[Skybird]

What is your problem, XXIII ?

There is genocide taking place in Sudan and Darfur, there is barbarism in the same region, there is tribal wars in Somalia, there is barbarism in Kongo, and in many other places thoughout Africa. The continent is medically ill, politically a critical mass of potential, or low-intensity (and sometimes high spiking) warzones with unlimited living time. Sharia is on advance in many parts of muslim-influenced Africa. Children are forced to fight as soldiers from the north to the south, from the west to the east, in the past and/or in the present and forseeable future. There are so many hotspots that it needs quite ome time to find a bigger-than-medium region where they have no armed conflict. And I even do not mention starvation, corruption, high crime, civil war factions controlling diamond and uranium mines, erosion of farmland, decreasing sweetwater reservoirs, and epidemic deseases, especially AIDS.

All I say is that the boy's example is far from unique in Africa. It is very common that children do kill in Africa, in many, many regions throughout the continent. Much of Africa is hell. And i said that it is stupid to send 400 troops into a country bigger and much more wild then Germany, where they can be confronted with a situation that 14 year old boys in the middle of their puberty are opening fire on them, and that these troops may be hesitent to deal with such a situation adequately like they would do if their enemies would not be little boys (who sometimes already have commited murder, mutilation, rape). There is not much as dangerous as a group of marauding, pubescent juveniles, being raised in a place of violence and barbarism, that have an automatic weapon in their hand and the feeling of being invincible in their hormon-controlled mind. If you think that is not a reality in many places of Africa, then you really need to learn some things about that place. Scholl-Latour's "Afrikanische Totenklage" is a good start for reading, next continue with "Die Ökonomie der Gewalt" by Münkler, included in "Die neuen Kriege".

There is violance and bloodshed and unimaginable barbarism throughout the continent, nothing more and nothing less do I say. I think of much of it as the land of the living dead.