CONSIDER OTHER THINGS $75 BILLION CAN DO

(March 28, 2003)

President Bush has asked Congress to approve a $75 billion supplemental funding request to finance the war in Iraq. Seventy-five. Billion. With a “buh.” Billion.

The troops are on the ground, the bombs have begun to fall, millions of artillery shells already have been spent, so I suppose we have to pay for it.

I’m not suggesting that we don’t. We have to. We’re in this deep.

The president says he needs $62.6 billion for the Defense Department, $4.2 billion for homeland security and domestic aid, and $7.8 billion for embassy security and foreign aid, including $543 million for humanitarian aid to Iraq and another $1.7 billion for its reconstruction.

But here’s something to think about, while the nation whips out its collective checkbook to pay for the war:

What else could $75 billion buy?

Call it a moral-ethical brainteaser.

Seventy-five billion bucks could buy the contract of the starting lineup of every team in the NBA, NFL, National League and American League.

It could buy private birthday party performances from the membership of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (those who have not already left the building, if you will) for life.

It could buy 100 million pairs of every shoe in Manolo Blahnik’s spring 2003 evening collection, as listed on the Neiman Marcus Web site.

Seventy-five billion American greenbacks could also buy a lot of false security.

After all, is Saddam Hussein really the biggest threat to national or even global security? After he’s gone, will we really be safe?

Secretary of State Colin Powell himself said there is something out there, lurking, plotting, disturbing the peace and threatening our well-being, that is far worse than any torturous regime or act of terrorism.

“The biggest problem we have on the face of the earth today [is] the HIV/AIDS pandemic,” Powell said last November at an awards dinner for United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

And Powell made that remark in a speech where he mentioned, at length, the threat posed to the world by weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

At the end of 2002, more than 42 million people were living with HIV or AIDS worldwide.

Of those infected with HIV, nearly 30 million live in Africa. One-and-a-half million HIV-positive Africans are children.

Seventeen million Africans have died from AIDS or HIV already. Another 6,500 Africans die every day from HIV and AIDS.

And every day, another 9,500 Africans become infected with HIV. The vast majority of those infected cannot afford the $1 a day for antiretroviral and other drugs that stave the progression of the virus, drugs readily available in the United States and Europe.

Whole generations of Africans are dying. Yet another generation is being orphaned.

If the unfettered progression of AIDS in Africa is not stopped, there will be an estimated 25 million AIDS orphans on the continent by 2010.

If that’s not a weapon of mass destruction, I don’t know what is.

“This is a catastrophe worse than terrorism,” Powell said last year while speaking to a Senate subcommittee on foreign aid about the African AIDS emergency. “It’s not once every now and again you have an incident. This is every day.”

So, what could $75 billion buy if it was spent on, say, AIDS relief in Africa?

Well, $10 billion a year in aid from the wealthiest nations of the world could put 3 million people on antiretroviral drugs that slow the progression of the AIDS virus, according to figures from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, an organization Annan created in 2002.

That same $10 billion could keep 10 million people from becoming infected with HIV, and provide care for 12 million AIDS orphans by 2005.

Even the simplest of equations would indicate that, even conservatively, $75 billion in aid from the United States could reverse the tide of devastation from AIDS in Africa.

In his State of the Union address two months ago, President Bush announced plans to allocate $15 billion in new AIDS funding worldwide over five years.

Now, even though it’s difficult for me to imagine someone not caring about millions and millions of Africans dying of AIDS, and tens of millions of children orphaned because of it, I’m sure there are folks for whom this issue doesn’t resonate.

Humanitarian appeals don’t fly with everyone.

But, for the sake of argument, look at the AIDS pandemic as a global security issue.

Fanaticism often grows out of desperation. And if desperation were a commodity, Africa would have the market cornered.

You know how there’s supposed to be this connection between Saddam and Iraq and Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan?

Let’s say it’s true. Perhaps the relationship is symbiotic. Perhaps one was a catalyst for the other. Whatever.

The fact is that bin Laden’s brand of fanaticism, although not bred in Afghanistan, found fertile soil there, amid poverty and suffering.

How ripe is the land in suffering Africa for such fanaticism? It’s just as easy for certain wealthy Saudis to finance nefarious operations in Zambia or Malawi as it is in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

The corruption is there. The devastation is there. The anti-American sentiment (remember, we’re the ones who manufacture the lifesaving AIDS medications that Africans can’t afford) is there. And so is the desperation.

Why not put the fire out before it spreads?

Even if as little as $5 billion were spent on AIDS relief for Africa over five years it would be only a fraction of what we’re willing to pay to support a war against the threat we perceive in Saddam and his regime.

We’re willing to spend $1.7 billion to rebuild Iraq after we blow it up. Are we willing to spend the same on AIDS medications for suffering poor who can’t afford them?

Some say you can measure the character of a man by the company he keeps. Or how he spends his time. Or how he treats his mother.

Perhaps a better barometer is how he spends his money.