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Cholera the latest blight on Mugabe's record

Rocky Mountain News

Published December 11, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Zimbabwe's dictatorial Robert Mugabe has added another misery to the long list of miseries he has inflicted on his long-suffering country - cholera.

That's in addition to a brutal police state, a ruined economy with 90 percent unemployment, an "official" inflation rate of 231 million percent and the 5 million people that the U.N. says face starvation next year.

The cholera outbreak is due to polluted water and large parts of the once modern capital of Harare are without running water or sewage disposal.

The government insists the outbreak is under control, while the U.N. says it is not and that as of Wednesday there have been 775 deaths and 16,141 cases. The disease is not only spreading rapidly in Zimbabwe but is spreading into neighboring countries as desperate refugees seek treatment.

President Bush and the European Union have called on Mugabe to step aside and urged the other African nations to join in the demand, but the best the African Union can muster is to urge further "dialogue."

Cholera is easily preventable and curable and in this case the cure begins by excising Mugabe and his circle.

Comments

  • December 11, 2008

    8:07 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    GunnyBob writes:

    Naka Mwari, murume! (Oh, sorry, you don't speak Shona.)

    " . . . the cure begins by excising Mugabe and his circle."

    Excising? You mean removing him and his cronies from power? And how do you propose to do that? You chastise the use of "further dialogue" and note that Bush and the EU's calls for Mugabe to "step aside" have failed.

    This leaves one option that you cleverly call excising: war, just like we excised Noriega, excised Saddam, excised the Grenada regime, and so on.

    So, Vincent, when do we invade, what forces shall comprise the invasion force, how shall we invade (through what neighboring country, or shall we put our knees in the breeze and make it an airborne op?), what's our exit strategy, will the UN first need to give permission, how will the world react (Obama says they already hate us, you know, because we freed the Iraqis), how much will the invasion cost, how many US lives are worth it, where are we going to get the troops, will we have to get congressional approval first or will Obama play commander in chief and order the invasion without congressional approval, and will you, Vincent, go on the casualty calls to the front doors of the American families whose warriors have been killed in Zimbabwe to announce their loss?

    It is so easy to demand war from the comforts of one's cushy office, eh, Vincent?

    The kicker? Vincent is right.

  • December 11, 2008

    12:04 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    roger44 writes:

    Send over 100 advisors with half a million rifles and 20 tons of ammo, show the people how to shoot and let them deal with it. I have a problem with people who want the USA to bail them out. And if they did get the leader out, another sadistic bum would take his place. for the most part, Africa is a lost cause...