Gentlemen,

I get the sense that Africans can't wait to chastise America for its obvious double standards.

Here is how I view America:

The U.S is a nation among nations. She safeguards her interests and those of her citizens. She has the might and has garnered enough goodwill through the years to put together a formidable coalition of ally nations to fight her battles, wars, expeditions, etc. regardless of whether other nations agree with her or not. So I never viewed the U.S. as without fault. She has plenty of faults and trickery. As long as we understand that, other nations will be mature enough to solve their problems with both tact and smarts. This is how the U.S. solves her problems.

So I say, instead of waiting to hear what the U.S. has to say about UNITA or whether they agree with the idea of tagging Savimbi a terrorist or not, how come those nations of Southern Africa who view Savimbi and UNITA as a terrorist nation, cannot form a coalition to rid the region of their perceived scourge? They can maturely conduct diplomacy in Africa to bring other apparently disaffected nations on board in the coalition, but all they need is the confidence to go with the conviction that they have a scourge and by God they're gonna get rid of it. Why sound America or wait for her to render verdict. When they do that, it undermines their sincerity. It makes me wonder if that pronouncement was not done just to see if America has double standards. Of course America has double standards, and even triple standards. And America knows she has various standards dictated by the circumstance of each occasion but the well-being of its citizenry and allies is always at the core of those standards. Ergo Germany, U.K., France, Russia, China, even Taiwan. Some purchase National interest from those who are willing to sell theirs.Others fight for it. I happen to like the latter or some combination of both. The most important treasure to America are her citizens. All else comes second. That is how a nation behaves. Once you take care of your citizens, then you can share the dividends of peace and stability with others or share the spoils adventures in foreign lands.

I suppose now that America does not seem to agree with labelling UNITA a terrorist organisation, the affected countries are going to sit on their hands for fear of running afoul of America. What cowards.