The US and the compromise of global healthcare: Who knew US forgein policy practice and Idi Amin had something in common?

In 2005 I stood before a room of 35 people and declared I hated politics. Now I can’t get enough of it. I credit Paul Farmer firstly and a political science course on the causes of war secondly. Through these forums, I began to realize how powerful the United States is on the world stage.

Paul Farmer enticed me to explore the history of US-Haiti relations. It’s not a pretty one. I learned how the US manipulates weak states to serve their own interests. I learned how the media manipulates the US actions to bolster patriotism. I learned how the poor affected by these manipulations suffer. I learned that if you truly wish to know the truth, you have to dig for it—there’s a solid chance it won’t be hanging out on the surface for the public to glimpse as they put their shoes on in the morning.

While speaking with my uncle, who served a tour in Iraq, he told me stories about playing soccer with the kids, about jokingly trying to sell one of the women logisticians, about the cultural differences, and about how the entire time he was there and the year previous, civilians didn’t have reliable electricity. Why? It had been initially cut during the invasion in 2003 when Iraqi infrastructure was destroyed and two years later in 2005, they still had unreliable power. This has numerous impacts on health, from the sanitation of unrefrigerated foods to the lack of electricity and thus running water in clinics and hospitals.

The actions of the U.S. affect the standard of living for people all over the world. In Iraq, for example, economic sanctions prohibited the nations from importing the materials needed to repair their destroyed infrastructure. The same sanctions, I imagine, inhibit the advancement of medicine. It almost seems a stretch to discuss advancement of medicine when their healthcare infrastructure was struggling to provide services to people in its precarious state.

U.S. policy and U.S. ideals have had great, and sometimes negative, impacts on other nations around the world. I read of rebel groups destroying infrastructure in the DRC. I read of Idi Amin’s destruction of the formerly impressive Ugandan healthcare infrastructure. It at first may seem different when this destruction involves actors on the same level (i.e.- all actors of developing areas), but it’s necessary to take a step back and realize that the United States is participating in the same actions. As Amin brought mass human rights violations in Uganda in the 1970s, the US brings them upon less stable, less developed states now. The U.S.—which ideally should be an example in human rights if it is to be a world power with mass resources—is just as guilty of violating human rights. They’re just better at covering it up.

We denounce the cruelties of rebel groups roaming sub-Saharan Africa, but who is holding the United States accountable? It’s certainly not the UN.