Every 40 seconds a child is born with HIV somewhere in the world. 600,000 children died of HIV/AIDS last year alone. There are 42 million people in the world with HIV/AIDS today. 95% of those 42 million people live in poor countries, and at least 6 million of them require immediate treatment with life-extending anti-retroviral therapy. The high cost of medicines and a lack of political effort continue to deprive millions of people with AIDS in the developing world of treatment. As a result, six people die from AIDS each minute. More specifically, it is expected that two and a half million Africans are going to die next year because they can't get access to the drugs we Americans take for granted.

The idea, of course, is that if we truly are a powerful nation, a land of life and liberty, why do we remain tight-fisted when it's within our ability to extend a hand of mercy to those so desperately in need? "It is madness," Bono asserted, "that at a time of absolute prosperity in America, there are cities in Africa where one-third of the people are going to die.

That madness ends, Bono seemed to suggest, when Americans begin to see Africa as not simply an impoverished continent, but as our neighbor, and those sick and dying as our very own brothers and sisters.

"The journey of equality continues," he said, punctuating his point with a Biblical illustration. "Imagine. These sheep-herders arrive in front of Pharaoh and he says, 'Rumor has it you think you're equal.' They're standing there with sheep shit on their shoes and they look down in their book and they say, 'Yeah, that's what it says here.'"

"I'm not a great preacher but I am a believer," Bono stated firmly. "If we have the things that our brother needs but do not pass them on to our brother, then how much love do we really have?"

He quoted passage 1 John 3:17, which says, "But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?"

Bono then turned from a Biblical stance, back to a political one. Echoing his sentiments from a prior conversation with talk show host Larry King, he repeated, "This era will be remembered for three things: The Internet. The War Against Terror. And how we let an entire continent go up in flames, while we stood around holding water in cans…or not."

Bono went on to assert bold comparisons between the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust, predicting that in future generations, Americans will be held responsible for our actions, or lack thereof. "The questions that were asked in Germany a century later, will be asked of us: 'How could you let this happen?'"

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