DarkObserver, 3. Juni 2003 um 14:05:49 MESZ

Old wisdom

"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." --Plato

Still true today, isn't it?

DarkObserver, 22. Mai 2003 um 17:53:59 MESZ

Iraq War EPILOGUE (sorry, wrote prologue last time, was probably still asleep)

So what has been achieved? Saddam is gone, which is good. But: The US and the Brits apparently totally underestimated the amount of work needed after the war. Chaos still rules, electricity and other basic elements of infrastructure are still not working in most parts of Iraq. As a consequence, Jay Garner and other people were replaced to get things off the ground faster.

And all of a sudden, the American government is willing to have the U.N. play a bigger role in post-war Iraq than before - I guess, because they finally realized how much reconstruction will cost them.

The Americans have failed to achieve most of their purported war goals:

• No weapons of mass-destruction have been found.
• Terrorism hasn't subsided because of the ousting of Saddam, rather the contrary is true.
• Iraqis aren't so keen to have allied soldiers and government run their affairs for them, as people like this jerk Wolfowitz foretold.

To get Iraq flying again as a country will keep the U.S. - and the world community- quite busy for a long time and I can't say I pity them. You reap, what you sow!

DarkObserver, 7. April 2003 um 21:07:36 MESZ

Genocide in East Congo

Unfortunately the Iraq War is overshadowing that elsewhere on this fine planet other people are slaughtering each other to the thousands.

In Eastern Congo, Ugandan occupants are presumably giving machine guns and other weapons to cattle breeders who use them to kill lots and lots of small crop farmers, who belong to a different tribe. The area is rich in natural resources and obviously Ugandans and the cattle breeder tribe want to exploit them all alone.

Now in retribution the other tribe has struck back and killed the inhabitants of an entire village. A British doctor named "Swell" witnessed "heaps of dead bodies everywhere " in the streets and "huge pools of blood".

Shit. Is it good to be able to know all that? Sometimes I'm not sure, if the English saying "Ignorance is bliss" isn't true. But what can I do? Close my eyes, stuff my ears, throw out the TV and sell the computer? One has to learn to cope with the horrors of this world without becoming a hopeless cynic or a religious freak, even if it's tough...