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In the meantime: BBC NEWS | Business | Zimbabwe inflation at 2,200,000%

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

So what do you think the solution is? Do we send British and US troops there? No we better not because that is global imperialism. But then we have the same folks complain because we are not doing enough in Africa. So which is it? Do we send troops in and take care of buisness or do we sit on our ass?

Or we could send the UN in! Sorry, I had to end on a lighter note.

Sending western troops in would be a terrible answer because Mugabe made his name fighting western imperialism whether all was real can be debated, and as there is no strategic importance to Zimbabwe we wouldn't do anyway. It seems like the best solution would be a Zimbabwean military coup for a handover of power to a civilian government but that will never happen with Mugabe's generals filling the ranks. Pressure from Africa, especially SA must come strong and hard but really it has to come from the Zimbabwean people for the final push however hard that may be, possibly some African peace-keeping forces could help but any invasion would be silly IMO.

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Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

So another coupe is going to fix the problem in Africa? Who exactly is going to facilitate this coupe? The people who have a hard enough time getting food and water maybe? And what African peace keeping force? This is the ultimate problem, the people of Africa cannot do it for themselves. Do we simply let the go on and let it burn until the people can stand up for themselves?

The rest of what's going on in Africa is boring! News is about ratings, not news. When are you finally going to realize that, Joe?

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Anything we do militarily, or even beyond diplomatic pressure on the rest of Africa will make the situation worse. It's a sad state of affairs but most developing countries in trouble work by coup, a leader gets too opressive and a military coup is staged before a handover to civilian governmnets, it's hardly perfect but it's the sad reality.

__________________
Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

Maybe if you Europeans hadn't created these artificial nation states without considering the different ethnic and tribal relationships among the people you forced together Africa wouldn't be in half the mess it's in.

Let's just quarantine the continent and leave them to fight it out amongst themselves, creating whatever nations or governments or whatever that they want.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

I know, let's sanction 'em! That'll show Mugabe! Withhold all aid and food and.......

Oh, wait....

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"Oh, bother", said Pooh, as he chambered another round...

First half I completely agree with, we f*cked up royally. Second part, I disagree obviously.

__________________
Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

Yeah, but if it wasn't for European colonialism, Africa would still be back in the Neolithic Age, instead of idling in the 1700s........

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"Oh, bother", said Pooh, as he chambered another round...