Word: speeches
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...rallies, dancing in leopard skins and singing the doggedly politically incorrect Zulu anthem "Bring Me My Machine Gun." As Gordin says, he is "South Africa's first real African President." "I am a Zulu," says Zuma, in an echo of his predecessor's famous "I am an African" speech. "I should not be trying to be an American or more British. I must be a Zulu." (See Jacob Zuma's profile in the 2008 TIME...
Last Tuesday, President Obama announced that he would inject 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan by mid-year and begin withdrawing them a year later in July 2011. His primetime speech may have lacked the confidence and gusto of the usual American call to arms, but overall Obama has made some smart decisions about this country’s future involvement in Afghanistan...
...speech was reasoned and academic—Obama took care to talk out the pros and cons of some of the more publicly discussed scenarios for future American military involvement. This motif hinted at the thoroughness of Obama’s months-long strategy review. Calls of “dithering” aside, the president rightly seems to have left no stone unturned. He approached the problem not only with an open mind but also with an eye to the longer-term consequences of every potential strategy, both for Afghanistan and the United States...
...most basic level, the decision to pursue a troop surge is wise and well thought out. In his speech, Obama emphasized that Afghanistan is not a new Vietnam. Unlike that war, the Afghan one is being fought by a 43-nation collation against not a popular insurgency, but one on the fringe of society. Also, on 9/11, the U.S. was attacked by terrorists harbored by those whom we fight in Afghanistan today. If the Afghan government were to fall once again to them, those attacks are proof enough that there would be direct negative repercussions on American national security...
...speech, Obama defended this decision: “As president, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, or our interests, and I must weigh all of the challenges that our nation faces; I don’t have the luxury of committing to just one.” The president claimed that another decade of nation building in Afghanistan would hardly incentivize the Afghan government to take the reins and would distract from imperative domestic issues including health care, education, and economic reform...