The neocons are asking President Bush to commit one final act of gung-ho war before leaving office – to ‘liberate’ Zimbabwe. In typical warmongering style the neocons want the US to invade Zimbabwe to “secure a positive and lasting legacy in a country that has suffered under the boot of a megalomaniacal thug for decades”.
Never mind that the people are suffering; the neocons want Bush to invade in order to ‘secure a positive and lasting legacy’! In other words, they want Bush to invade so that it’ll make him look good. Bush has been in power for eight years, about the same time that Zimbabwe has been drifting from bad to worse, and the neocons want Bush to now put together a plan to invade, invade, and then ‘liberate’ Zimbabwe and do all this before 20 January just so that it’ll make him look good.
Setting one megalomaniacal thug against another will achieve about the same result as it did in Iraq.
The people of Zimbabwe don’t need ‘liberating’; they only need to have their President and his minions removed – then they need massive aid to get their country back on its feet. Every single member nation of the UN should contribute toward the task of ridding Zimbabwe of its President and his minions – except the U.S. whose government should be excluded entirely from any part of the rebuilding of Zimbabwe. Individual American private volunteers, however, should be made welcome.
Such an action by the world would demonstrate to those who are suffering in it that it does care about its fellow humankind and that we’d like to help out purely for the sake of helping out and not because it makes us look good or because the nations that needs the world’s help has something by way of valuable resources that the world’s Big Business wants to exploit.
Zimbabwe needs help. The last thing it needs is Blackwater type thugs to ‘liberate’ them or to have one lot of corrupt political gangsters replaced by another lot as per Afghanistan.
And the world certainly doesn’t need the neocons to tell us who needs ‘liberating’ and who doesn’t.
AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.
14 comments:
Good post. Agree with it all, except for one qualification.
On a realistic level, if you exclude the US government from any involvement, who will provide the logistical support necessary for that sort of operation? The Chinese don't have the capacity and the Russians aren't interested. Which really only leaves the US to provide the airlift capability than would be needed.
Totally agree about Blackwater though. It's a disgrace how mercenaries have been employed in recent years.
I must admit that I was being rather idealistic here. It would be a great opportunity though for the Russians if they could just view things a little differently - they certainly do have the means to provide logistical support - and they could show the world that, unlike the US, they can do things for no other reason than that they care.
So does the US. Somalia in the early 1990s, logistical support for us in East Timor and the support for humanitarian operations after the tsunami prove that. There's far greater US involvement in humanitarian operations around the world than there is Russian or Chinese.
I actually can't think of a single instance where the Russians or Chinese have got involved anywhere "because they care". And with Putin in charge, that isn't going to change any time soon.
No, no to the US in Zimbabwe. It will help Zimbabwe in the short term, but the US will never leave. History has told us that the US spreads trouble wherever it goes, haven't we learnt our lesson? Are we forever going to give the US a pass for intervening in other countries? For the benefit of Zimbabwe's and Africa's future the US must be excluded.
One suspecs that Zimbabweans would appreciate relief from any quarter, including the USA.
And since it has so many assets and resources for such a job, it's beyond selfish to demand that only they can't go in.
Many thousands of starving Zimbabweans would stare at you with blank, sad eyes if you'd told them straight that their suffering would be prolonged by holding off the biggest mover and shaker.
Anyway, if anything, it should be Marxists who should be totally BANNED from contributing or helping.
Robert Mugabe was the Marxists' former hero. A man they cheerfully lauded as the saviour. It is they who wildly supported his coming to power. They should have no say now in the fix-up.
As I said, I was being idealistic. You'll find, however, the US never ever do anything - humanitarian or otherwise - unless it is in their interests to do so. There is always an uterior motive behind anything they do. Case in point; Rwanda - nothing in for them so they did nothing.
Robert Mugabe was, and is, a Mugabeist. He was never a 'Marxist' by any stretch of the imagination.
Your two comments above Damian are spot on.
Mugabe, a hero to the Marxist crowd during his time taking over, indeed implemented Marxist policy.
Most notably, wealth appropriation via the disastrous land reforms.
Giving appropriated lands away to your mates is called Cronyism, not Marxism.
I have been very confused about the real Mugabe for years now. The media portrays him as an absolute monster and so do people on the political left. This is the same media that demonizes anybody who interferes with the wishes of the ruling classes and is quite happy to support the most vicious regimes around the world as long as they do as they are told by their masters. If Mugabe was killing his people to protect the profits of the whites in Zimbawe he would a hero, as Mandela stills is. Is he really hated and Zimbawe being bankrupted by the West bacause he is a nigger that refuses to obey the West like practically all other African leaders?
Mugabe once was a hero of the left (and for some misguided left wingers, still is). He was seen as a revolutionary who gave freedom to his people. It went to his head and he couldn't let go go of his power. His hangers-on were given farms which they couldn't manage and the result is the turmoil there today. Now he is a meglomaniac supported by a greedy heirarchy that he created. He must step down and give back the freedom he had given his people before he took it away again.
Damian, the point I was trying to make is, why are the imperial powers so concerned about Mugabe being corrupt or cruel to his people? The West does not care about the suffering of black Africans, they never have. Most of the time they encourage that sort of behaviour. What has Mugabe done that makes him so hated by the Western ruling class? He must be doing something right. I believe the reason he is so despised is because he upset the natural way of things by taking the power away from the whites in Zimbawe
Mugabe has always been despised by the West for kicking out the whites from Rhodesia but now he has gone over the top. The ruling classes of the West still despise him but his time has come and the reality is; he has to go, not to appease white colonialists, but for the sake of his own people.
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