Whilst my initial post may have been a bit OTT I was, in my defence, a little "worse for wear".
That said, I still stand by my assertion that we of the "developed" countries have something of a duty to help those that cannot help themselves. The vast majority of Africa is run by corrupt or incompetent folk who line their own pockets at the expense of feeding their people. Other than by direct military action or focussed sanctions there's generally neither the political will or popular support to sort those places out. Look at the disaster that is Zimbabwe. I personally don't think those sort of places deserve max effort from UK Plc over and above our own domestic issues.
At the other end of the scale we have situations like Rwanda and Dafur. Incomprehensible numbers of people slaughtered in staggeringly short periods of time. We in the West can stand in mute horror at the industrial slaughter of The Holocaust of Nazi Germany, hunt down those involved and commemorate the dead. Similarly with the mass graves of Bosnia. The authors of both these inhuman acts are however base amateurs when compared with the ruthless efficiency of the Hutu militias et al in Rwanda - the thick end of 1 million people in just under 100 days; that's gotta take some beating. I won't claim to be a scholar of the Rwandan Genocide however I have studied the subject at some length and believe I know what I'm talking about. Words fail me when I try and describe my distaste for the vacuous, spineless Western officials and governments that prevaricated and vacilated whilst up to ten thousand people a day were ruthlessly and efficiently slaughtered.
That was 14 years ago and how quickly people forget. If you genuinely believe that it's easier to sit back and watch from afar, tutting at those "frightful africans" chopping each other up again then so be it. I'm not a righteous do-gooder and in fact consider myself to be just to the right of Genghis Kahn in my political views, but I do still believe that we as civilised, right-thinking people have a duty to help those that cannot help themselves. Yes we're involved in two medium-scale ops and yes we're overstretched. It is my personal opinion, however, that the UK military could make a real difference to the lives of millions of people with only a relatively brief period of additional strain. There are also plenty of NATO countries with no taste for combat ops in Afghanistan etc that could pile in and be "a force for good" there.
Still, perhaps I'm a fantasist and we should in fact reserve our efforts for things like making sure the Olympic Games a great success.
I've always wondered if this had been a church in a western country and those bodies had been a different colour would we have been quicker to react?
Not accusing anyone of racism, just asking the question...
The Gorilla - you and the rest of the country's Daily Mail readership are entitled to your opinions and if I were to be involved in an operation that prevented another genocide I would happily refrain doing it "in your name".
Monty77 - genius post, good effort. Any luck getting the crayon off your monitor screen yet?