N Korea, regardless of their not having invaded another country or breached any UN resolutions blah blah etc etc, is rapidly, if not already, acheiving nuclear superpower status. Not only are they doing that, they are threatening the world with them. They hold mass call-to-arms rallies in their public squares. They could in a very short time obliterate hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives in their immediate vicinity and at least 2 or 3 major North American centres.
And now for the *potential* threat to world security: Saddam Hussein and Iraq. They could possibly have a serious WMD in 1-5 years. WHether they have chemical warheads or not is a talking point, sure, but before we started making noise about it, were they threatening nations with their use? No.
So why is it that this AIDS plan doesn't start for another 11 months? Why only $2B in year one?
Forget about the UN resolutions for a sec to try to keep an open mind (so if you plan on doing a silly cut and paste of your other arguments STING, just skip this thread).
BILLIONS will be wasted on a war with a country that is virtually powerless right now anyways. Coalition forces already have the North and South of Iraq tightly wrapped up and daily bomb Iraqi installations anyways.
Those same BILLIONS of dollars could go right now, TODAY, January 31, 2003, to start the initiative TODAY, and save hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives in the next 11 months.
Why wait 11 months? Maybe someone who is more up on the AIDS statistics can respond and post up how many more will die in the next 11 months because we waited almost another year.
As Bush said, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! It's a pandemic. THe plan needs to be enacted on an emergency basis, now, and the bulk of the money should be spent now, not gradually. Get the treatments over there and then start the 'faith based abstinence' initiatives etc.
If a flood or earthquake happens and creates an emergency, we dont wait a year to fly humanitarian supplies in.
So lets start treating this as an emergency. TODAY.