As President Bush embarks on his journey to Africa, he is looking to secure his legacy in part through his administration’s development initiatives on the continent. One of those initiatives is the administration’s support for expanded debt relief for the continent.
Many Americans would be surprised to learn that among the most important constituencies backing the Bush administration’s disastrous agenda in the Middle East and promoting anti-Arab policies has been the one million-strong American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The AFT leadership has gone so far as to make a series of public statements and push through resolutions with demonstrably inaccurate assertions in its defense of administration policy. A key constituent union of the AFL-CIO, the AFT – which also represents a significant number of health care and other public service workers – gives over $5 million in contributions to congressional candidates each election cycle.
In January 2003, as anti-war activists were scrambling to prevent a U.S. invasion of Iraq war by challenging the Bush administration’s claims about Iraq having reconstituted its chemical and biological weapons capability, offensive delivery system, and nuclear weapons program, the AFT’s executive council decided to weigh in on the debate.
The Bush Administration’s fixation on security and the “war on terror” is already escalating the militarization of U.S. policy in Africa in 2008. In his last year in office, President George W. Bush will no doubt duplicitously continue to promote economic policies that exacerbate inequalities while seeking to salvage his legacy as a compassionate conservative with rhetorical support for addressing human rights challenges including conflict in Sudan and continued promotion of his unilateral HIV/AIDS initiative. The third prong of U.S.-Africa policy in 2008 will be the continued and relentless pursuit of African resources, especially oil, with clear implications for U.S. military and economic policy.
On January 28, President George W. Bush gave the last State of the Union address of his two-term tenure. Many of his remarks centered on foreign policy. FPIF’s Stephen Zunes annotates the president’s claims and statements.
What’s more American than football, apple pie and Chevrolet? How about cool brand new radial tires?
In their recent Foreign Policy In Focus piece, “Divestment: Solution or Diversion?” activists Kevin Funk and Steve Fake criticize Sudan divestment as an ineffective diversion from the real bugaboo: Israel. If the “worst offending” companies bankrolling the Sudanese government’s genocide in Darfur are not based in the United States, Funk and Fake reason, the process of influencing companies and the Sudanese regime will inevitably be “convoluted.”
We would like to thank Daniel Millenson for his contribution to this dialogue on divesting from Sudan. Both the idea of linking investment decisions with human rights as well as the targeted nature of this campaign, reflecting a concern to avoid harming civilians, are commendable.
For one who was raised drinking water from lead pipes, breathing the fumes of leaded gasoline,
and playing aggressively with lead soldiers, I always get a little skeptical of lead scares. Which
is why it’s better to have health and safety policy made by publicly-minded scientists and not by
the mutterings of grumpy old guys.
After months of talks, President George W. Bush finally announced the “security cooperation” plan for Mexico. On October 22, he sent a request for $500 million in supplemental aid for 2008 as part of a $1.4 billion dollar multi-year package.
Costa Rica’s recent referendum was supposed to decide once and for all whether that country should enter into the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Instead, the Oct. 7 vote polarized and politicized this small country of four and a half million people more than anything since neighboring Nicaragua’s war between the Sandinistas and the Contras two decades ago. And even though supporters of the treaty prevailed by a slim margin, CAFTA opponents still have a few cards to play and may yet block its implementation.