OBSLF - re-read my posts fella, you're completely failing to grasp what I'm advocating. I
know we can't solve them
ALL and I'm not even beginning to suggest that. To avoid repeating myself for the third or fourth time just re-read what I've already said and then compare it to what you've just said. 100,000 troops? No. Occupation? No. It is actually possible to provide relief from suffering without turning large areas of desert into glass or jungle into charcoal.
Chappie - noted. Aircraft, in limited numbers, would be available and would be suitably equipped for said mission. Deficiencies would indeed be of grave concern but none more so than to the folk like me that would be flying it.
BEags, caz, Fareastdriver - I fully accept that Sub-saharan Africa is an utter disaster and that the Africans, or at least those that put themselves in power, are generally corrupt morons who should've been drowned at birth. I myself come from a colonial farming family (Keen-ya don'cha know. King's African Rifles baaaaa!) and we have plenty of tales of how, when left to their own devices, the africans have managed to completely screw up perfectly good farms, road, sewerage, water, train and even administrative systems. The reasons for that are manifold but the former colonial powers must bear a fair proportion of the blame for the subsequent disasters of independence. I personally believe that a form of re-colonisation is the only way to get a lot of these places sorted out. But as BEags says, mention that in public and the Thought Police snipers will pick you off in no time. It will never happen anyway and so a lot of these places will continue to spiral down into ever deeper pits of lawlessness, corruption, poverty and death. What's the answer? No idea. And if I did I wouldn't be sitting here arguing aimlessly about it on the internet!
I've only ever advocated a sticking plaster approach to the current problems of the DRC. I think too many of you are looking far beyond the humanitarian, tactical (if you like) level. Drill down through the global, strategic layers to that tactical level to get to where I see us/someone acting in a limited role. Limited but effective. And if that small effect dissuades someone from chopping up someone else then job done. Drag yourselves away from talk of colonialisation, invasion, mineral wealth, thousands of troops etc etc if you can and at least consider that perhaps a small number of suitably equipped troops can intervene and successfully deter widespread slaughter. As said, I'm not a fantasist or a human rights campaigner and no matter how fervent my "passion" for the subject I still retain the objectivity to be able to see what is possible militarily and what isn't. I'm not suggesting we magic an army out of thin air or liberate a fleet of aircraft from our collective backsides. I know all too well how stretched we are but I also believe there is flex in the sytem for what would be required. But I think it's probably time to change the record and give it a rest!
If at a lose end, try reading some, one or any of these books on your next det/route/whatever and you'll see these aren't stories of savage from mud hut A chopping up savage from mud hut B. These are stories of the doctor coming home to his suburban house, parking his car in the drive, wondering what's for dinner and what's on TV tonight only discover that his wife and kids are lying around said TV disembowelled and beheaded. Rock and roll. Try one of them and you might perhaps see where I'm coming from, why I appear to be slightly "off the deep end" and why I believe that if the events of 1994 are allowed to be repeated then we in the so called "civilised" west countries are no better than those carrying the machetes.
Conspiracy to Murder
A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda