A Helping Hand from Bush to Africans?

US President Bush’s agenda for his upcoming trip to Africa is packed with high stakes issues. AIDS, poverty, corruption, and state failure run rampant across the continent, threatening US interests by providing the shroud of chaos for terrorist groups. However, as this editorial in The Arab News points out, Bush must be careful not to generalize about Africa’s problems and solutions. African countries are, in fact, extremely diverse, each possessing unique political and economic situations, socio-cultural dynamics, strengths, and troubles. Therefore, if Bush is to successfully combat terrorism, gain access to valuable oil fields, please domestic constituencies, and help African countries, he will need to trade generalizations for varied and nuanced plans for individual states. Only then, the author concludes, will both American and African interests be served. – YaleGlobal