And where's the outrage for this kind violence?

[Fatty]

Are you suggesting that the countries in question are as developed as western Europe?

If they are not, then they are less civilized.

To observe that tribal warfare does not take a view of global politics and the results of their actions on that scale as developed nations might is racist?

With people unable to even discuss the problems leading to the current situation because they could be interpreted as some bigoted westerner, it's no wonder Africa's problems go on.

Is Wingnut racist because he implies with the original post that this situation cannot be improved without the west's help?

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Fatty
Are you suggesting that the countries in question are as developed as western Europe?

If they are not, then they are less civilized.

Are you suggesting that technology is equivilent to civilization? I hope not.

To observe that tribal warfare does not take a view of global politics and the results of their actions on that scale as developed nations might is racist?

No, but saying that they are incapable of understanding, or that they are just like "5 year olds" is definitely racist.

With people unable to even discuss the problems leading to the current situation because they could be interpreted as some bigoted westerner, it's no wonder Africa's problems go on.

Is Wingnut racist because he implies with the original post that this situation cannot be improved without the west's help?

Pointing out a "lack of outrage" is not implying the need for intervention.
Civilization has existed in Africa for centuries and just because it is different from the "civilization" of the developed countries does not imply it is better or worse. By all means discuss the issues, just make sure that you don't make value judgements of people that diminishes them as members of the human race.

[miko2d]

midnight Target: Now don't misunderstand me please. I'm sure the people who posted these remarks are well meaning souls. Yet the words they use show that without a doubt they view Africans as somewhat lesser people and that is something we should always point out.

 And what the heck do you think the word "civilised" mean? What do you think the civilization is - our western civilisation. The one that took about 3000+ years of almost continuous advance to develop? The one based on greco-roman culture.

 For your information the greeks are the fellows that made warfare immesurably more violent then it was before by adopting stand-up battle for the first time in a world that only knew scirmish. While results of their battles were extremely bloody, their frequent wars never ended in extermination of the population of the defeated city or even outright subjugation. So whiel tehir battles were much more bloody, their wars were mild compared to the surrounding world.
 And it more or less advances from there with practically no wars of extermination through roman to medieval to renaissance to our times - while those were common in the world.
 Even the "conquest of the New World" seen over 98% of victims due to infectious deseases, alcohol, adoprion of european weapons for internescine warfare and other indirect causes.
 Even europeans had to leave through a few intense religious wars - much more cruel then regular "common" wars before they learned to coexist more or less without fighting all the time.

 So, do not put words into our mouths. While africans may be regular humans (and the criteria to use may be open to debate) in the respect that a child of european descent brough up in a tribe of bloodthirsty savages would behave just like they do, they are inferior as people where the level of civilisation is concerned - they lack few hundred years worth of books, universities, democratic development and civil institutions, roots in 3000 year-old greco-roman civilisation, gradual adoption of technology and many other things.

 miko

[Fatty]

I am suggesting that civilization is a level of education, culture, and material development.  And that yes, because they have less technology it hampers both the material and educational progress (and to a lesser extent the retention of history and culture), resulting in less civil development.  A cosmopolitan view cannot even be considered in such an environment, so tribal disputes continue.

Who are we to support?  The Ugandans and the Sudanese who've begun to support them trying to rid themselves of the radical Christians?  I'm certainly no fan of a theocracy enforcing the Law of Moses.  I'm not sure the southern Sudanese (the natives, mind you) would agree though, as they continue the struggle against the government for the last twenty years.  I know Manute Bol would not, now that he's finally escaped from Sudan.

What Miko is getting at is that it is a mess that is not likely to be settled any time soon, and there is no good guy.  Put ourselves in the middle to get killed?  No thanks.

[miko2d]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Civilization has existed in Africa for centuries and just because it is different from the "civilization" of the developed countries does not imply it is better or worse. By all means discuss the issues, just make sure that you don't make value judgements of people that diminishes them as members of the human race.

 Why not? The meaning of the world "civilisation" as well as concepts of good and evil are culture-loaded terms and the ones that we are using right now in this discussion amond westen people are definitely the ones of western civilisation.

 So I do not hesitate to call some homicidal illiterate civilisation to be worse then our western civilisation. That is not an exercise in cultural relativism but appeal to the western audience to find western ways to deal with uncivilized (by western) standards african problems. And I bet you expect civilised western solutions.

 If I cared engage in the same kind of cultural relativistic mental masturbation that you do, I would not hesitate to offer a natural african solution to the problem of african warfare - exterminate the f$#k the whole load of them untill only one nation remains and that will be the end of hostilities. Better yet, let's kill them all and settle the area with nice european people!
 Don't like that, do you - even if those fighting africans think exactly that way and that is what they are doing. Then you would have to admit that one culture is "better" then another.

 And technology or riches are much less important then cultural traditions, education and customs. Germans ended up on a barren land after WWII and look at them now - got even with the rest of developed world in few years. Africa can get all the money we've got and it will likely make things worse - just read Peter Bauer on the international help and the problems it causes, the one who won the Friedman prise "For the advancement of Liberty".

 I am not saying that things should not be done to help those poor bastards, just be realistic. And insisting that their way of life is as good as others is the last thing I would do to discourage their bloody habits.

 miko

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by miko2d
midnight Target: Now don't misunderstand me please. I'm sure the people who posted these remarks are well meaning souls. Yet the words they use show that without a doubt they view Africans as somewhat lesser people and that is something we should always point out.

 And what the heck do you think the word "civilised" mean? What do you think the civilization is - our western civilisation. The one that took about 3000+ years of almost continuous advance to develop? The one based on greco-roman culture.

 For your information the greeks are the fellows that made warfare immesurably more violent then it was before by adopting stand-up battle for the first time in a world that only knew scirmish. While results of their battles were extremely bloody, their frequent wars never ended in extermination of the population of the defeated city or even outright subjugation. So whiel tehir battles were much more bloody, their wars were mild compared to the surrounding world.
 And it more or less advances from there with practically no wars of extermination through roman to medieval to renaissance to our times - while those were common in the world.
 Even the "conquest of the New World" seen over 98% of victims due to infectious deseases, alcohol, adoprion of european weapons for internescine warfare and other indirect causes.
 Even europeans had to leave through a few intense religious wars - much more cruel then regular "common" wars before they learned to coexist more or less without fighting all the time.

 So, do not put words into our mouths. While africans may be regular humans (and the criteria to use may be open to debate) in the respect that a child of european descent brough up in a tribe of bloodthirsty savages would behave just like they do, they are inferior as people where the level of civilisation is concerned - they lack few hundred years worth of books, universities, democratic development and civil institutions, roots in 3000 year-old greco-roman civilisation, gradual adoption of technology and many other things.

 miko

Fatty well said sir. I agree with you that intervention would be unfruitful at best, disastrous at worst. But I will just point out miko's last paragraph as to "what Miko is getting at".  Seems to me my only error in judgement was in assuming he didn't mean to sound racist.

BTW miko, the words "annihilate and decimate" are derived from the Latin (Roman).
Decimate - to kill 1 out of every 10
Annihilate - To reduce to nothing - kill everyone - plow the land with salt. etc.

There are places in North Africa (Carthagos)  that were annihilated by the Romans that are infertile holes to this day.

[Durr]

 The Lord's Resistance Army, which seeks to make the Bible's 10 commandments the law, is notorious for abducting children to induct into their fighting forces or for use as concubines.

Interesting how they are selective in which ones they want to make law, from the above article they seem to be in violation of the Commandments forbidding adultery and murder and possibly some of the others as well.  

I havent yet seen anyone propose a good solution about what should be done in this situation.  I care what happens to these people just as I care what happens to any human, but without a well-defined plan, we should be very careful about getting involved in these types of things.  Somalia was a good warning as to what can happen when we go into a situation like this half-cocked.  I am no isolationist, but I do think we need to concentrate our efforts in the situations where we can do the most good.  


As to the question of why is there little public outrage over this situation?  The reasons are numerous.  First of all, a large portion of the population of the US are largely ignorant of world events, they receive their news from TV largely, and are greatly influenced by the things they see there.  There are large Jewish as well as large Muslim/Arab populations within the US, and these communities have a great interest in events in the Middle East.  This helps drive the news coverage, not to mention the fact that events in the Middle East sometimes have a direct impact on our daily lives in the form of fuel prices.  

The events of 11 Sept 01 also heightened public interest in Middle East affairs to some degree, since most people sympathize with the Israelis who are subjected to terrorrist bombings on an almost daily basis.  The events of Africa, a place where most Americans have never been, and know little about, seem far away.

 You cant try to paint it as a racist issue though, because the media has, on occasion picked up on certain African conflicts or disasters and focused in on them.  Remember the famines in Ethiopia in the 1980s?  How about the international outcry against apartheid in South Africa. What about the Somalian famine and subsequent UN and US intervention.  The world reacted strongly to news of the massacres in Rwanda in the early '90s as well.  To try to say that the events in Sudan and Uganda or somehow ignored becuase of some racist tendency is overly simplistic in my view.  The reasons these conflicts have not caught the public eye are many and complex.  

There are no easy solutions to the problems facing Africa (war, famine, AIDS etc) and the US needs to carefully think through anything we decide to do there, rather than act blindly on some feel-good knee-jerk solution.

[miko2d]

Originally posted by midnight Target
...Seems to me my only error in judgement was in assuming he didn't mean to sound racist.

 I really did not mean to sound racist - "africans" in my post just refers to pople living in that location. By "people" I ment culture, not biology. In this discussion the issue of race is completely irrelevant.
 A discussion of why their culture is so backward may unearth many racist undertones, but that is not what we talked about, just the fact that it was backward and caused violence that is not obvious how to stop.

BTW miko, the words "annihilate and decimate" are derived from the Latin (Roman).
Decimate - to kill 1 out of every 10
Annihilate - To reduce to nothing - kill everyone - plow the land with salt. etc.
There are places in North Africa (Carthagos)  that were annihilated by the Romans that are infertile holes to this day.
 Decimation was a form of punishment that romans applied to their own troops - never to conquered.
 As for annihilation and "sawing the land with salt", that is more a colorfull figure of speach rather then real historical practice of romans.

 As for Carthage turned to infertile hole by romans, your history is a bit off the mark.
 In 146 BC Scipio Aemilianus does destroy the city of Carthage at the end of The Third Punic War. A huge fire (lasting 17 days if historical accounts are to be believed) helped there.
 But at the end of the First Century BC Augustus (implementing the plans of Julius Caesar) settles a bunch of veterans on the site of Punic Carthage. The only reason to do so would have been to add roman administration to valuable populated area and provide veterans with nice jobs, wives and happy retirement. Dumping them in a desert would hardly qualify.
 In the Secong Century Carthage became the third largest city in the Roman empire and the second largest in the Western Mediterranean after Rome.
 At the same time and through the 4th century Carthage is serves as a center of the Christian church in the West.
 In 439 Vandals capture Carthage only to lose it to the Byzantine Emperor.
 In 697 Carthage is captured by muslims.

So it could hardly have been annihilated by romans and stayed an "infertile hole" since. At least not the rural countryside containing most of the population was was not depopulated or turned infertile.

 Romans were definitely not very nice guys, but they did not usually conquer to kill, just to tax and exploit. They never granted roman citisenship even to the inhabitants of Italy - only romans enjoyed that. But the exploited areas being part of the roman empire enjoyed security, laws, roads, trade and other nice things which left most of them better off conquered.

 miko

[Elfenwolf]

I'll tell you where the "outrage" may be- Look at that Ugandan flag and you'll notice a chicken featured prominently in the center of their flag. Now what would happen if we went over there and got whipped by guys flying chicken flags? Do you realize what this would do to the morale of our fighting men? Every piss ant country in the world would lose respect for us. I'm opposed to sending forces to Uganda unless Uganda designs a more suitable flag. Shooting at  guys flying that flag would be like fist fighting a Transvestite- Even if you win you look stupid.

Now admittedly this is not your common barnyard chicken featured on the Ugandan flag but rather an Ethiopian Famine Chicken, one of the fastest birds in the world and capable of reaching speeds of 80 mph- on the ground. In fact the Ethiopian Famine Chicken is flightless due to starving villagers grabbing handfuls of its feathers as it runs for its life through refugee camps of displaced Africans.

I hope this post doesn't spawn a new rash of condemnation from the "Moral Majority," and in fact I'm getting tired of some of you guys taking pot shots at me here on these BBS. I am considering changing my name legally to Elfenwolf so as to be able to sue those of you "hatas" who call me names and say I'm insensitive.

[skernsk]

Now admittedly this is not your common barnyard chicken featured on the Ugandan flag but rather an Ethiopian Famine Chicken, one of the fastest birds in the world and capable of reaching speeds of 80 mph- on the ground.

ROFL!

[Masherbrum]

Elfen, I think they need to put the "Chickenhawk" from Foghorn Leghorn on it, better yet, Prissy.

Miko - relax, keep flying and take your mind off of it.

Masher