The United States is the most powerful nation on Earth and it just can't walk away from the Middle East and central Asia and the Horn of Africa.
In the Horn of Africa now, there are tens of thousands dying from the extreme vulnerability they are living in.
As Ethiopia goes, so goes the whole Horn of Africa - a region where instability can have major security and humanitarian implications for the United States and Europe.
The New York Times will tell you what is going on in Afghanistan or the Horn of Africa. But it is no exaggeration that The New York Times has more people in India than they have in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is a borough of two million people. They're not a Bloomingdale's people, not trendy, sophisticated, the quiche and Volvo set. The New York Times does not serve those people.
With respect to the situation in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, in both countries the Soviet Union had been working hard to create an infrastructure of those who shared their point of view and were prepared to take over the countries.
Nowhere is this challenge more critical -- and the need for action more pressing -- than in the Horn of Africa. From Kenya to Ethiopia, Djibouti to Somalia, the devastating consequences of drought, desertification and land degradation are playing out before our eyes. The worst drought in 60 years has placed more than 13.3 million people -- predominately women and children -- in need of emergency assistance.
If any good comes out of the current famine in the Horn of Africa - amidst the pictures of mothers carrying dying babies at their shrivelled breasts and hollow-eyed children with swollen bellies and matchstick limbs - it will be galvanising the world on the need to ensure access to nutritious food for the world's most vulnerable people.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: