All right, Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda. All right, George W. Bush, president of the United States. You win. You have the facts on your side when you preach that abstinence from sex is the most certain way not to get AIDS.

An advice columnist once told readers that the best birth-control prescription she knew of was to take two aspirins and hold them firmly between the knees. Sometimes the kind of advice our mothers used to recite is worth remembering.

But let’s face it, gents. It’s a crazy world out there. It’s one thing to mouth truisms about HIV transmission. It’s another entirely to apply those truisms effectively and wisely across a broad swath of humanity.

So we arrive at a question: Have you two fellows gone completely nuts?

I raise this point because on Monday Museveni roiled the 15th International Conference on AIDS in Bangkok when he said that it’s more important in the fight against the disease to change sexual behavior than it is to promote condom use.

But what happens when you can’t get the people most at risk to abstain? What happens when the human sex drive proves infinitely stronger than a briefcase full of admonitions?

The results could be grim.

A quick bit of background: Bush has touted the abstinence doctrine for years now as he seeks desperately to please his core backers in the religious right without driving away a broader electorate yearning for a compassionate conservative.

To be fair, he does believe condoms are acceptable as a third resort – after abstinence and faithfulness fail. Museveni agrees.

That’s a shame, because Uganda has much credibility. It cut its HIV infection rate from 30 percent in the early ‘90s to 6 percent today, one of the very few success stories in the bleak annals of HIV prevention.

But here’s the thing: As any AIDS expert will tell you, that nation accomplished this feat with a major emphasis on the crucial role of condoms.

There is no cure for AIDS and there is no vaccine. While antiretroviral drugs can slow down HIV’s destruction of the human immune system, the medicine itself can become toxic over time. Bottom line: HIV infections remain on the rise in most places, and AIDS prevention workers come to the battle armed only with talk and a bagful of condoms.

Now certainly, it might make sense to lecture a 15-year-old on the virtues of abstinence. But how much success will this harangue produce when your target is a long-haul Ugandan truck driver or a drugged-out South Bronx streetwalker? Or, actually, almost anybody?

Planned Parenthood pointed me to a 1994 study run by a University of Chicago professor. Seven percent of the men and 21 percent of the women told researchers they were virgins on their wedding night.

Now you might think I’m just some fuming ideologue who’s all riled up because Bush ranked abstinence No. 1 on his wish list and condoms as No. 3. If only it were that simple.

The truth is any nation that has seen its infection rates drop has probably worked like mad to promote condom use. Thailand saw its HIV rates fall sevenfold in 13 years, and it did so mainly by touting condoms as a key means of prevention.

I have no idea what thoughts were going through Museveni’s head as he delivered his ode to abstinence in Bangkok, but it does seem logical that – for monetary reasons alone – he needs to stay on the good side of Bush as he continues to fight a serious battle against HIV.

In the end, the condoms-versus-abstinence dispute is a creation of the religious right – one more way to extend the culture wars for a few extra decades. It is destructive beyond words.

Prevention was not faring all that well before this skirmish erupted. This fight succeeds in making it weaker still.

Joseph Dolman is a columnist at Newsday.

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