Dave >Would you object to the US sending in troops to correct this situation? Maybe save thousands of lives.
I thought someone might ask that after I wrote about Mugabe and then I considered that I would not know how to reply because there are definite similarities between Mugabe and Saddam.
The difference, however, between Saddam and Mugabe is that Saddam is "painted" as a threat to the world, especially the US, whereas Mugabe is only a threat to his own people.
Trying my best not to be hypocritical, I don't think it is a good idea to send troops into anyone's country --- which is the reason, I suppose, why SA's illustrious President Mbeki has not sent SA forces into Zimbabwe. One has only to look at countries to the north, east and west of Zimbabwe (Congo, Mozambique, Angola) to see that, once war starts, it goes on for a very long time and leads to millions of casualties and other horrors. And then reconstruction takes a very long time.
I might add that Zimbabwe has a very fine army which was "nurtured" in the bush war of "liberation" against the Rhodesian forces. It would not be an easy matter for anyone to defeat them, especially in their own country. And, to complicate the issue even further, there over a million Zimbabweans in South Africa, mostly "asylum seekers" or whatever.
What does one do to remove a tyrant? Frankly, I don't know. In fact, I have often asked people here, if they were in Mbeki's shoes, what would they do about Mugabe? |
