@hawkeye10,
hawk wrote :
Quote: Re: hamburger(Post 3622977)
Sweet Jesus! Countless NGO's and Governments have poured tons of money and time into trying to help the Somalians do something worthwhile with their country, they always refuse to do anything constructive. They are the textbook definition of "victim".
jesus would weep if he would see millions of people - many innocent children - being forced to starve .
how do you expect a country that was trampeled upon for decades - with the silent and not so silent approval of western nations - to quickly became a "civilized" country ?
(i don't even know if there is a "civilized" country anywhere in this world ) .
Quote: poured tons of money and time into trying to help the Somalians do something worthwhile
much like in afghanistan and other downtrodden countries , the money is hardly ever given to the starving people of the country but given to families already in power .
i'm sure you must have read how president karzai of afghanistan and his family suck up much of the aid-money flowing into the country .
interesting to me , that karzai was able to move back and forth between afghanistan and western countries whenever he felt like it , but many pennyless refuges can never make it even out of their village .
it should be kept in mind that much of africa was under the control of european states for about 200 plus years before finally being "set free" after WW II .
in the 1960's the soviets and the U.S. started to use parts of east-africa and its governments to play out their politics of "control over the region" .
by now the wreck that was created by western nations over more than 200 years has been largely abondoned - but oil , diamonds and other resources are still mainly controlled by western conglomerates .
you may want to call upon jesus to see if he approves of the treatment of the downtrodden and poor of the world .
hbg
summary about somalia put together by the BBC .
while it is not an exhaustive study of the somalia of the past and the present , it at least gives an overview of the many problems of the region .
link to BBC summary :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1072592.stm
and for good measure :
http://progressive.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/article.php?article_id=313
Quote: The nation of Somalia, located on Africa's east coast, is described by the New York Times as "the most violent, hungry and smashed-up country in the world." On the Fund for Peace "Failed States Index" for 2008, Somalia ranks as #1.
........................
If the current African Union peacekeeping forces leave a power vacuum in Somalia, the western world may be in serious trouble. The mixture of a powerless government, a fundamentalist influence, and a demographic susceptible to extremism makes the country exceptionally dangerous. Just like in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, a centralized, democratic government must stabilize the nation. Economic growth to curb extremism is paramount. The West cannot afford to ignore Somalia, and it certainly cannot afford to forget it.
hawk :
i am sure you can find many more articles and books describing the somalia of the present and the past .
as i said in my first post here : "i do NOT approve of piracy , but i also do NOT approve of millions of people starving " .
perhaps you can understand my point of view - perhaps you can't - that's entirely up to you .
i'm not posting to convince you of my point of view being the "right and only one " - it's simply my "point of view" .
hbg
