At the Washington Post's Sunday "Outloook," they have a list of overlooked autocrats listed under "Department of Moral Outrage." Basically, the Post surveyed folks in the know about overlooked baddies running amok on the planet. Of the eight dubious honorees, four come from Africa, including Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema (Nominated by Senator John McCain), Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi (Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch), Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki (Chris Smith, Congressman from New Jersey), and the leader of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army Joseph Kony (Nina Shea, Director of Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom). Ruthlessness, autocracy, fueling anarchy to maintain power -- these are clearly not trends unique to African leaders, but they are trends too abundant in Africa. (Hat tip to Tootle, who posted this at Big Tent.
Presumably Robert Mugabe is too passe, or too obvious, or has retired his place at the table of the devilish and demented. The Mail & Guardian has yet another article on the sad plight of Zimbabwe. I am perplexed by the editors' choice of title, though: "Zimbabwe Starts to Fall Apart." Starts? Zimbabwe has been in the process of crumbling for at least a half dozen years, with warning signs extending back a decade or more. That quibble aside, though, this is a pretty good reminder of what Zimbabwe faces. Were there a viable way to remove Mugabe today, by force if necessary, I would fully advocate taking those steps.
Meanwhile in response to Darfur, Lwrence Kaplan has a piece over at TNR online that originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times in which he provocatively, but wrongly, tries to claim that students who support intervention in Darfur have to take another look at Iraq. Kaplan apparently lumps all actions abroad as being findamentally the same. This is what most internationally cognizant folks would call "silly." It is wholly possible for one to oppose invading Iraq but to support action, including military action, in the Sudan. Kaplan seems to think that it is the nature of the action, not the reason for the action, that most matters. Kaplan is right that it may take some sort of unilateral action to prevent further destruction in Darfur. And he is equally right that many calling for action in the Sudan did oppose intervention in Iraq; a few may even be hypocrites. But at essence, it is fully justifiable to support the use of force in the Sudan and oppose it in Iraq, just as it is viable to support intervention in both places. The circumstances are different, and so should be our analysis of them. Kaplan unnecessarily muddies the water in trying to connect two phenomena that are not linked in any significant way. He blurs far more than he elucidates.
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