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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
In the heat of a late September day in Mozambique, southern Africa, we started filming a meeting of young charity volunteers. They had poured heart and soul into an ambitious project aimed at combating HIV and spreading a message about contraception in the province of Gaza.
Then, out of the blue, and as our cameras rolled, came an unexpected announcement: the volunteers' work was to end because of a new policy from the United States.
Under US President Donald Trump's "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance" policy, any foreign aid organisation that wants US funds cannot "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in foreign countries".
Sebastiao Muthisse from AMODEFA, the Mozambican Association for Family Development, outlined the dilemma the aid organisation faced. They were not prepared to sign Trump's so-called 'global gag rule 'forbidding mention of abortion, and, as a result, projects had to close. For the youngsters it appeared to make no sense. Surely lack of advice on family planning would lead to unwanted pregnancies? Why should they be censored when it came to speaking about abortion?
AMODEFA, a member association of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, has worked in Mozambique since 1989. Now, the stance both organisations have taken on the Trump rule means they face losing millions of dollars in US aid, and for AMODEFA in Mozambique two-thirds of their total budget, a sum of $2m.
It's led to hard decisions, particularly when it comes to critical work on HIV prevention.
In a suburb of the capital Maputo, we met Palmira Tembe. Members of Palmira's family have died; five grandchildren are now dependent on her, along with her 13 year-old-son Nelson.
AMODEFA has received funds to help people like Palmira disclose to their families that they have HIV, and to support their care. Palmira told us that prior to the charity's involvement she couldn't tell her son Nelson why he was sick. Now both take HIV medicine together.
We will have generations that are sick without knowing what they have – they will run the risk of transmitting HIV to other people because they do not know their HIV status. In a country where it's estimated that up to 13 percent of people aged between 15 and 49 live with HIV, the support of organisations like AMODEFA can be a lifeline. But the work AMODEFA does with families like Palmira's is under threat, due to their refusal to sign up to the Trump policy.
Project leader Dr Marcelo Kantu is concerned about the future. "We will have generations that are sick without knowing what they have - they will run the risk of transmitting HIV to other people because they do not know their HIV status," he told us.
Visiting those supported by charity work in Mozambique, there was a recurring question: With the heavy price organisations could pay for defying the new US policy, why not forget about the abortion issue, sign up to the Trump rule, and keep American aid money?
Activists and charity workers told us it was not only about upholding a principle of choice, it was about free speech and a law introduced in Mozambique to save lives.
Mozambique liberalised its law on abortion in 2014, not least due to the high numbers of maternal deaths from illegal terminations. Since then, abortion is a legal option up until 12 weeks of pregnancy, and in cases of rape or incest during the first 16 weeks.
But there is Mozambique's new law on the one hand, and the Trump policy on the other.
It has long been understood that aid donations are sometimes an integral part of foreign policy; aid can be given in the hope that the recipient will favour the donor further along the line, perhaps with trade agreements or regional political support.
But is this a case of the donor wanting to influence a law that has been passed by a democratically elected government? Should aid be used as a way of dictating 'democracy' to follow the donor's views rather than allowing each democratic nation to evolve into the nation that its own citizens want?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:42PM (24 children)
I'm pro-choice, not just on abortion but on economics too.
That means I should be able to choose how money I earned is spent. I am not fond of my money being used to bribe or coerce other countries. We should not be "giving" "foreign aid" in the first place, that way there is no power or threat in removing the money.
To put it another way, your tax dollars are like meth to politicians. They use your money to do bad things all around the world. Supporting them is immoral.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:00PM (17 children)
How Justin's post is marked insightful shows how ignorant folks are with how the world works and how the stability of foreign countries is important to our security.
Justin's view indicates the US should have never executed the Marshall Plan after World War 2.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:07PM (4 children)
The US should never have stirred the pot, agitating Japan to attack us thereby "forcing" us into World War 2. But we are still stirring every pot we can find, in countries where we have no business even being.
There may be a difference between how the world has worked and how the world should work.
Do you think it would be OK for Pakistan to dictate to the US how our women should dress? You know, in the interests of the "stability" of non-Pakistan countries which is so important to Pakistan's security?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @10:20PM (1 child)
The pot stirring for Japanese Imperialism in the 20th century was started in the mid 19th when the US sent Admiral Perry to open Japan to provide a refueling/resupply point east of China/north of the Phillipines.
As a result of that action the Japanese started sending more of their children to learn from the Americans, eventually resulting in the attack on Pearl Harbor during WW2 (Yamamoto's education had been in America, which is why he tried to unsuccessfully deter the attack, which the Japanese didn't feel they could do since they had needed the oil they were buying from the west to fuel their war against their asian, russian, and oceanic neighbors.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday December 10 2017, @09:08AM
Yep. Before that, Japan was minding its own business. Afterward, they got busy remaking themselves in the image of a western colonial power. (Brief summary of 100 years of history)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @11:20AM
"how our women should dress"
I'd be careful of applying a possessive pronoun like that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 11 2017, @07:53PM
When you rule out war, you merely rule it out on your terms, not a foe's terms. But we have a much deeper problem with your argument - a hideous double standard.
Here, the argument is completely bogus, because only the US is subject to your pacifistic restrictions. Japan would by your reason have no excuse to ever attack the US even if "forced" and the US was similarly "forced" by the many heinous actions at the time of the Japanese Empire to engage in sanctions for its own defense (as well as various allies and innocent people around the world). Let us keep in mind that many of the atrocities of Japan had happened well before the entry of the US into the Second World War. For example, the Nanking massacre [wikipedia.org] in 1937 is thought to have killed several hundred thousand people.
And what is the nature [independent.org] of the "stirring" of the pot?
In other words, a standard pacifistic approach to a terrible problem, which cut off the Japanese war machine from the resources it needs to fight and oppress via peaceful means. Roosevelt may have had impure motives, but his strategic approach was very sound and valid - the ambitions of a warmaking brute would be curbed through peaceful means, just like you claim to want. Why then is it the US's responsibility when Japan then chose to attack the US? The US was merely taking sensible and peaceful precautions against rampant Japanese militarism and atrocities. Japan had far less pretext for war than the US had for sanctions. But we already see that you took the side of evil.
The bottom line here is that it isn't the job of those who strive for peace to enable the warmongers of the world until the very moment that it is their head on the chopping block. That way lies suicide. Apply your morality equally and sanely and then we can talk.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:21PM (10 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(international_relations) [wikipedia.org]
The Cold War is over, and U.S. influence is on the decline. Europe is fragmented.
We spent trillions on Iraq [reuters.com] only to destabilize the region and inspire the creation of ISIS.
Fighting ebola, HIV, malaria, hunger, etc. is probably in the U.S.'s interests (including Justins shouting from the garbage heap). But don't be surprised when money [bbc.com] gets [nytimes.com] pocketed [soylentnews.org] instead of spent on the problem.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @10:06PM (6 children)
Do you not concede that destabilization and balkanization was the plan?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Saturday December 09 2017, @10:29PM (5 children)
I'm pretty sure the plan was to channel loads of money into the arms and military service industries, with a soupçon of "perhaps we can turn all that oil into more money."
Afghanistan almost the same: channel loads of money into the arms and military service industries, with a soupçon of "perhaps we can turn all those mineral resources into more money."
All while keeping up the drumbeat of "support our military, they are heroes", completely ignoring the fact that they were (and still are) being badly used in these military misadventures, not to mention thrown aside like the cannon fodder congress considers them to be after their term of service, wounded or not.
In the military I see the best of the citizens in general, and the very worst of the politicians.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @11:13PM
See here [facts-are-facts.com] and here. [independent.co.uk] It's much easier for oligarchs to asset strip a country by creating such chaos that people are so busy fighting themselves they barely notice the theft in progress. What do you think mass immigration into the West is really about?
I suspect you know people in the military. I remember protesting against the invasions (something I rarely do) and I also remember the long conversations with PTSD afflicted friends returning from the conflict. Much discussion about gas pipelines, Saudi Arabia and control of our media. So I wasn't at all surprised when Trump won.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday December 10 2017, @01:52AM (3 children)
The unstated primary purpose of the military is to kill people off, and not just the enemy of the moment, but also their own soldiers. Think about how callous the military often is with their own soldiers, brutally hazing them, and telling them to suck it up and not be wussy, whiny crybabies, or even just being recklessly negligent by taking risks that are totally avoidable, then shrugging off the few resulting deaths as unfortunate consequences of the necessity to train them to be good soldiers, or as the weaklings who weren't strong enough to survive, didn't deserve to survive. And then, after they've served, look at the shoddy treatment dished out to so many veterans-- like denying that PTSD is a medical condition or that Agent Orange is dangerous to humans, that sort of stuff. Reckless negligence on the part of the military killed my uncle. For want of a curb, or of a safer place to pitch their tents, a truck backed over him in his sleep. Public outcry over those kinds of deaths has forced the American military to shape up and be more careful, pretend more convincingly that they do care about their soldiers' lives.
Winning is important, yes, but secondary to population control. One of the quickest solutions for a government that has lots of jobless young men on their hands is to get in a war. If the warmongers win, they take the spoils of war, including food and land. If they lose, it merely means fewer mouths to feed, if they have run the war practically and are not themselves fanatic idiots who drank their own Kool-aid. The populace ends up fed or dead. That's win-win. It's the patriarchal, ultra competitive, barbaric way to run the world. Keep women under the thumbs of men who will force them into bearing and raising far more babies than they wished, until overpopulation has the nation ready to collapse, filled with angry youth who have no prospects. They make perfect cannon fodder. Then go to war to relieve the pressure. The survivors get to do it all over again to the next generation.
Naturally, allowing family planning and abortions disrupts this way of life, and erodes male domination. That I feel is the real reason social conservatives oppose abortion. They don't really believe in the sanctity of life, far from it since they would push and push until a war starts. Sanctity of life is just an excuse. The stunning level of hypocrisy, to use as the reason for their policies the very thing they are trying to destroy, seems par for the course for them.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday December 10 2017, @04:24AM
Not quite. Muslim societies do it better; the wealthy collect the women, the young often do without as the numbers are now imbalanced, are both crazed with hormones and bewildered by religious malarky that tells them dying a martyr is the thing to do, and are perfectly willing to go to their deaths, eyes shining. Those people are near-perfect cannon fodder; fly an aircraft into a civilian target like a skyscraper or a military target like the pentagon? Sure! Let's GO!
Not going to find a lot of that level of commitment in our armed forces (and I hope we never do.) Because people like that are batshit crazy.
The problem with your death theory for our society is that recent wars (meaning, since Vietnam) just don't cause enough deaths in a population of 330 million to make any significant difference, and results in the return of many debilitated casualties, which further load society one way or another.
I don't think they're trying to kill those kids off. I just don't think they care. Because the point is money. Not population control.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Sunday December 10 2017, @06:50AM (1 child)
But there's also a hilarious blind spot.
You describe a system that mechanically sucks in, chews up, and spits out males. And you ascribe it to male domination.
Do you think you live in a patriarchy? Take off your blinders for a moment.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday December 10 2017, @04:39PM
That seeming contradiction is easily resolved. To have large harems, there has to be a lot more women than men, and what better way to create that state of affairs than war? You can forget about brotherhood, this is the men who have it all killing off their fellow men to remove competition and ensure they keep it all. That is most easily done to the young, while they are still learning and figuring out what life is all about, and are still too trusting.
Even the patriarchs' own sons aren't always exempt. If they have many sons, they may favor a few and push the rest away. But mostly, they do try to save their sons. Like, George W. Bush got a comparatively safe and even cushy assignment to the National Guard, while his peers fought in Vietnam. Those the patriarchs can't fool are bribed with admittance to the club. Or they are silenced by exiling or imprisoning them. If that doesn't work, well, accidents happen, wink, wink.
No, we don't live in a patriarchy. The closest the US came to that was the Confederacy. On one level, Confederate soldiers deserved to be shot. They sucked up Southern propaganda, committed treason against the US for an unworthy cause, slavery, and made themselves the useful idiots that the slave owning patriarchs ruthlessly exploited. On another, they deserve pity for being duped. The Civil War still burns a little even today, and we still have plenty of would-be patriarchs among us.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 11 2017, @06:24PM (2 children)
Was it ever "stable" to begin with? Perhaps Iraq was somewhat stable, but I'm curious what a "stable" Middle-East actually looks like. Perhaps, I missed the stability period?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 11 2017, @06:35PM (1 child)
Stability = Dictators, monarchs, and other Supreme Leaders.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 11 2017, @07:46PM
That would explain my confusion as I conflated stability with war, unrest, etc.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:50PM
It IS important. Very important.
Which is why we have to disempower our meddlers before they cause even more damage and even more blowback.
"Justin's view indicates the US should have never executed the Marshall Plan after World War 2."
Oh, that's quite correct, but only in a context that you're stripping off.
If we had not intervened in WWI, there would have been no WWII, and no need for the Marshall Plan.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by julian on Saturday December 09 2017, @11:30PM (2 children)
We live in a massive, inter-connected, global economy. What happens in other countries affects my daily life. We should absolutely provide foreign aid if we receive a return on our investment, which includes quieting unrest and discontent caused by poverty. Unrest and war is bad for trade, which is bad for our economy, which is bad for me.
Jesus Christ, and I'm a liberal explaining why peaceful trade is good? What has happened to our politics that I need to explain concepts like comparative advantage and the peace dividend? I'd much rather be talking about *fair* trade which is a higher-level concern.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday December 10 2017, @08:57AM (1 child)
GP is not happy about how (presumably American) politicians are spending his money. Are you? Because I'm pretty sure that a lot more is spent on creating unrest and war than on poverty relief.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Monday December 11 2017, @12:41AM
"Starbucks serve bad coffee, so all coffee shops are bad". The US government is bought, and is therefore trying its best to simulate a "regulation free market" for the oligarchs. Of course they'll only be happy once government is reduced to a police force to enforce property rights, so that eg. they can suppress water riots against your local water monopolist, and burn your crops when they get GMO cross-polinated.
In other countries governments perform better... though oligarchs are more strongly enforcing their property rights worldwide. The US is just further along.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by JustNiz on Sunday December 10 2017, @03:19AM
What about the rights of the baby to not be murdered?
(Score: 0, Troll) by JustNiz on Sunday December 10 2017, @03:36AM (1 child)
Great, so if someone's existience is financially or socially inconvenient to someone else then you think its fine for state-sanctioned murder of them?
you realise thats exactly what Germany was doing to Jews in 1939-1945 right?
(Score: -1) by Goddess Savitri Devi on Sunday December 10 2017, @03:53AM
Not just the jews. The homosexuals, the gypsies and other undesirables too! Too bad we didn't wipe them all out.
And it's not just inconvenient. The scum and mongrels infest our world, threatening our very survival. So it must be cleansed to make way for the true inheritors of the Trimurti, the Aryan race!
Shiva shall rain death upon non-Aryan scum