Misso

Interesting. Nice to see a thread about this.
Whenever I brought this (or other African suffering) up as an arguement against the war in Iraq I was told that "some action [in Iraq] is better than no action [at all]".

I recently saw a number of 3.6 million of dead since 1998. The 1 or 2 million dead since 1991 supposedly caused by Saddam fall pale in comparison, but none the less, that's where al the attention goes.
Just this week I read that some 80 (although other sources claim 120) people had been butchered, mainly women and children; but the 13 dead in protests in Iraq are seen as far worse and get infinitely more attention.

Something that was even more appaling was that the refugees in the Djibouti area, where the US are setting up new military bases, were told that they had to live the dream they had instead of to rely on others. Apparently the Africans have to do everything themselves whereas the Iraqi get everything done for them.

It's not just Congo though. The masses are ignoring the whole of Africa. Who seriously heard about the brutal civil wars that have been ravaging the whole of western Africa? A few weeks ago I saw an Oprah show (a few months old maybe - we get them later than the US does) where the peope were surprized to hear of the sex-slavery, the chopping off of limbs and the butchering in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. The audience in the show never even knew this happened.
People swallow what they are fed by the media and are content with that. "No news is good news", seems to be the general idea.

Loren Pechtel

Could it be:

1) Jungle. That makes it *MUCH* harder to fight, much higher casualties.

2) Got a clear target for our forces?

FoE

Anyone else think Africa is going to be the next Middle East?

Ruy Lopez

Matthias J;

Why doesn't anybody care?

You sound very well informed, much more than the people who posted comments so far, and your humanistic values are under torture. I suspect you know the reasons better than we do. Why don't you tell us more. I certainly want to know.

I find the reasons posted so far quite reasonable including being "black" and that of Loren Pechtel. Is there something else here?

copernicus

The problem that Africa has is that it is not in the strategic/economic interests of world powers to solve African problems. North America and Europe are intensely interested in keeping the supply of oil from the Middle East flowing. Our economic well-being depends on that. Then there are countries, like North Korea, that pose a real danger to our continued security. Africa still plays a relatively minor role in our daily well-being. It is neither a threat to our continued existence nor a resource to guarantee our continued economic health. So the horrible traumas that people suffer in that part of the world do not raise big concerns amongst those who determine national policies in powerful nations.

The main reason to be concerned about Africa is that we have compassion for the plight of humans in that part of the world. Africa does have resources--e.g. Nigeria has a lot of oil, and other nations have important mineral resources--but African nations are not major players in world power struggles. Hence, people who live in Africa suffer horrendous tragedies, and they still can't make the rest of the world pay attention to their problems. I don't know how to remedy this situation. I personally believe that it is important to pay attention to Africa. But the world is run by people like George Bush. And those people do not appear to have a lot of compassion for the plight of human beings in distress. It is up to the rest of us to put pressure on our governments to act out of compassion. As an American, I am depressed to admit that altruism does not play a large role in the formulation of our national policies. It played a larger role in the policies of the previous administration, which was far from perfect in that respect.