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Empty Threats in Guinea
So there's a lot of fighting in Guinea, and a bunch of people are being massacred for protesting against what looks like an attempt to turn a "temporary" coup into a permanent dictatorship. This is, broadly, not a good thing.
ECOWAS, the Economic COmmunity of West African States, who wields enormous economic influence over Guinea simply by being her neighbors, says that the violence should stop. The African Union, a large, pan-African organization formed in part to preserve stability and the rights of the citizens of Africa, which has on occasion deployed thousands of troops to combat zones to preserve certain peoples (albeit in a half-assed fashion), says that the violence should stop. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, the leader of the pre-eminent international organization, which not only speaks with the authority of all recognized nations in the world, but also has the right, in its charter, and the sacred and solemn duty to intervene in cases where rights are horribly abused, a duty they have seen fit to exercise in the past, and who has thousands of soldiers deployed to keep the peace throughout the world, says that the violence should stop. And the European Union, a fairly well-organized group of individual nations wielding tremendous economic and political influence, backed by the second most powerful military block in the world, who contain not one, not two, but a dozen nations with the raw ability to reign in a runaway regime, says that the violence should stop.
This is basically the same list of organizations that condemned the original coup in 2008. They didn't do anything then, and they're not going to do anything now. It's too expensive, too unpopular, and at root, too inconvenient for them to bother doing anything. Everyone knows it. Everyone's in on the game. It's like watching a bunch of baseball fielders chasing a runner after the ball has already been smacked over the back fence, as if they can frighten him into believing they can tag him out with their empty gloves.
Either we should do something about this, or not, but all this empty posturing by people who can do better is annoying, pointless, and it's wasting our time.
ECOWAS, the Economic COmmunity of West African States, who wields enormous economic influence over Guinea simply by being her neighbors, says that the violence should stop. The African Union, a large, pan-African organization formed in part to preserve stability and the rights of the citizens of Africa, which has on occasion deployed thousands of troops to combat zones to preserve certain peoples (albeit in a half-assed fashion), says that the violence should stop. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, the leader of the pre-eminent international organization, which not only speaks with the authority of all recognized nations in the world, but also has the right, in its charter, and the sacred and solemn duty to intervene in cases where rights are horribly abused, a duty they have seen fit to exercise in the past, and who has thousands of soldiers deployed to keep the peace throughout the world, says that the violence should stop. And the European Union, a fairly well-organized group of individual nations wielding tremendous economic and political influence, backed by the second most powerful military block in the world, who contain not one, not two, but a dozen nations with the raw ability to reign in a runaway regime, says that the violence should stop.
This is basically the same list of organizations that condemned the original coup in 2008. They didn't do anything then, and they're not going to do anything now. It's too expensive, too unpopular, and at root, too inconvenient for them to bother doing anything. Everyone knows it. Everyone's in on the game. It's like watching a bunch of baseball fielders chasing a runner after the ball has already been smacked over the back fence, as if they can frighten him into believing they can tag him out with their empty gloves.
Either we should do something about this, or not, but all this empty posturing by people who can do better is annoying, pointless, and it's wasting our time.