In Africa today, 9,500 people will contract HIV and 6,500 will lose their lives to AIDS, dying for want of medicines that we take for granted. When they die, they take with them their earning power, their human capital -- and they leave behind their children. Unless we, as an international community, go to war against this killer, there will be at least 25 million AIDS orphans in Africa by the end of this decade. It's hard not to be evangelical about the facts.

The facts are transforming mainstream America, just as [Harry Truman] said they would. In thousands of letters and calls to the White House and Congress, the American people are saying AIDS is an emergency. Bipartisan health experts agree that from the United States at least $2.5 billion is required this year to kick-start the war against HIV and AIDS and to show the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world that America is a true partner for health, global security and prosperity. I'm from Europe, where the response has not yet matched the scale of the crisis -- we will have to follow America's lead in this war.

The writer, lead singer of the band U2, is an AIDS activist and founder of DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa).