They have some of the most important mineral reserves in the world, it's certainly not a resource issue. Especially since Palestine has no resources to speak of.

The issue isn't so much the world's lack of attention to Congo; it's to be expected. What is truly disgusting is the total lack of action from the UN and the international community. They are blatantly allowing this rebel takeover. They are trying to force Kabila to talk directly to the M23, but he has so far been refusing, saying Rwanda and Kagama are the 'real aggressors.'

Palestine may not have oil, but their Arab brothers have it coming out every hole they drill. Combine that with the JudeaoChristian-centric views of the West backing Israel and you get much more attention to that conflict.

But you would know more about the African conflicts than I woild and I applaud and respect you for.that.

What's truly disgusting is the UN still having western democracies as members. I love Henry Kissinger's description of the UN: he thought it was convenient that diplomats from many nations had a meeting place to discuss stuff. I think that's what we should reduce its function to pronto.

And why wouldn't it have western democracies as members? It's building is located in one ofbthe aforementioned western democracies after all.

Because Russia and China have vetoes in that place when it comes to really important matters. I don't see why mature democracies such as Holland or the United States should have to ask the dictators running these countries for their permission to solve our own problems. Or the French democratically chosen government for that matter. Why should they get the veto? Frankly, I consider a French neaux a badge of honor in most situations.

So your are a believer in governmentism - the belief that your government is right and better than others. OK. :-)

And the US doesn't let UN decisions stop them. We have done plenty of things without UN support or backing.

No, but if we want China's opinion on something we can just ask them and try to put ourselves in their shoes to see how they feel. For the most relevant international problems, NATO amply suffices.

It won't be met with force because there is zero popular support for Americans, let alone Europeans, to die in the Heart of Africa in the middle of a brutal civil war. It also will not happen because Paul Kagame is still seen as an ideal African leader by many in the West. He's certainly accomplished a lot and has helped move his country away from its horrible past, but he's also well on his way to becoming the liberal internationalists' version of Robert Mugabe. By that I mean a leader who did good things at the start of his time in office but stayed too long and became corrupt.

It's an interesting problem, redhouse. The higher level of government you are at, the less democratic it will be in relation to you as a citizen of the polity.

But at the same time you're just talking about changing the standards for what constitutes a legitimate government. Very cool. I just don't think it's realistic.

Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting concept - your government will only be recognized by the rest of the world and be afforded UN membership if you can prove popular support in your country and legal constitutional framework that enshrines democracy.

I wonder if the world will ever be like that. Today though, there are just too many powerful autocrats out there for it to work. They would just form their own pole and we would have some kind of cold war between autocrats and democrats, or pro- and anti-American, the nomenclature would be all over the map, but the cold war would be no less real.

"It won't be met with force because there is zero popular support for Americans, let alone Europeans, to die in the Heart of Africa in the middle of a brutal civil war."

Yeah I know, thanks Invictus. Why do you always feel the need to explain what everyone already knows? We create political threads on this site usually to discussing justifications and ethics, and not to explain phenomena.

And yes Kagame and Mugabe have a lot in common in that way.

My idea is that Rwanda is become Africa's Israel - they have a brutal genocide in their history that we have on our collective consciences and so to make up for it we blindly support them as they engage in crimes against humanity and other illegal activities.

My real questions are about the minerals though. Rwanda supports M23 so as to gain more favorable access to those resources, I imagine, but why is the west supporting Rwanda in that? Where is their cut of the pie? Did they not already get enough from the pliant Congolese government? I mean Jesus, half the country's armed forces are in effect composed of MONUSCO troops.

Which sounds great on paper until you realize that apparently preventing a city of 1,000,000 from falling into the hands of a lawless and illegal rebellion does not count as peacekeeping.

But harassing rebel positions in the mountains with helicopter gunships apparently does...

Ow I definitely think that if China and Russia tell you not to do something, you should very seriously consider it and on some occasions even back down. I just don't see the use of this Cold War relic still being international law.

Anyways, I didn't want to derail your thready Thucy. I don't really have an opinion about Rwanda. I heard something about an African Union intervention in Mali (was it Mali?) recently that I found very encouraging. Perhaps we can assist some AU members in solving this problem.

Is non-opposition really support? It really could just be that the US State Department has its hands full with the Arab Spring and the pivot to Asia that there aren't enough resources to really deal with the issue in the Congo. And since intervention is self-evidently impossible, what pull does the outside world have anyway? The power of the West to influence African states with aid bribes is fast becoming irrelevant now that China can come in and has no problem giving truckloads of money without strings so long as Chinese state owned companies can get as much resources as possible. It's probably a combination of not really having the resources to try and solve the crisis and a realization that they may not even win if they tried.

Yeah it was probably Mali. They are slowly moving toward a solution in Mali. This is because even though most outside northern Mali would like it better if that problem just went away, they don't have the luxury of just allowing northern Mali to continue to be a de facto Islamist secessionist state under shari'a law. "African Afghanistan" and so on. I mean hell even Romney mentioned Mali in the debates. Mali will get taken care of, but in the most cheapskating, ass-covering way possible. And the average people will get fucked over as usual.

Indeed, speaking of Mali: the international community and west Africa as well to some extent has dragged its feet on acting on Mali, mostly because everyone wanted someone else to bear responsibility for whatever operation would come of it. They are finally moving and say they'll intervene in 2013, but in the meantime they have given the rebels in northern Mali ample time to prepare for the invasion. They have RECRUITED CHILD SOLDIERS in the run-up, in order to defend their holdings. These child soldiers are not Tuaregs, but are regular northern Malians who have been enticed by a combination of their poverty and offers of good pay. And they are funding their operations with human trafficking and hostage-taking. So the child soldiers that die defending this bastard Islamist state in northern Mali are the ones who lose out because of the dawdling.

In the case of Congo the AU can't or won't do much. Firstly, because the UN is already there in force. Second, because no one has to troops to give. The AU is already engaged in Somalia and elsewhere in a meaningful degree. The best militaries in Africa have their hands full. Nigeria, west Africa's strongest military, is dealing with what amounts to a domestic insurgency for goodness sake.

There is limited impetus for a new mandate and more equipment for the UN mission, but I fear that if this started moving it would be used as a cover not to reinforce but to hamstring the UN in Congo.

The UN as ever is not a monolith. The peacekeepers and maybe even Secretary General Ban Ki-moon himself seem to want to end the rebellion and restore the central government to sovereignty, but many of the richest members of the UN seem not to. And they are certainly loath to offend Rwanda and Uganda.

Everyone has all but acknowledged the reality that Uganda and Rwanda are providing material assistance and advice to this rebellion and that they actually REPORT to the Rwandans. There is even extensive evidence of Rwanda troops crossing the border, even tanks. All of this is out there and acknowledged in UN reports. But Rwanda and Uganda deny it. Indeed Uganda is deployed in Somalia and has threatened to pull out in response.

The AU won't help because the AU is divided over Congo. This isn't, as it is further north in Africa, a case of "legitimate secular governments battling Islamist insurgency." This is a case of "corrupt African states battling for control of lucrative minerals trade" and "morally bankrupt Western 'statesmen' allowing the situation to spin desperately out of control for reasons inscrutable and incredible."

Non-opposition is support yes, just as the failure to act is itself an action.

And Rwanda and Uganda are key US allies in central Africa. So it's a bit facetious to say we don't support them.

"The AU won't help because the AU is divided over Congo. This isn't, as it is further north in Africa, a case of "legitimate secular governments battling Islamist insurgency." This is a case of "corrupt African states battling for control of lucrative minerals trade" and "morally bankrupt Western 'statesmen' allowing the situation to spin desperately out of control for reasons inscrutable and incredible.""

-My first thought when I read that, but there's probably more sophisticated ones trampling over it when studying further, is to ask myself why the international community should reach a consensus about this matter if even the AU itself doesn't reach a consensus.

The AU is a part of the international community...?

The west eagerly intervened in Cote Divoire. Its not about lack of ability. Its about Rwanda being a friend.

The thing about the Ivory Coast is that it has a coast. Easy to get to, easy to project power over if you're that way inclined. The thing about Rwanda is that it's miles away from anywhere and the logistics of interfering would be a nightmare.

Ability isn't the be all and end all, but it plays a huge part.

To be fair, France sending in some paratroopers to make one guy president is a much smaller task than, well, whatever Thucydides expects to be done in Eastern Congo. And only so many people can fit in that one building in Foggy Bottom. In an age of sparse resources State is likely focusing on the Middle East and East Asia rather than East Africa.

Considering the priority Susan Rice has given to AFRICOM and her impending appointment to State, I doubt it.

Uganda (Africom's ally in East Africa) is logistically easy enough to send 100+ troops there in order to chase Kony around central Africa, including the Congo. If they wanted this done, it'd be done. As it is, UN troops have engaged with M23 rebels around Goma.

"And only so many people can fit in that one building in Foggy Bottom."

-United States, >40% of world military capacity
-World's largest economy
-Foreign policy limited by size of Harry Truman building
-Lol

Putin I'm curious what your take on the rebellion and the response to it is.

what about Indonesian actions in Papua and West Papua? I'm curious on your take on the rebellion and response to it is Thucy? Where is the UN!!!!

Ive long been angry at Rwandas destabilization of the Congo. Millions have been killed thanks to two invasions, now a third is underway. Kabila has done a great job resurrecting the DRC. Now this. I think the response has been ok, but the M23 has giant mortars and is well equipped. Gonna need more firepower.

Indeed, where, Santa?

And +1 Putin

"Gonna need more firepower."
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/186/553/1266784038597.jpg

While I certainly oppose Rwanda's support of M23 and I have long since given up the hope that Rwanda would not involve themselves in this mess this is larger than a Rwanda and Congo problem. Many authors have described the previous conflict(s) in eastern Congo as Africa's World War. There were so many nations getting involved that the whole thing looked like it could end up setting half the continent on fire if it kept going at its old pace. Thucydides you are correct, Rwanda is absolutely the Israel of Africa, and the West and the UN caused it. France supported the Genocidaires/Hutu extremists during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. America backed France's play by not stopping it and then provided more help to the displaced in Goma (a large number of them of the military and militia groups that perpetrated the Genocide, and the rest largely controlled by them) than it did in Rwanda. The war crimes trials were not held in Rwanda but in Arusha, in part as I recall due to the complete lack of infrastructure in Rwanda post 1994. Rwanda itself could barely hold trials for the grunt level Genocidaires and those that found ancillary ways to profit from the chaos and insanity due to a total societal collapse post Genocide, post Civil War, post refugee crisis.

With all this it is no surprise that Rwanda is doing this. It is, in effect, a Tutsi nation, demographics be damned. And this is just like the abused child growing up to be the abuser. Every time we (as a planet, as civilized nations, as the First World, etc.) don't fully step in to stop a Genocide we risk this happening.

Don't get me wrong, we need to stop this. We needed to stop it a decade ago. I am no apologist for Rwanda, far from it. No matter what my level of knowledge on Rwanda and the 1994 Genocide is I cannot condone them doing the same thing to others. It is horrific. But by the same token we created this mess as much as Rwanda itself did. We did not step up when we should have in the West. We want a less brutal world, but we are not willing to fight for it. We want a world where people are not destabilizing nations, and coming close to destabilizing continents or large swaths of them, but we have not the spine to step up. This is another chance for the West to show what it is made of. And I am sure again we will fail, falter, and half step.

Look no further than who sits on the US Holocaust Memorial sponsored committee designed to identify and stop genocides to see that we, as a nation don't take stopping genocide seriously. Former Secretaries Cohen and Albright co-chair that committee. Cohen was not Secretary of Defense during the Rwandan Genocide, and Albright was still US ambassador to the UN at that point, not Secretary of State, but both still had enough pull to do something. I have no idea what Cohen did or did not do then, but I do know what Albright did, not much. Since leaving office when not acting like they care about stopping genocide they like to take money from the Turkish government to deny the Armenian Genocide that occurred during World War 1. These people have zero reason to be on a committee about stopping genocide, though Albright should be called before one early and often as a case study in what not to do. Our priorities are absolutely backwards here in the US on this issue and they always have been.