Democracy, By God [1]
Submitted by Laura Miller [2] on
The Bush administration [3] recently appointed Paul Bonicelli [4] to be deputy director [5] of the U.S. Agency for International Development [6] (USAID), where he will oversee programs that promote democracy and good governance internationally. Bonicelli's last job was dean of academic affairs at Patrick Henry College [7], a Christian fundamentalist institution that requires students to sign a 10-part "statement of faith" declaring, among other things, that non-Christians will be condemned to hell, "confined in conscious torment for eternity." "What's wrong with this picture is that the USAID programs Bonicelli will run are important weapons in the arsenal of Bush's new public diplomacy czarina, White House confidante Karen Hughes [8]," writes William Fisher, who has worked for USAID and the U.S. State Department [9]. "These programs are intended to play a central role in boosting Bush's efforts to foster democracy and freedom in Iraq and throughout the broader Middle East."