Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Michael Fletcher/Washington Post Edition)

Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post begins an article that reads as if it were dictated by the White House press office with:

Bush Has Quietly Tripled Aid to Africa - washingtonpost.com: President Bush's legacy is sure to be defined by his wielding of U.S. military power in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is another, much softer and less-noticed effort by his administration in foreign affairs: a dramatic increase in U.S. aid to Africa.

The president has tripled direct humanitarian and development aid to the world's most impoverished continent since taking office and recently vowed to double that increased amount by 2010 -- to nearly $9 billion.... [F]our African nations -- Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt and Uganda -- rank among the world's top 10 recipients in aid from the United States.... Bush has met with nearly three dozen African heads of state.... He visited Africa.... [A]ides say he hopes to make a return visit...

What Fletcher never finds space to say is that Bush has raised U.S. aid to Africa per African from $2 per year to $6 per year, and has raised aid to Africa as a share of the Federal budget from 0.08% to 0.17% of federal government spending.

With Washington Post reporters, you never know what they are thinking. Is Fletcher omitting the relative scale measures because he knows that readers will conclude that he is really stupid if he writes "Bush has dramatically increased aid to Africa from $2 to $6 per African per year" and the purpose of his article is to please his sources inside the White House? Or is Fletcher omitting the relative scale measures because he genuinely has never bothered to learn anything either about the relative size of aid to Africa in what the federal government does or about the relative importance of U.S. aid in the context of Africa's development and economy and so is easily manipulated by his sources inside the White House? Mendacious? Or lazy and stupid?

As I say, I'm genuinely surprised anybody pays for the Post.

Comments

[andres]

"As I say, I'm genuinely surprised anybody pays for the Post."

As another commenter mentioned earlier, Brad, the Post does quite well for itself because it tells the deluded political class in Washington (and the people they employ) what they want to hear, not what actually is. That situation won't change until there is substantial political change as well, and that means more than just another Democratic-controlled congress (though Lieberman has made it clear that this control won't make much of a difference Iraq-wise) and another Clinton-style Democrat in the White House.

[seesdifferent]

The bulk of this money is the bogus AIDS program, in which Bush takes our tax money to pay full retail to Big Pharma for patented AIDS drugs, rather than using generics for a tenth the price. And, of course, more money goes for the worse than useless abstinence teaching program, which has resulted in a significant increase in AIDS. So in reality, Bush has increased money given to Big Pharma and church groups, not money to benefit Africa. The idea that he has tripled aid to Africa is mendacious.
Bush will be remembered for his complete sellout to corporate and sectarian religious interests and for the deaths of probably a million people overall. These and the systematic destruction of the Bill of Rights, and the failure to protect us from 9/ll, and his obstruction of any response to global warming, are the other significant parts of his legacy. Bush will not only be considered the worst president in history, he will be extremely fortunate not to be indicted for war crimes.

[Charles Kinbote]

Could someone clarify: implicit in the article and the good professor's commentary is the notion that under Clinton we gave even less in aid to Africa.

Is that correct?

[Yes. But it might be better to say "under Gingrich, Armey, Dole, and Lott" than "under Clinton.]

[William Bennett]

Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Uganda? If these four continguous countries in NE Africa are the principal recipients, what is the story? The Sudan government, last I read, is participating in slaughter of its own people.

[pgl]

0.017% or 0.17%? Dean Baker gets 0.16% of Federal spending and I get 0.03% of GDP.

[ELG]

One very good addition to this post would have been to contrast the newly increased $6 in aid per African with the $435 in aid per Israeli that the US provides year after year.

[anne]

http://www.calvorn.com/gallery/photo.php?photo=7044&exhibition=7&ee_lang=eng&u=84574,0

Gadwall
New York City--Central Park, Harlem Meer.

Birds for the New Year.

[Charles Kinbote]

'[Yes. But it might be better to say "under Gingrich, Armey, Dole, and Lott" than "under Clinton.]'

Thanks - I had actually hoped that it had been higher during the previous administration, but that the Post was comparing where Bush had increased it to where Bush had slashed it.

[Brenda Rosser]

How much of the US aid was weapons and military support for Rwandan and Ugandan forces to invade the Congo?

"6-7 million people have died in Congo since 1996 as a result of invasions and wars sponsored by western powers trying to gain control of the region’s mineral wealth. At stake is control of natural resources that are sought by U.S. corporations—diamonds, tin, copper, gold, and more significantly, coltan and niobium, two minerals necessary for production of cell phones and other high-tech electronics; and cobalt, an element essential to nuclear, chemical, aerospace, and defense industries…. Eighty percent of the world’s coltan reserves are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Niobium is another high-tech mineral with a similar story….In 1996 U.S.-sponsored Rwandan and Ugandan forces entered eastern DRC. By 1998 they seized control and moved into strategic mining areas. .."

‘Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006’, Project Censored website. http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2007/index.htm
December 2006

[Michael Turner]

More money for Sudan might be easily explained: we have to catch up with the Chinese, who contribute a lot of that country's foreign aid.

[Short tempered]

Hell with the
intruder, sovereignty destroyer and encroacher of other countries.

[Derelict]

I must agree with previous posters that the numbers are horrendously skewed. Egypt stands out as an example of U.S. aid: it receives huge amounts of U.S. aid dollar-wise, but the vast bulk of that aid is military and of no benefit whatever to the average Egyptian. Sudan is a similar story, as is Uganda.

And Bush's much-touted anti-AIDs program is really just a sham. Much of the money goes to "christian" groups who use it to preach abstinence and evangelize--two measures not found to cut the rate of AIDs infection very much.

So whether or not the reporter provided appropriate measures of magnitude, the story is still highly misleading because it does not provide any context for the aid. Bush may give $200 billion in aid to African country X, but if all of that aid is in the form of F-16 fighter jets it will do nothing to alleviate poverty, starvation, or disease in country X. (Though to will nicely line the pockets of Lockheed-Martin.)

[c gilbert]

Check out this Brookings Inst. report that refutes the tripling of AFrica aid contention:

http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/rice/20050627.htm

[wkwillis]

If we don't provide at least some foreign aid, how can we hide our CIA agents in the foreign aid agencies?

[rickhavoc]

Instead of giving out money, aren't we supposed to be teaching folk how to get it? I'm pretty I heard something like that in a commencement speech.

[ilsm]

ELG,

Egypt gets nearly as much "aid" from the US as Israel. Part of the "Deal" to get them to de militarize the Sinai.

Also, a bit of US military assistance not proffered outside NATO.

[Mike the Mad Biologist]

Mendacious? Or lazy and stupid?

Definitely stupid. The numerical illiteracy of the press corps is staggering.