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Bush is a great man, says President Kufuor

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot

I am sure this statement is bound to unnerve some people around the world.  If it doesn’t, you will not be living in a period called post-Iraq.  

Like Kufuor, I am a believer that Bush is a great man.  But was there ever a question about his greatness or was it assumed that he would never be considered great?

Questions about Bush’s greatness or lack thereof are valid and must be answered.  The momentous events that have shaped his administration demand some answers.   Not surprising, some members of the world community have made up their mind about Bush since Florida 2000.  I make mine with the help of issues that have impacted me most as an African.

To start with, I am very aware that decisions that Bush has made, as leader of the world only super power, have impacted many in big and diverse ways.  That fact is incontrovertible.  The issue of Iraq belongs here.  But if I were a Kurd or a Shiite, I would have welcomed his decision for regime change in Iraq.

I am also comfortable with the thought that history will judge Bush on the basis of the decisions and actions he has taken.  I presume or hope that history will be kind to him.

Great men do make mistakes.  It is the courage and justness with which they make their decision that we must applaud.  It will be left for history to decide whether it is better to dither and wait for people to die, like at Auschwitz or Rwanda, or fight to save a few.

Often, the world has shown lack of courage in the face of tyranny and genocide, but has been quick to explain its inaction with “reasonableness.”  Bush has the propensity for moving forward with his decisions once made, at speed that some have described as “foolishly stubborn.”  His decision to go to war with Iraq, his detractors say, is an example.  So this “rashness” has often been used by his detractors to contrast their brand of “reasonableness” or failure or unwillingness to act.

President Kufuor made his paean to Bush while on a state visit to the US. In a detailed address, he made it known that no world leader, and especially an American president, has helped Africa to the extent that Bush has.

President Kufuor’s assertion can be tested.  He has seen President Bush’s help for Africa up close and at first hand – as president of Ghana and as one time chair of the AU and has been impressed.  Likewise, President Bush respect for Kufuor has grown over the years to culminate in the invitation for a state visit that is accorded very few leaders of the world.

For President Kufuor, the crown in Bush’s policy for Africa must be the compact for the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) that Ghana won in 2006.  The MCA is a product of Bush's Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) that was set up specifically to award "development grants—not loans—in partnership with countries willing to undertake political, economic, and social policy reforms" and also to rule justly, according to Ambassador John Danilovich CEO of MCC.

The MCA is a new twist to US foreign policy.  Its creativeness stands as one great testament of an American mind that seeks to help shape development in a lesser privileged world.  Africa receives the largest portion of the grants.  And Bush is the initiator.

Another element of Bush successes in Africa is the time and energy he has devoted to pursue a policy of fighting HIV/AIDS globally through his PEPFAR project. It has drawn little praise, but it is saving lives on a huge scale.

In April 2008, Bush’s effort for PEPFAR was further rewarded by US Congress with the passage of $50 billion to support the project worldwide.  Of this amount $9 billion will go strictly to fight malaria and tuberculosis, diseases that affect predominantly HIV/AIDS patients in Africa. 

The amount of money spent so far in combating HIV/AIDS and its impact on Africa has been phenomenal and surpasses any that has been promoted by previous US administrations.  Considering that there are no political gains for Bush here, we can only acknowledge his motivation as selfless and claim it as an extension of his often stated “compassionate conservatism” doctrine.

This is not the best of times for America.  Even at a time when the US economy is suffering and Bush popularity with the American public is at its lowest, he has managed to draw these huge funds from Congress to fight HIV/AIDS.

But, his detractors would point out that whatever his victories are elsewhere, they cannot compare with his “folly” of invading Iraq.   Unfortunately, among this crowd are the very same who cry that nothing is being done for Darfur.

People are dying in Darfur and Bush doesn’t care, they claim.  He went to war in Iraq for oil and people died and are dying.  For some strange reason the motive of oil for Iraq is not applied to Sudan.  Sudan has oil.  The Chinese are going for it and people are dying, even more so than in Iraq. 

Yet, no one has attacked Sudan from outside.   Is it reasonable to assume that the rest of the world is just content to watch and to let this genocide in Darfur play itself out, just like it did in Rwanda?  In that case, the question should be, where is that great leader of a great nation who can help to stamp out the atrocities and tyrannies we see in Sudan and saw in Iraq? 

The suspicion is that Bush would have done something firm about Darfur.  But courage has its limit.  You cannot continue to be battered by negative world opinion and persist to think forever that you are right in doing what humanity wants. 

Listen to Keith Olbermann, NBC Anchor, who on January 11, 2007, said this about Bush: “Only this president could look out over a vista of 3,008 dead and 22,834 wounded in Iraq, and finally say, “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me” — only to follow that by proposing to repeat the identical mistake ... in Iran.”   Make it Sudan for Keith.

You want to ask Keith Olbermann, “How about the vista of the dead in Darfur?”   You want to know whether he was just counting the dead or weighing principles. 

Olbermann is not alone in thinking that it takes only “reasonableness” to end atrocities.  Unfortunately, it is such thinking or inaction that creates more evil.  History is replete with examples -  Rwanda, Darfur, Cambodia.

For now, Iraq will be a torn in Bush’s legacy.  The world, as represented in the UN Security Council, agreed that Saddam Hussein was a bad actor on the global scene.  What they didn’t agree on was that it was time to go to war.   The war was Bush’s decision.  Should things improve in Iraq, he wins. 

But it is to be hoped that the test for Bush's greatness will not be marred by a simple fact of victory in Iraq.  Winning is not the only issue.  The ability to recognize the problem early and the willingness to do something drastic about it is what greatness is about.  Of this Bush and Kufuor are in agreement. 

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, September 20, 2008


Permission to publish:  Please feel free to publish or reproduce, with credits, unedited.  If posted at a website, email a copy of the web page to publisher@ghanadot.com . Or don't publish at all.


 

 

 

 

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