Tales from the Dark Continent
February 7th, 2008 by 5cents
We at the Womb tend to be quite outspoken when it comes to the plight of African nations, though not in the usual manner. We believe African nations should practice self-reliance, self-improvement and proper self-governance instead of relying on the UN, sympathetic countries, foreign aid & troops (except in cases of, say, natural disasters). Africa is the cradle of life and it is astonishing that millennia of human habitation have little to show on the whole continent barring a few pyramids. Communal strife, genocide, corrupt governance, famine and the like plagues much of Africa even unto this day and to be frank, it seems as though many African nations are not deserving of sovereignty. Case in point, Liberia, where a Truth & Reconciliation Council (TRC) recently begun hearing cases in an attempt to heal wounds from the brutal civil war (which lasted from 1979 to 1993). Read On! »
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The United States military has just decided to prohibit access to 13 social networking sites for all currently deployed personnel. These sites include Myspace, Facebook, YouTube and the like. So far, I’ve been unable to get the complete list of 13 banned sites. The military claims it’s an issue of bandwidth, namely, that with all the traffic the soldiers are generating with their emails, comments, pictures and videos, they are clogging the network and adversely affecting operational readiness and communication.
I’m a little behind the curve here since this is almost old news now but a couple days ago, the BBC website (as well as CNN, Fox News and the others) was plastered with news that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind to the 9/11 attacks, had confessed to his crimes. I was a little tickled to see this as the man was arrested some four years ago. Arrested perhaps isn’t the right word since it generally applies if the suspect is in custody awaiting his day in a court of law. In this case, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (KSM henceforth) had been held at undisclosed locations (by US intelligence in former East Bloc countries, Pakistan and some Arab states, a process lovingly called extraordinary rendition) for some 1400+ days before news of his confession broke forth.
One has to wonder who exactly plans wars these days. It used to be master tacticians, legendary strategists, brilliant field marshals and the like that were tasked with the tricky but dirty business of going to war. These days, any tool with the right political connections and sufficient standing in Congress can rustle up a backyard brawl… one that will claim several thousand lives (I am of course referring to the Iraq conflict but other examples are plentiful). Furthermore, the enlightened individuals (Senators, Representatives, etc.) tasked with oversight are just as clueless as the decision makers (read: the Democrats are as responsible for this as the Republicans).
You knew this was coming. By now you all know that Saddam is with his 40 virgins… or roasting in hell, whichever. He was executed by hanging on the 29th of December after an Iraqi court sentenced him to death for the killing of 148 Shias in the town of Dujail in 1982. Rule of law, right? End of a regime, right? He got what he deserved, right? Wrong, now let me explain.