Bush's Callous Disregard for Human Life

George Bush, like Donald Rumsfeld, claims to be a religious man. Which religion, it is not clear but it certainly cannot be Christianity. After sending countless people to their deaths as governor of Texas, George Bush now spends billions of dollars on an illegal war in which war crimes are being committed by the US Armed Forces daily, while no less than 40 million people are on the brink of starvation in Africa.

The head of the World Food Programme yesterday asked the UN Security Council not to forget the millions of people at risk of starvation in Africa. "Commitments to humanitarian aid are political choices and this Council is the most important political forum in the world. There is so much each of you can do to focus the attention and resources on the food crises now engulfing much of sub-Saharan Africa," said Executive Director James Morris at the UNSC.

Giving a general perspective of the situation in Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Sahel and West Africa, Mr. Morris stated that, unlike in Iraq, where the average family has food stocks for one month, in these areas of Africa, the stocks are already at rupture point. "I can assure you, these 40 million Africans, most of them women and children, would find it an immeasurable blessing to have a month's worth of food," he said.

In addition to the 7.5 million people depending on food aid in these African countries, there are a further 1.2 million refugees receiving only half the recommended food intake.

The African food crisis is not, as many believe, the result of mismanagement. it is the result of a disastrous cycle of floods and drought, war, AIDS and the lack of funds to deal with problems effectively. As the world’s powerful nations concentrate on Iraq, after the USA has done a good job destroying it, those in need elsewhere will suffer needlessly.

Not only has Washington committed war crimes, through greed, in the Middle East, it is committing crimes against humanity, by negligence, in Africa.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru