Reply #31: I'm not saying Gaddhafi's reign wasn't (and isn't) terrible.

[sudopod]

I'm saying that people are being manipulated into having positive feelings for a war that isn't necessarily the Manichean epic battle of good versus evil that the war in Libya is being made out to be.

Don't you find it suspicious? Who is obsessing over the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example? Why aren't they worthy of being part of the White Man's Burden NATO's crusade for freedom? Gaddhafi is a right bastard, but he isn't even in the top ten. Why does he get such special treatment, his people our loving devotion?

"OH, we had to save Benghazi!" Bull. Shit. Millions have died in the DRC in this century's very own Holocaust, and around 45,000 people die there each and every month, more than in this whole charade that has kept some folks occupied for the better part of a year, but you don't hear about that on the nightly news. I haven't heard any stirring speeches about how we're going to free the fuck out of the Congolese. There haven't been breathless tweets about Congolese refugees fleeing from their homes in terror, about whole regions being depopulated, about poverty and disease more akin to an enormous god damned concentration camp than something you would expect to see in the twenty-first century, almost half a century after men first walked on another world.

But no, really, lets all post some more threads about how awesome we are for kicking over some tin-pot dictators shit-can of a fiefdom and sing God Bless America one more time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War