What It Takes to Help End Suffering in Africa

Re “Africa’s Suffering Is Bush’s Shame,” Opinion, June 12: The suffering of Africans is not caused by stingy Americans. Africans are not helpless. They lack the fundamental requirement to live productive, happy lives: They need political freedom, not charity. Freedom unleashes the enormous human potential for production. America is the best example, having turned a largely empty continent into the most productive and happy nation in history. The same is available to Africans by learning the principle of individual rights and installing it in their governments.

Ralph C. Whaley

Barron, Wis.

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President Bush may profess to be promoting “moral values,” but his policy regarding Africa is, as Jeffrey Sachs demonstrates, completely immoral. I do not understand why conservative leaders Pat Robertson, James Dobson and others in the Republican camp who profess to be religious leaders are not demanding that our Christian president follow the command of Jesus to feed the hungry and care for the sick.

Paul Eklof

Costa Mesa

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Sachs writes that “the millions of Africans who die young ... are the consequences of U.S. policy.” That is incorrect. Whether the U.S. chooses to be as generous as Sachs desires, poverty and mortality in Africa are not the consequences of U.S. policy. The issues of whether we can help and whether the current problems are our fault are different matters. Sachs can make the case to the American people that we can do great good with limited resources, or he can argue that it is in our national interest to help, but please spare us the falsehoods that their poverty is our responsibility.

David Hadley

Manhattan Beach

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Sachs calls the notion that “Africa is corrupt and mismanaged and thus cannot (effectively) absorb more aid” a myth. The current messes in Zimbabwe, Uganda and Sudan, along with the past and current messes in Rwanda, Somalia and elsewhere in Africa, put the lie to his characterization. To gullibly continue support for savage, brutish and despotic regimes through more aid is to continue a policy bereft of moral or democratic principles.

Jackson L. Forney

Nipomo, Calif.

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The Sachs commentary is right on. The only real hope Africa has for aid from America is if oil is found, and Halliburton can make a buck off it.

Jim Kelly

Yucca Valley