That is the million dollar question? It really puzzels me as to why the USA, after contesting the African continent because of its raw wealth against the Soviets during the Cold War period, is now quite content to stand back and let China run amok - and the Koreans as well.

Why do we have to do the worlds dirty work every time, only to then get spat on by the rest of the world for doing it?

Why can't South Africa and the rest of the African union fix the problem? Surely they possess the means to do so...

If he is cleverhe will never do it, because what he does not say, cannot be taped - cannot be used against him. "Do you think somebody in the WH said: let's set up some lies, invent some untrue claims, and get a reason to occupy Iraq"? Politics means to find out how you can work offside the rules and get that done without needing to claim responsibility. Seen that way, it is a creative art.

It is enough to let an unspoken intention invisibly tickle down the hierachy until it reaches a level of the system where somebody who will never be known decides to carry out the order that was never spoken out. Because we do not assassinate heads of foreign states and foreign states' major politicians. Not officially, I mean.

Thats the best laugh I had all day. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

"as long as the stuff keeps coming, there is no need to invest ion an overthrow. We have never been shy to trade with brutal opressors as long as he sells us what we want. Preferrably to our conditions. Mugabe knows that, and so he knows he is safe from real action. Ever heared of blood diamonds? they get washed a bit, and the shine holds as long as no questions get asked. So, most do not ask.

I really don't get involved in the political threads, but the remarks of the UN's Secretary General just struck me as typically non-committal, followed by a tag-line regarding collaboration in the strictly symbolic sense. What a useless organization.

To Skybird: I read an intersesting article recently about how China rapes for example the forests of Mozambique, brings the raw wood back to China, turns it into whatever, and sells it to the USA.

A lot of people don't use the term 'useless' when referring to the UN because it contains the word 'use'.

Hopeless is a term more commonly used http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...s/thumbsup.gif

How do you mean rape? Do you find the harvesting, shipping back to China, then selling to the US wrong? Or do you just mean the conditions under which they obtain the initial product?

Are you serious or are you ironic? I tend to assume the first, but I am not sure.

@ von Tonner,

EU-nations buy chicken from African nations to prices they dictate, take the filets for themselves, send back the wings and legs to Africa and sell them at prices so that local farmers trying to sell their own chicken cannot compete with these dumping prices and face bancruptcy, which causes havoc on African agricultural economy. Many other goods are being traded in this way, too. The EU calls that economical developement. I call it assistance to mass murder and destabilizing of social and national structures, because that's what it is in the end.

Or look at american companies like Sonex, which together with Candian Barrick Gold has established a cartel in the region around Rwanda and Uganda and exports minerals and tropical woods at conditions dictated by America, and is suspected by many of acting in the name of the military complex of the US. Not to mention the political and military intrigues the Us over the past 50 years have been massively engaged in.

It is not only the chinese and the russians. The Europeans and Americans are at least as guilty, if not more -due to their longer time of messing up activity in this region.

I am a realist, and i do not believe in the good of man - I eventually believe in some good in some men only. therefor I see no hope for Africa, it will become the hellhole of this and the next century, at least in those places were it not already is.

A brutally open and insightful read is this book, which I consider to be one of the best of the author. But be warned, it is a good method to create depressions, since it if filled with mutilation, genocide, masskilling, war and utmost brutality - the daily routine in many parts of Africa.

http://www.amazon.de/Afrikanische-To...4259445&sr=8-7

As I see it, the MDC didn't have much choice. The chances of a free and fair election were non existant, and even if they won, the armed forces would haven't accepted the result.

The only two thinks that will cause change in Zimbabwe, the crooks in charge leave as there is nothing left to take or control, or they all drop dead! A long shot for both methods.

"Fear the old men - they have nothing left to lose."

Here's a Johnny Clegg song about Uncle Bob Mugabe, The Revolution Will Eat It's Children:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqBCxKrvRSo

Being serious. I can see how it would be confusing. My sarcasm and ire tend to flow along similar lines as well. My bad.

I got this from my Scatterlings group. I signed the petition. You may want to look at this: