Former president makes thinly veiled swipe at US president’s cuts to HIV and aids initiative
George W Bush has issued a rare critique of Donald Trump over his shuttering of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The former president joined Barack Obama and U2 singer Bono in an emotional video call farewell with staff at the agency on Monday when it officially ceased operations.
After six decades, the humanitarian organisation created by former president John F Kennedy to promote US national security by boosting prosperity and goodwill abroad, is being absorbed into the State Department under the supervision of Marco Rubio.
I was 17 years old when 9/11 happened. 2 weeks away from turning 18.
As everybody watched on that day, in horror, I watched from a slightly different perspective. I thought the draft was coming back. I can distinctively remember as it happened thinking I was watching the defining moment of my generation in real time as it happened. Like if pearl harbor had been televised live. And I was right about it being the defining moment, right about knowing war was coming, wrong about the draft.
Instead the war went on for decades with no draft needed. And I watched Bush bumble his way though the presidency. It still baffles me that Bush won in 2004. People saw 9/11, saw 3 years of Bush’s response, and then said “Yes please, more of that!”.
I genuinely thought we had witnessed the dumbest, and most evil president in history.
…and then recently I was wrong again.