Who will save Zimbabwe

With almost a full month since the Zimbabweans turned up in huge numbers to vote. Presidential results are yet to be released. Mr Mugabe and his crew have ordered a recount. Ironically Mugabe's party says Tsvangirai's victory fell short of the 50.3 percent required for him to be president and wants a run off.
Tsvangirai accuses Mugabe of plotting to use violence as a weapon to reverse the people victory and extend his 28 year rule. This claim underlines Mugabe's determination to hang on power. That is the first cause for concern. But even more disturbing is the in-action – almost surrender- of the usually noisy international community at a critical time in Zimbabwe's history.
The Zimbabweans expect the west and the African Union to pressure the tyrant out of power.
The Au, the British government the US and the United Nations have been calling for the release of the results but have gone no further.
“We are concerned about the deafening silence in the region, in the AU and in the Southern African development Community” said the secretary general of Tsvangirai's MDC.
The world should not sit on the fence as Mugabe plots a daylight election robbery.

The U.S. government (well, those who actually call the shots in it) don't bother sending any meaningful force to intercede in Sub-Saharan Africa unless there is something tangible to plunder in exchange, i.e. oil. The last little adventure in Somalia was primarily about oil (slant drilling, which allows the drilling to commence from miles away, into the Saudi oil fields) and the UN humanitarian efforts were a distant second.) Once Bush Senior lost the election to Bill Clinton in 1992, those plans went south.

Similarly, the current Bush Regime's illegal invasion of Iraq is about oil because the criteria used to justify U.S. involvement--that Iraq presented a clear and present danger to the United States--put at least North Korea higher on the list because North Korea had both the means to send nuclear missiles toward the U.S. West Coast and clearly expressed the willingness to send them. But, North Korea doesn't have vast oil fields nor is it a threat to Israel.

No, I really do feel for the citizens of Zimbabwe because Mugabe clearly is a thug who will sacrifice his own citizens to stay in power. But, I have to also lay some of the blame for the plight of those citizens who supported him and helped murder and otherwise drive out those white farmers who built and ran the farms that supplied not only Zimbabwe with food but several other countries, as well. Once the competent farmers went away, the thugs who followed Mugabe were too incompetent to run a farm and the food disappeared. Zimbabwe went from having a bounty of food to a famine in a few short years. It is that anti-white sentiment that is undoing a lot of countries in the West, too.

DO YOU HAVE THE WRITE STUFF?

Nevermind the fact that intervening in Zimbabwe seemingly goes against your own philosophy on foreign policy, jdubhub...but I have to point out these errors of yours:

"The last little adventure in Somalia was primarily about oil (slant drilling, which allows the drilling to commence from miles away, into the Saudi oil fields)..."

Two major problems here:

1. The longest slant drilling sites have only extended to around six miles.

2. The Southern point of Saudi Arabia is several hundred miles away (about 500) from the Northern point of Somalia. And the drilling would have to go under the Gulf of Aden and the country of Yemen.

The claim that we were primarily in Somalia because we were interested in drilling there for Saudi oil is, quite frankly, absurd. Unless of course you have some factual references that can corroborate this claim. Even if you're referring to the general area of the Saudi peninsula, it's still quite a stretch of the imagination.

However, I do believe that we ought to help out some of these nations that are dominated by racist, tyrannical, or totalitarian dictators/warlords that pose as presidents and "leaders" of nations. It's a shame what Mugabe has done in Zimbabwe. He should have been dealt with long ago by the AU or by the UN...but neither has decided to act, which is no surprise.

Now, if the United States acts to resolve the issue, we will once again be labeled as "imperialists" by the same people currently complaining that we are doing nothing. It's a lose-lose situation for us no matter what we do.

So, who could help Zimbabwe...and who should help them?

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The situation in Somalia was about oil first and humanitarian aid second, but I stand corrected on the slant drilling. I went back and checked my research from a while back and found that Hunt found that there was a rather large oil field that stretched from the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen) across the Gulf of Aden and into northern Somalia. Because of this, there wouldn't be a need to slant drill, although the situation in Somalia would have had to be pacified before Conoco Somalia and other companies would be able to tap into it.

Here is one link for further reading:
http://www.somaliawatch.org/archivejuly/000922601.htm

I could also say, Publius, that your stance of being pro-interventionist is well-known, but that would take this discussion in a different direction. The United States government and its corporate ownership has no business meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign countries. You consider allowing other countries to decide their own destinies.

DO YOU HAVE THE WRITE STUFF?

That would depend on what you consider to be "interventionist." I believe we ought to lend support to people who are oppressed and have little or no means to fight against that oppression (especially when they are being slaughtered). I don't think we ought to go around and fix everyone's political problems.

There's a difference between helping people obtain self-determined governance rather than suffer under murderous dictators and interfering with political discourse or elections in democratic nations. It's about doing what is right for people who are not able to stand up for themselves. Under tyrannical rulers, a population has little chance to stand up against their oppressors.

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