SA's Youth Communist League issues a statement calling Mbeki accountable for SA's AIDS "debacle". Verashni Pillay offers a smart response on why stating the obvious isn't helpful.
As much as I grapple with the decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, I find my feelings on the decision unresolved. Were I president (and, in this case, put in the same unenviable situation as Obama), I believe I would have made a similar decision. There are just so many unknowns and sending a short-term surge of troops seems like the easiest and safest option (amongst a list of extremely tough and dangerous options).
But I'm still unresolved. (Like I was last year around this time).
There's no question that if the US pulled out, the short-term risks would be greater: Karzai's government would likely fall to Taliban forces and al-Qaeda would likely have a sanctuary (although it's perhaps possible that moderate strands of the Taliban would come to power and would be fed up with the Western intervention that al-Qaeda brings). What's more nuclear-armed Pakistan's security might be put in real danger, which is most terrifying.
But perhaps this short short term (18 month) action provokes greater long term problems. This article certainly provoked these thoughts for me.
Perhaps life in war time makes us myopic. Perhaps the troop build up is counter-productive and causes more resentment against the US. Perhaps we are putting a band-aid on a wound; committing the US to chase al-Qaeda to any weak/failed state it hides in while hurting our economy, our soldiers, our long-term national defense, and our moral bearing.
While I agree with Obama's tough decision, I hope that he isn't loosing sight of his long-term US foreign policy goals: not committing too many troops to one part of the world (it's dangerous in case of other attacks) and not relying too much on hard power over soft power. I don't doubt though that he's considered my above anxieties and many more.
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