So much for GOP comparisons of Bush to Reagan. One brought down the mighty Soviet Union. The other can’t even handle Zimbabwe.
Sheesh, if what you really wanted to do was bitch about Iraq for the 88 millionth time on this board, why didn’t you just bitch about Iraq to begin with?
Just so I’m perfectly clear on this issue, the idea of using “nationalization” as a quasi-legal fig leaf for the expropriation of farmland Zim is idiotic. It took ZANU-PF something like five years to figure out how to legitimize the farm invasions by their own thugs? Sheesh again.
Just want to point out, though, that this issue has come up several times already, in the Pit and GD, with the OPs pretty much saying the same thing: “Why does the US invade Iraq and turn a blind eye to Zimbabwe”? So the OP’s question has been asked and answered several times.
Anyway.
I’m glad you’ve since backed off from this statement, because it is complete and utter bullshit. So far as I know, no European or North American powers ever invaded any African countries to depose white-run minority governments, so just what is your point?
We were in each of those places (with, as someone said, the possible exception of the former Yugoslavia) because of a Compelling National Interest, or at least a perceived national interest. Please define the compelling national interest that requires the US to conduct a military invasion of Zimbabwe. Whether or not one actually existed for Iraq (and I believe that one did not, btw), the administration certainly believed there was one. Perhaps you can convince Bush and Co. otherwise.
Oh yeah, and it wasn’t what Milosevic was doing to the Serbs, it was what the Serbs where doing to the other ethnic groups in the Balkans.
But who should go first, really? After South Africa, Zimbabwe’s closest historic social and economic ties are to Great Britain. Zimbabwe, while suspended from active status, remains a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, and I think you’ll find that the majority of the economic and travel sanctions imposed on the Zimbawean leadership have been British initatives. If anyone were to invade Zimbabwe, it would be the British; for reasons of protocol it’s highly unlikely that the US would ever initiate military action against Zimbabwe without some sort of formal request, or at least clearance, from the UK.
Lastly, I am frequently in contact by E-mail with persons in Zimbabwe; the white family of my ex-girlfriend, two of whom are farmers affected by the ZANU-PF land grab. None of them report anything like the wholesale slaughter that fueled western intervention in the former Yuogslavia. Also, they remember vicious internal strife of the 1970’s and have no particular wish to go back to that particular scenario.
Oh, one more thing:
Clearly you don’t pay any attention to the British press.
Maybe not wholesale slaughter, much more subtle, people starving to death in the streets because there is no food. Oh, wait, there is food, if you can afford it.
And there certainly are those who have been killed in Mugabe’s cause. Wholesale yet? Maybe not, but between politcal victims and starvation, certainly we are approaching a level of death that is disturbing enough to require some type of intervention.
And can the friends you are in contact with speak out publically about what is going on there? When I was in Zimbabwe, statements critical of the government were whispered if vocalized at all.
I think this was a good thing for Mugabe to have done and took a lot of courage. Memories are so short, so short in fact that I don’t recall a high level of outrage towards South Africa or Rhodesia with regards to their apartheid governments. People like Mugabe made change possible in Rhodesia otherwise it would be business as usual. The whites there are lucky that Mugabe wasn’t playing by their rules, because they would have all been kicked out of the country, made second class citizens or killed.
This should have been done a long time ago because the government that was overthrown was truly evil and the whites that benefited from this government are now crying foul. Where were these whites when the government of Rhodesia was in power. Where was the sense of what was fair or right then?
You were saying?
Again just to be clear, I don’t personally oppose intervention, if a group of countries led by, say, the UK would agree. I just don’t see a compelling case for a unilateral US intervention.
Your memory must be REALLY short.
Wait, I should repeat that…
Your memory must be REALLY short.