Dec 13, 04:49 PM
How to Spend Ten Days in Africa
Dick Durbin, one of my senators, just got back from a ten-day trip to Africa. He met with children orphaned by AIDS in Kenya, refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the president of Rwanda.
He asserted that the United States should be doing a lot more to help in that most troubled continent, but he implied that domestic concerns might be a higher priority.
“As soon as we can get our own house in order, we’ve got to find a way to help,” Durbin said.
Oh, okay. Just a few more weeks, then, and we should have our shit together here on the domestic front and we’ll be right there.
What’s the point of taking ten days to visit Africa and feel all that pain if once you get back you don’t even have time to do anything except hold one press conference? Don’t make me say “photo opportunity.”
Here are a few actions that would be well worth the time spent, and might have been a better use of a ten-day trip:
- Take a real response to genocide in Darfur.
- Start finally holding African leaders to reasonable standards of democracy. Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, launched the wars in the Congo that resulted in all those refugees Durbin saw—plus about 3 million deaths; he doesn’t allow free elections. Maybe he’s not the best guy to pay a friendly visit.
- The same could be said of Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, long America’s best buddy, whose idea of free and fair elections is to have his opponent arrested. Durbin didn’t visit Museveni, but maybe it would have been good to speak out against his anti-democratic shenanigans?
- End US farm subsidies so that poorer countries can compete in the market.
- Stand up to the unholy alliance of the agribusiness lobby and the mega NGOs and change the law to allow local purchase of food relief during famines.
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