All I can say is make it a volunteer force that goes in to mop up this pisshole of a situation. I’d like to think that enough of our troops are sufficiently concerned to step forward when the time comes. Every single one of them that went there would automatically qualify for a medal and rank increase in my book. I’d even check off a box on my tax form to support the mobilization.
PS: I may be violating DNFTT, but would The Fascist Hunter please review the Grapist saga and then kindly fuck off? (Apology notwithstanding.) Whatever the intent was of your colored duplicate post, I fail to see how it contributed to this concerned and important thread.
The US is the world’s de facto police force. However much a good portion of the world resents us, they want us front and center when shit happens.
It’s very much a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don’t situation. If we intervene, we’re imperialists. If we don’t, we’re irresponsible isolationists sticking our heads in the sand. The UNSC wants the US to be a tame attack dog with no volition of our own. We can only be the UN’s bitch.
Rwanda was a travesty. Congo is rapidly becoming just as bad. I would not mind seeing American power projected for a purely altruistic purpose for once.
Well, let’s get the simple stuff out of the way first, and reply to you at the same intellectual plateau from which you addressed me:
Fuck off.
Thank you.
So where were we… Oh yes, solving all the world’s problems at the behest of clam_phlegm. After all, he does expect a solution from me. Tell ya what, you donkey-raping shit eater; expect in one hand and shit in the other, and see what one fills up first. And as a special added bonus, you can eat the contents of both hands, 'k? Who says I’m an asshole? Here I am giving you recipe tips!
There is no easy solution to this nightmare, that was the crux of my statement. The first conceptual steps to stopping the horror are:
Realizing that this isn’t about the oppression of the Congolese by the evil white masters; the evil bastards that are perpetrating this little slice of Hell are the Congolese themselves.
Realizing that cease-fires and agreements and accords are derided by the evil as foppery and useful only for buying more time for their genocidal slaughter.
Realizing that pouring in humanitarian aid that will be diverted to the warehouses of the ruling cadre is simply acting as the quartermaster for the forces of evil.
Although I certainly don’t feel obligated to provide any functional steps, despite my mandate to do so, here’s a couple of off-the-cuff concepts for the poor bastards that get to go on the peacekeeping mission. (Incidentally, this may be the most inaccurately named mission in recorded history. Finding a scintilla of peace in that entire hellhole that they could “keep” is as likely as flicking your Bic at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.)
Make sure you have ammunition. LOTS of ammunition.
Shove the rules of engagement up Kofi Annan’s ass. Here’s the rules… If the other person has a gun, shoot them. Repeatedly. Before they have an opportunity to shoot you, surrender to you, offer to swap Yu-Gi-Oh cards, whatever. Don’t attempt to figure out who the good guys and bad guys are. There really isn’t time or opportunity for that. There’s no uniforms here, no flags, not even a Crips/Bloods bandanna color scheme.
Find the scumbag warlords, and whoever passes for a government and execute them. Very publicly. Especially the government. The scumbag warlords are just doing what they do, and although they deserve no quarter, the real villains here are the people that sold the lie to the Congolese that they would make their lives better and safer.
After the shooting stops, take what’s left and make it a protectorate of one specific country. Not, repeat, not the UN, and preferably not the US, either. Make economic arrangements whereby the country that takes Congo into receivership receives preferential access to its resources as an incentive, but mandate a fully transparent review process of all economic transactions with an eye toward economic stability and self-sufficiency long before the restoration of any political autonomy. Let the UN do the job of defining the parameters and assessing the performance and progress of this receivership, coordinating humanitarian aid and maintaining the authority to modify the terms of the receivership agreement, including the ability to force a change of receiver.
There are good and decent people in Congo that have been plunged into something that we well-fed, well-connected first-worlders, were we to find ourselves in its midst, would surely call Hell. It is our logical duty as the richest civilization that has ever existed not to cynically assume that the only people getting killed here are the warriors.
The land that spawned this horror is a greenhouse for evil. It won’t be the last one, either. Each time we don’t find a way to stop these orgies of mass slaughter in the third world, the odds change for us in the lands of the fortunate. Perhaps we don’t see it from our perspective as best we could, but logic dictates that the odds do change.
Despite the presence of the 700 UN peacekeepers already in Bunia to monitor the withdrawal, rival Hema and Lendu tribesmen fought viciously for supremacy in the town.
The peacekeepers had repeatedly warned the UN that a bloodbath was likely and requested reinforcements.
They were ignored. Lacking the firepower, equipment or mandate to intervene, they retreated powerless to their compound and watched.
UN Peacekeepers don’t do squat but get killed by the warring factions when their compounds get overrun. The UN may have approved FORCES (Multi-National Rapid Reaction Force) to go in to stop this, but UN Peacekeepers are castrated by policy and “mandates”."
600 and something of those UN peacekeepers happen to be from my own country; my goverment sent them truly as an act of humanity for there´s nothing for Uruguay to win there, no comerce at all, no reconstruction contracts no nothing; and certainly around here we´re worried about them ending up in some Congolese remake of the Silence of the Lambs.
They are there only to protect civilians; they can fire their weapons only in self defense and/or to defend any civilian who seeks protection; last thing I´ve heard thousands were in the Bunia airport in that situation.
And as for The Raven´s words “here’s a couple of off-the-cuff concepts for the poor bastards that get to go on the peacekeeping mission”, they ain´t bastards, OK? They´ve been there for months doing the hell of a good work as far as they were allowed. They didn´t go there to cow-boy the day and blow things up, just to try to keep as many civilians alive while solutions were implemented. It went downhill and they kept there despite the hellish situation; so I think they deserve better adjectives, don`t you think so?
Maybe a little more commitment earlier from other UN members would have prevented this situation.
My apologies, Ale. Sorry if I was unclear. I didn’t use “bastards” as a pejorative. “Poor bastards” is an expression of sympathy for the people, far braver than I, who have to survive under rules like
This gets to my point re: the inherent futility of these sacrificial “rules of engagement”. The world owes a debt of gratitude to the Uruguayans who are risking their lives under impossible conditions to try to contain the bloodshed. But what the world really owes the Uruguayans is the acknowledgement that evil has no respect for an unloaded gun.
So you can yell at the cannibals, yell at people suggesting the US be the world’s police force, and yell at the people suggesting they shouldn’t be. basically yell yell yell.
In situations like this, i’d rather be dammed for doing than dammed for don’ting.
Raven is spot on this on, Zen. Not close, but dead center target on the only feasible solution. It would be bloody, and dangerous, and would probably take a decade or more to do, but it’s the only way that’s going to work.
I’m curious as to why the US should be excluded from being granted a protectorate though. One would think that the US would be a leader for this sort of thing, having the disposable income to make a Real Difference once the shooting stopped.
The only other option, and much less feasible than Ravens would be a total quarantine of the Sub-Saharan section of the continent. Nothing goes in, nothing comes out. Use a series of bombing runs to destroy every weapon manufacturing plant, and then close the borders and don’t let anyone in or out.
Send in teams after 20 years to see what the situation is. I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of the region would have collapsed back into agrarian societies. Then start building, slowly.
But that would never happen, and eventually someones going to get pissed enough that the ** Raven Doctrine** will be the only solution.
Putting the US in charge would be unworkable. The anti-American bias that has become de rigueur in modern-day Europe and throughout the UN of late would cast a pall over the whole operation. Every decision, every occurance would be “Monday morning quarterbacked” to the point that the US government would decide the job wasn’t worth the aggravation.
In addition, the US has too many connections with multi-national companies like Halliburton, ADM et al that have become code words for globalism. The cries of cronyism and favoritism that would rain down upon the US government would make the administration of the protectorate a political minefield.
Better to allow less controversial countries without as many vested interests to have a chance to make a real difference. Perhaps one of the Scandinavian countries, or one of the emerging Eastern Bloc alumni.
All of sub-Saharan Africa? That’s not “much less feasible,” that’s fuckin’ whacky.
There some countries in sub-Saharan Africa that haven’t been subject to the barbarities that the Congo and Rwanda have. (Admittedly, many, if not most countires have been at some time, at least in some areas.) But unfortunately, virtually the only time the American media pay attention to sub-Saharan Africa is when some atrocity is taking place, so you’ve probably never heard of these places.