Violence - One bullet to change Africa

Sometimes in our comfortable homes in law-abiding countries we forget and indeed sometimes never know the truly horrendous levels of violence that humans are willing to exert on fellow humans.  I guess most of the time that’s a good thing. But sometimes our lack of awareness of the disgusting nature of that violence means we are slow or unwilling to do something about it when we “sort of know” that it is being committed.

I am making a specific differentiation here between the violence that western armies exert to achieve their goals and the appalling unspeakable violence for the sake of demonstrating violence that I’m referring to that concerns me most, and admittedly some would contend that there is no difference. But I think there is.

In the last few weeks on this blog I highlighted the terrorizing violence ongoing in Pakistan, at the behest of politically motivated gangs in Karachi who are taking band saws to people grabbed off the street and deliberately circulating the videos of this butchery to terrorize the community in which they live.  I also highlighted 2 weeks ago the efforts by the Haqqani network elsewhere in Pakistan to intimidate potential informants by circulating videos of appalling torture for the sake of demonstrating torture to intimidate their own community from considering informing the authorities or the US of their activities. Most peope in the west could not imagine what it is they do to people, it is beyond our comprehension and therefore we, as a society do not comprehemnd that something must be done to stop it.

Last Friday I was privileged to receive a remarkable brief from the US Border Patrol which included the Mexican narcos version of these techniques. Chainsaws for decapitation certainly terrifies in ways that words cannot describe whern that video is deliberately given wide distribution. I cannot even describe what I saw. I can’t help thinking that a greater public awareness of this violence amongst the public north of the border would result in better resources – but for the rest of you, be under no doubt that the violence is incredible and is already north of the border.

In that light I’d like to just express my firm approval for the US deploying troops to support the Ugandan military in their fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army. Spend five minutes googling the activities of this bunch of incredibly cruel animals who abuse, terrorize, rape, mutilate and kill men women and children and force children to kill children. We must put aside our politically correct comfortable western sensibilities that we generate in the comfort of our comfortable homes and comfortable morals. Here is a group that by any measure, by any judgment, need eradicating from the world not for any political reason, but because they should not be allowed to exist to continue their atrocities on mankind. Joseph Kony, the madman in charge needs to die quickly and silently and with no fuss as soon as possible and I doubt there is a person in the world who has read what he has done who would not say “this must be done”. The sadness is that it has taken the West 14 years to do anything about it. So kudos to the US for standing up and doing something about it at last. One bullet could change the heart of Africa. Pull the trigger, now.