Via LGF, the New York Times reports on how UN "peacekeeping" efforts in the Congo are growing steadily more warlike:
Peacekeepers in armored personnel carriers, facing enemy sniper attacks as they lumber through rugged dirt paths in the eastern Ituri region, are returning fire. Attack helicopters swoop down over the trees in search of tribal fighters. And peacekeepers are surrounding villages in militia strongholds and searching hut by hut for guns.This thing has been going on for almost six years, steadily growing larger and more out-of-control. When, one wonders, will the Times finally call it a quagmire?
...The operation in Congo began as a modest observer mission in 1999. It has mushroomed, now commanding 16,500 soldiers — but is still regarded as understaffed by United Nations officials in New York.
...As they root out the insurgents who prey on Ituri's population, United Nations soldiers in the east have at their disposal tanks, armored personnel carriers, Mi-25 attack helicopters, mortars and rocket-propelled grenade launchers — all of which are getting heavy use.
My prediction: Never, unless U.S. troops begin taking part.
5 comments:
I don't understand this post. The New York Times very clearly, in detail, seems to be describing the difficulties the mission faces. They are showing you that it's a quagmire--telling them would be superflous and redundant.
Posted by bunkerbuster
Apologies, yet again> I've got to post less, proofread, figure out an edit function here or all the above. The last sentence of the post above should read: They are showing readers that it's a quagmire--telling them would be superflous and redundant.
Posted by bunkerbuster
Having just said I need to post less: yet another random thought tumbles out. I can use this "quagmire" example for a forthcoming essay on the paranoid mindset of right wing bloggers. Another right-wing Iraq war fan I know today tried to convince me that a story showing the Korean troops in Iraq have been attacked, for the first time, is evidence that things aren't as bad as the left says they are in Iraq. After all, the Koreans have, heretofore, not been attacked.
Third example: Newsweek declines to publish an article critical of Bush's America in the U.S. and this is described as somehow evidence of some kind of conspiracy on Newsweek's part to conceal it's views from Americans, rather than the Washington Post Corp.'s spineless genuflection to political pressure from the Bush administration and to the extremely vocal minority of rightists who equate criticism with disloyalty.
More on this later: consider yourselves warned...
Posted by bunkerbuster
bunkerbuster,
Based on the number of comments you have posted here in the past week, you definitely seem to have a lot on your mind.
Have you considered starting your own blog? Then you can post about whatever "random thoughts" you may have, as often as you like. And you can edit them, too.
Hey thanks for the vote of confidence, GB. Having my own blog would also would compel me to raise the thinking/posting ratio a little as well. I need to come up with a cool name though. I'm toying with Anti-Paranoia. I really like WAD: Weapon of Ass Destruction, but fear the three-letter word may put people off...wait...how about Cynicism Cubed...or...Cynical Cubicle...well. I'm off t the races, I suppose.
Posted by bunkerbuster
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