Well, given that we are busy elsewhere, my suggestion is that we seize a base area somewhere in the neighborhood and start recruiting troops. Say about 50,000 of them, for pay.

Train and equip them up to American standards, find the natural leaders among them and teach them about rule of law, and then just unleash them on these barbarians.

The utter rabble which makes up the varied central African armies would never be able to withstand a properly constituted military force...and even if this force subsequently set itself up in charge of the area it certainly couldn't be any worse...and as we'd be their only source of re-supply, they'd be beholden to us and thus amenable to our suggestions vis a vis what sort of government to institute.

Hmm. I have no problem with doing things like this if we also have a clear national interest at stake. In fact, I think my rules for foreign engagement would look something like this:

1) There is a clear moral justification.
2) There is a clear national interest in our spending blood and treasure on the venture.

We had both in Iraq. We have it in a few other places. I'm not sure where we have that in Congo--although it'd make me happy to bring succor there, it really would.

Dean,

My brief is that a place like the Congo is just a place where the future homicide bombers of the world are being created.

The West dropped the ball badly for fifty years, letting section after section of the world drop into the rankest sort of barbarism - The United States, in my humble opinion, has a vested interest in seeing to it that barbarism is kept to the bare minimum, for our own long-term safety and in the name of helping our fellow man.

I realise that there are a host of valid arguments against my view - but its how I feel about it. We are, of course, entirely too busy to take direct charge of this situation...and we sure in hell can't hope that any other civilized power will do anything about it; thus my view that a proxy-war would be the best means available.

Dean,

Oh, and I just read over at the Washington Times website that, amazingly, the Army is thinking of prosecuting a Colonel for, heavens!, daring to go a bit rough with a terrorist in Iraq.

You should link it and lets see what sort of debate unfolds.

Got a link? I don't generally read the Times.

Training opposition forces is a horrible idea, unless they are directly trained to fight along side US forces to restablish security and to hold it. If not, they could turn against the US and be a bigger problem than before.

That would pretty much suk...

OK, having lived next to the Congo, I can tell you this: Stay out. Because of our limited involvement except for the U.S. Peace Corps, Africans generally like Americans. That's good for us. The next generation of suicide bombers will come from Muslim nations, not Congo, which has a small Muslim population. But if intervene militarily, we could engender severe resentments.

The article doesnt give the complete picture -- it just what the journo-tourist saw momentarily and reported. The story of the Congo is much too complicated to give such a "cannibalistic" judgement to the whole country...

Who taught them such violence?
Why did they become like this?

Strangely enough -- such large scale butchery was taught to the congolese by the Belgians. Between 1890 and 1928 10 million died in a sustained genocide -- about 1/2 the population of the country -- a large part of them pre-colonial leaders and rulers...
Of course modern history prefers to give great recognition to the jewish holocaust rather than this.

Of course, when the country was finally free -- the only decent leader (Patrice Lumumba) was assassinated by guess who? the CIA! and the Americans supported Mobutu -- one of the worst dictators in history -- he just continued the belgian tradition of genocide.

The strangest thing about all this history was: every colonizer claimed he was "civilizing" the people there --- they didnt need civilizing in the first place.
I think its high time the Congo is just left alone -- withdraw all foriegn parties -- let them fight it out amongst themselves. They will sort it out -- maybe in the next 10 years....

--Ashok

The Belgians taught them cannibalism?

Ashok,

The population of the Congo in 1950 was about 9 million, this being a massive run-up in population...there is simply no way that 10 million could have been killed between 1890 and 1928 because there simply weren't that many people living there. Belgian rule in the Congo was brutal enough that we don't need to make stuff up.

IB Bill,

I fail to see how keeping the African's good graces will do them any good once they are dead. I'd rather they disliked us over their peace and prosperity than continued to like us as they are butchered by machete-wielding barbarians.

Yep gosh darn it, another nail to hit with our military hammer.

Well the EU is denying them food if it even has the taint of genetic modification. Its not allowing Africans to have access to better crops because of the possible GM taint. Are we surprised they are eating each other? How about they try roast EU busy-body next time.

Rick,

You got a better way to deal with AK-47 armed, machete-weilding barbarians? It'd be nice that some Peace Corps volunteers would do the trick but its seems that at this juncture, they'd be eaten.

When dealing with armed barbarians, only better armed civilized soldiers will do the trick. There is no way to negotiate a settlement - there is, in the end, no way to take a guy who's eaten his enemies and make him into a defender of civilization.

Andrew,

Frog legs are a delicacy, but one always has to remember to remove the socks before putting them in the oven....

Yes, they tend to evacuate the Peace Corps prior to the eating. Civil unrest is why PC pulled out in 1992, and it's never really stopped. Too bad. The volunteers who went there always had great things to say about it.

I appreciate Mark's point, and I sympathize. But I don't see a solution. There are about 22 million people in Congo-Kinshasa, spread out over a wide area. Perhaps the French and Belgians can do something -- it's their problem. It would be like our invasion of Haiti but on a monumental scale. And the warring parties would probably turn on us. That's a lot of jungle to cover if it turns hostile.

I'm not satisfied with my answer, but I'm not sure how our intervention isn't going to make things worse for us. I could be wrong, I just don't see it.

IB Bill,

I fully agree there are good reasons for not going in - but I think that I, at least, have seen too many children with their limbs hacked off by barbarians. If we weren't involved in the War on Terrorism, I'd be advocating a carefully planned, step by step progam to liberate Africa from its various warlords.

Hard and long? Yep. Fraught with difficulty? Man, don't you know it. Worth it? Definitely.

I think the best argument for staying out is that we are militarily completely committed to the WoT. As I see it, unless the Pentagon has an imaginative solution I can't think of, we just don't have the resources to go hunting for bad guys in Central Africa.

I really wish this wasn't true. The suffering in Central Africa is probably the only close parallel in scope and degree to the current situation in North Korea. If our military wasn't already committed, we could do a lot of good in the region. Unfortunately, I don't see a realistic resolution to the impasse until the reconstruction period in Iraq is over and the threat on the Korean peninsula has been neutralized.

Also, I generally agree with Dean's first comment in this thread. The moral justification for intervention is fairly clear, I think. The national interest criteria is more difficult to establish, but here's one argument. The two criteria aren't necessarily separate. When the moral justification for acting rises to a certain level, that creates a national-interest justification under the theory that "for evil to thrive, it is only necessary that good men do nothing." It's not in our national interest for evil to thrive, and if we see ourselves as good men, we should thwart it to the best of our ability.

"The New York Times magazine has a horrific account of cannibalism in the Congo."

"What a horrible, horrible state that continent is in."

That's quite a leap from A to B, no? I'm saying that just a look at the size of the African continent and the numbers and diversity of its people should make such a conclusion appear silly.

What the NY Times journalist reports is one slice of African reality.

Another is this: http://www.malidoma.com/Malidoma/some2.html

and there are many others.

One of the main concerns with Africa is it's various tribal and clan conflicts. You can't go into it and demand that they start being democratic or you'll just get bloodshed. It's crazy, look at Somalia. Everything was fine with UN peace keepers, until moves were made against the warlord Aidid. Sure, there were other factors to consider, but gees... going in at the momment would be suicidal. I thinks its time that Europe stopped whining and imposing economic sanctions on nations and actually got of their arse and get involved in the worlds issues!

I wasnt making that up.
A rough census was done post-king-leopold -- the belgians themselves estimated that the population of the Congo was about 10million -- in their own estimate they beleived that the population had halved since the 1890s. All this has been well documented in well researched books like "King Leopold II" published in Dutch -- and later (I think) in English, its been well documented by church organizations that operated at that time, theses published by various American universities have helped bring it to light, some of the famous American activists against the genocide were people like Mark Twain and Joseph Conrad.

Unfortunately its the kind of denial from people just like yourself that is saddening. Please read up in detail/or visit and understand the country beforing seriously starting judge and jury the people there...

Mark Noonan saith:
The population of the Congo in 1950 was about 9 million, this being a massive run-up in population...there is simply no way that 10 million could have been killed between 1890 and 1928 because there simply weren't that many people living there

Hard and long? Yep. Fraught with difficulty? Man, don't you know it. Worth it? Definitely.

Posted by Mark Noonan at October 29, 2003 02:15 PM

And I assume you and your family members will be signing enlistment papers. Shouldn't take too long, say 4-6 years,

wasnt making that up.
A rough census was done post-king-leopold -- the belgians themselves estimated that the population of the Congo was about 10million -- in their own estimate they beleived that the population had halved since the 1890s. All this has been well documented in well researched books like "King Leopold II" published in Dutch -- and later (I think) in English, its been well documented by church organizations that operated at that time, theses published by various American universities have helped bring it to light, some of the famous American activists against the genocide were people like Mark Twain and Joseph Conrad.

Unfortunately its the kind of denial from people just like yourself that is saddening. Please read up in detail/or visit and understand the country beforing seriously starting judge and jury the people there...

Mark Noonan saith:
The population of the Congo in 1950 was about 9 million, this being a massive run-up in population...there is simply no way that 10 million could have been killed between 1890 and 1928 because there simply weren't that many people living there

Posted by Ashok at October 30, 2003 01:45 AM

So the Europeans are responsible for cannibalism in Africa.

Nonsense.

Hear me out.
Unfortunately the west sometimes has a very two-dimensional view of africa:
- one is the "cannibalism" school of thought -- africa is full of depraved savages who need civilizing
- the other extreme is "the noble savage" school of thought -- africa is full of noble people, albiet culturally different.

A middle school of thought is probably the more realistic -- africa is just a different place, a completely different culture -- western ideas will not really work here.

the news article leans heavily on the first school of thought -- the reporter went looking for such stuff and found it. Maybe, if I went into rural america and came up with some really weird and depraved behaviour (i probably would going by what we see on the american talk shows...) I would certainly not jump to the conclusion that the whole of america is savage and needs rehabilitation. Would I?

Now coming to savagery in present day Congo. It certainly wasnt a peaceful eden-like place before the colonials strutted in -- which country is?
There were tribal wars,battles the works.

But, the "barbaric" rituals like cannibalism were maybe restricted to a miniscule proportion of the population (this is well documented in various literature on west/central african culture published by many american universities...)

In reality "large scale african cannibalism" as was potrayed by the west in the early half of the 20th century is a myth.

Physical mutilation, limbs being chopped off (irrespective of age) , savage beatings, people being executed being somebody had a toothache -- all this was practised by the belgians in the Congo well into the 20th century on an unprecedented scale (definitely not equitable to the pre-colonial days...)-- and the worst part was in many instances -- they used the congolese themselves (forcibly of course -- or else face a maxim gun) to commit the acts on their own people.

So who were the real barbarians? definitely the colonials in the congo...

Some of the present day torture methods in the congo are identical to those used by the belgians!

In a sense the whole country is still recovering from that period of history -- the modern version of barbarism that the media talks about is really a side-effect of all that history -- unfortunately the media doesnt do serious reporting anymore...

--Ashok

"large scale african cannibalism" was a myth?

Guess what Ashok, it's still a myth! What is your point anyway?

If you are trying to claim that present-day brutality in Africa is the aftereffect of Euro colonialist crimes against humanity, you better start making a case for it.

A bald assertion doesn't cut it. Beware of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

If you are trying to claim that present-day brutality in Africa is the aftereffect of Euro colonialist crimes against humanity, you better start making a case for it.

I'll take a crack at this one.

There is a case. My point is not conclusive -- just that a case is there. And let me further caveat that I'm talking broadly about effects (I'm talking warfare here, not cannibalism, which is rare and mostly rumored), not responsibility. People are responsible for their own behavior no matter what. And I repeat that I lived in Africa for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer and loved the people and the land. Still, I was no starry-eyed romantic. You took your life into your own hands every time you got in a cab -- and guess what -- the driver usually didn't care if he died because they believe so strongly in fate.

Anyway, the case for colonial after-effects in Africa are rooted, I think, in three factors: boundary lines including the idea of nationalism, special privileges granted to minority tribes, and advanced weaponry. All three were introduced into a culture that really wasn't prepared for them and they've been fighting it out ever since.

Yes, there were tribal wars prior to colonialism, but they weren't fought with rifles and land mines, they were fought with hand weapons, just like us a few centuries earlier. Imagine someone entering ancient times and handing both the Carthaginians and the Romans AK-47s and bouncing bettys. Think you'd have a bloodbath? Heck, let's have the crusades with advanced weaponry. How would that turn out?

Next, geographic boundaries and the idea of nationalism placed tribes in organizations that they probably never would've made. The Niger/Nigeria border goes right through the Hausa people. The Tanzania/Kenya border goes through the Masai. Congo-Kinshasa is a conglomeration of tribes that have nothing to do with each other. And on the eastern borders they have problems with tribes on both sides. These tribes feel loyalty to the state, but to the tribe too, and it creates a mix of loyalties.

In Gabon, I knew if my students were Fang, Mishogo, or Punu just by looking at them, and while Gabon doesn't have a lot of ethnic hatred, it does have ethnic tension. Reason: The Fang, the largest tribe, were in the process of conquering the country when the French intervened. No one has forgotten this.

Now, to special privileges. The colonials had a neat trick for keeping order. Pick a minority tribe and put them in charge. Give them all sorts of special privileges and weaponry. The minority tribe's loyalty to the colonials is thus assured (mostly) by the fact that their power is dependent on the colonial presence. The minority tribe grows rich, incurring envy, and even acts brutally to repress everyone else to keep the peace. Now, the colonials leave. The minority tribe tries to hold on ... and it's payback time.

Congo is much more complicated than all of this, but contains a lot of these elements. Mobutu spent 30 years trying to keep the tribes in line one way or the other -- granting certain regional autonomy to Shaba, and sometimes cracking down. What made Mobutu a scumbag was his looting of the country from poor people. Still, the Congolais were not miserable bastards -- they lived in the forest, which supplies plenty of food, drink, even booze (palm wine naturally ferments there -- knock over a tree, add a drain,and you got wine in a few days). Most of them are just trying to lie low and avoid marauding hordes of maniacs with rifles.

Anyway, there is a case for after-effects.

Some of the present day torture methods in the congo are identical to those used by the belgians!

In a sense the whole country is still recovering from that period of history -- the modern version of barbarism that the media talks about is really a side-effect of all that history -- unfortunately the media doesnt do serious reporting anymore...

--Ashok

Posted by Ashok at October 30, 2003 03:21 AM

Ashok. Understand something.

I am not a European. I am an American. Neither me, or any of my ancestors, had anything to do with Africa, much less the Congo.

(I will give you that we traded with the various colonial powers.)

It is probable that some Europeans did horrible things. It is also probable that some native peoples did horrible things before the Europeans showed up.

(Check out what the Aztecs were doing before the Spainards arrived.)

The next question should be, what would conditions be if the Europeans had stayed? Better? Worse?

Of course the Europeans did not stay, so we can only look at conditions, now. I think it fair to say that it is extremely hard to imagine the "Beligan Congo" being as totally screwed up as it is now.

What should the "world" do? Well, given that Africa has had 40 years of dictators, socialists, that has led to a situation in which there is almost no infrastructure, very little venture capital. etc., I think the Europeans should be forced to come back, take over, get read of the truly bad people, and introduce some measure of security and hope.

Note I said "Europeans." Include us out. We've got our hands full with a bunch of people wanting to save our souls and chop off our heads.

Ashok,

I acknowledged that Belgian rule was bad - but to toss around the word "genocide" is to cheapen the word; it gets used entirely too often.

The Belgian colonists were cold-hearted people who were trying to suck the last nickle out of the people of the Congo...but you don't do genocide if thats your goal.

IB Bill, you accurately point out some of the evil practices of European colonizers.

You are also accurate that the introduction of modern weaponry made armed conflicts in Africa more deadly.

Then you note that the way borders between African states were drawn does not coincide with tribal boundaries.

Addressing the last point first, what difference does it make? Were there fences or walls built between states so that cousins could no longer visit each other? I don't think so.

Were unrelated tribes uprooted and thrown together like scorpions in a glass? No... the day after statehood, the sames tribes were in the same place they had been in before. If they could not get along now, then they could not get along before. If you say that boundaries of nation-states are the cause of misery, then what is the better alternative?

Next, modern weaponry: I concede that point. But you do not mention the introduction of live-giving technologies such as medicine, public health, modern farming, all of which are the reason that Africa's population is not plummeting but GROWING.

Knowledgeable observers generally say that Africa's biggest problem is not the armed conflicts but corruption. 50 to 100 years after the end of colonization, should Europeans still be blamed for corruption?

Kenya has been making big efforts to root out corruption. It should be a major story, the Western media should feature it. Why are they not doing so? Is it because the comparison would make the other African nations look bad and expose their claims that everything is an after-effect of colonization as a convenient sham?

By the way, Europeans enjoy being sanctimonious and attacking the U.S. for spending a lower percentage of its GDP on foreign aid.

The truth is, foreign aid is a band-aid in any case. Things will get better for Africa when they root out corruption and when they are allowed to export their way out of poverty. Since they do not yet have modern industrialized economies, raw materials and food are the two major export industries.

However, European farmer lobbies have been very successful in maintaining their subsidies and keeping import tariffs on African food high.

I call that hypocrisy.