THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN PRESIDENT:

Bush's enduring legacy in Africa (Andrew Natsios, September 4, 2008, Boston Globe)

In Sudan, the United States played a central role as peacemaker in ending a 20-year civil war between the Arab north and African south, which killed 2 million people.

It was the Bush administration that first raised the alarm about the atrocities in Darfur, organized a massive humanitarian relief effort to save people in the displaced camps, and rallied an international coalition to send peacekeeping troops to restore order through the United Nations and the African Union.

While the civil war continues, casualties have declined and people are being fed by aid agencies, thanks to US government generosity, which may explain why Bush is so popular among the Africans in the camps. America has played an important role as mediator in Burundi, Liberia, Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo after civil wars devastated all five countries. Administration policy in Africa has not been without its failures: its military campaign in Somalia has been an embarrassment, putting vulnerable people at risk.

However important these diplomatic efforts may be, Bush's enduring legacy in Africa rests on humanitarian and economic, not political, foundations. More than anything else it has been the revolution in the US government's development assistance that is responsible for Bush's popularity.

The Bush administration doubled foreign aid worldwide over the past eight years, the largest increase since the Truman administration, and used it to encourage poor countries to undertake political and economic reform.

When the Left talks about "restoring" our place in the world they're just talking about the opinion of white European intellectuals.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 5, 2008 9:00 AM