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Thanks, again, Xenox!
I would be greatly surprised if Africa hadn't had wars aplenty before colonial times as well. And it seems to me that Afghanistan, Iraq et al got shoved down our throats by al Qaeda.
Beyond that, good thoughts. There's no easy answer to it. I'm highly skeptical that the United Nincompoops could do anything of use at all in stopping the fighting, so it will probably fall on us by default.
Assuming it does: What would you bet that if and when we do intervene, we will be accused of imperialism?
posted by
WriterofLight
on January 11, 2006 at 6:31 PM
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no doubt African problems have gone on for quite some time
more than 4 or 5 decades -- well -- ever since the colonial powers left -- and therein lies the source of a lot of the trauma in Africa.
doesn't matter what administraiton, Africa has been on a cold back burner bor quite some time now. And all administratons have to be blamed for not addressing Africa's problems.
what can the UN do? good question.
They have had peacekeepers there.
but this situatin is far more dangerous than just about any other area of the world.
and back to the present -- had the Buish Administration not shoved Irqq down our throats, first, more attention could have been paid to Afghanistan (which is 70% deadly dangerous)
and secondly, more resources could be moving into Africa to deal with that problem.
it's just that Africa has really never been the "crisis du jour" -- Vietnam, Iran, Panama, that dumb little island that Reagan invaded, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.", Iraq, Monica Lewinski, Al Qaeda, then Iraq again.
seems we can only have one crisis at a time.
again, it's like many African Americans -- the continent itself is virtually invisible to us.
posted by
Xeno-x
on January 11, 2006 at 11:46 AM
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WOL the enemy of America is on home soil.
This is the war-fare most don't know is going on. Be blessed, good post.
posted by
Justi
on January 10, 2006 at 10:22 PM
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Xenox, thanks for the comments!
As the great Maha Rushie would say, See, I Told Y ou So! You're doing exactly what I said the anti-war crowd would do concerning America. Why aren't you asking why the U. N. isn't doing anything, and why didn't you ask why America hasn't done anything about it in the 40 years it has been going on, instead of pinning the inaction solely on the Bush administration as you did?
Beyond that bit of razzing, good point about the general ignorance of the situation here. But you should have quit while you were ahead.
About why "we" fight - the "we" is everybody in this country who gives a damn about our safety from terrorism, just as in World War II it was everyone who wanted Nazism and Japanese Imperialism defeated. (The phrase itself comes from, I believe, a Frank Capra movie made during the war.)
The remark about us not fighting for freedom is flat-out wrong. 25,000,000 Iraqis and 30,000,000 Afghanis are free from tyranny because of the war on terror.
posted by
WriterofLight
on January 10, 2006 at 6:52 PM
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one more thing
a lot of the killing is being done by Christians
posted by
Xeno-x
on January 10, 2006 at 3:31 PM
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oh what's the "we" in why we fight
you don';t fight, I don't fight, the President doesn't fight (he avoided that)
They just send other people to do their fighting -- and it sure as hell is not for freedom. I don't know where anyone would get that.
too much propaganda.
too little knowledge.
posted by
Xeno-x
on January 10, 2006 at 3:30 PM
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where's the administration on this one?
Africa, as many African-Americans are, is mosly invisible. It is unimportant to our admininstraton.
Many people don't now about this constant state of civil war and killing.
But regular people have no power to do much.
And we aren't that much informed of the situation.
I personally know it exists.
This is major bloodshed and violence on a scale where other world events can pale in comparison. It has continued for decades, without the Western World paying much attention -- so what does this say of the Western World as a whole and what they think of Africa?
BESIDES ALL OUR RESOURCES ARE DEDICATED TO FIGHTING IN IRAQ.
posted by
Xeno-x
on January 10, 2006 at 3:28 PM
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Damon, glad to hear the coverage is good over there.
Over on this side of the pond, hardly a peep. I was unaware myself until I received the information I posted. And as far as the anti-war crowd's sentiments on Iraq and Saddam, what I stated is merely the rhetoric I've heard from them since the getgo, taken to its logical conclusion. The hard left over here won't even admit that Saddam facing justice is a good thing, hence the inference that they prefer him in power. (Personally, I'd have preferred that he'd been identified and then buried alive in that rabbit hole in which he was found.)
posted by
WriterofLight
on January 9, 2006 at 7:57 PM
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When You Wear Political Blinders...
you see only what you want to see.
Thanks for this inspiring post.
DM
posted by
Dennison..Mann
on January 9, 2006 at 5:21 AM
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The War in...
...the Congo actually gets quite a lot of coverage here, and there are many organisations doing marvellous work to try to bring it to a close.
The casualty rates are only part of the picture, too. Other major issues are the recruitment and brutalisation of thousands of child soldiers, and the destruction of the habitat of the mountain gorrilla that could, as a result of this conflict, die out all together.
You need to be careful about your rhetoric, though. To say that anti-war (or pro-peace, which is the other way of labelling it) people have been "bitching about the liberation of Iraq and wishing the Iraqi people were still under Saddam's tyranny" is, quite clearly, a nonsense. Every anti-war person I've read or spoken to thinks the fact that Saddam is behind bars and standing trial is a good thing. It is about the only good thing that has come about from the illegal invasion of Iraq and the complete cluster-fuck that Bush has made of the country ever since.
D
posted by
DamonLeigh
on January 9, 2006 at 5:02 AM
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You're welcome!
Here's why: Political correctness and political opportunism. Making all sorts of ostentatious shows of anti-war outrage about Iraq is relevant to their anti-Bush agenda. 4,000,000 dead Congolese is irrelevant to that agenda, so are ignored.
By the way, the same thing applies to the liberals in Congress who are so eager to criticize Iraq. What has any of them ever said about this outrage?
posted by
WriterofLight
on January 8, 2006 at 5:37 PM
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Thanks
Many focus on somewhat less relevant issues instead of important issues. Why, I do not know!
posted by
Dr_JPT
on January 8, 2006 at 5:27 PM
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