Mother Jones - Latest Comments in The Yes Men iPhone

Re: The Yes Men iPhone

congobro — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 01:41:57 -0000

@ Nyongesa - The point is if Rwanda's main sponsors, the US and UK were to follow Obama's own words in his 2009 Ghana speech and stop supporting strongmen like Kagame who relies upon the West for up to 50% of his government's budget and military training and equipment via AFRICOM, you can rest assured that he would cease his destabilizing of the Congo. Kagame simply could not have done in the Congo what he has done for the past 14 years without the estimated $1 billion in aid that he has received from the US over the past decade plus.

Your below comment about the balkanization of the Congo is preposterous. It certainly reinforces what Dr. Dennis Mukwege of Panzi Hospital said in his interview with the Guardian "Like many in his country, Mukwege believes the international community would rather have a war-ravaged Congo that can be pillaged than one that, by its sheer size and natural resources, could become powerful." http://www.guardian.co.uk/w...

Re: The Yes Men iPhone

Walterrhett — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 18:42:06 -0000

"When the Enemy is Relaxed, Make Them Toil" Not in real life; Congo rapes. http://wp.me/poq2z-9w

Re: The Yes Men iPhone

Nyongesa — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 06:44:46 -0000

I emailed this article to some Congolese friends, who had a good laugh about it. Thank you, Mother Jones for calling these guys out on the Congo issue. The yes men suffer from the common western self delusion of imagineering that most everything is really about them.

In their mean fairy world, it is they the "Yes Men" fighting the big bad corporate wolves to save poor natives. Congo is simply a stage prop in their own particular psychodrama. A little to the north west of Eastern Congo, within Sudan another conflict rages as hot as it gets, in a region as barren and desolate as can be. Tribal and group competition as old as humanity do not require coltan, diamonds or anything else to fuel them. Those minerals just make for expensive weapons. Death by machine gun versus death by machete.

Congo is a clump of dirt masquerading as a country, held together by the flimsiest of threads, and letting the Eastern states of Ituri, Katanga and others breakaway, would go a long way towards resolving these conflicts. The map of Africa is a hodgepodge of lines of gibberish mapping out states that group people into countries that would have never evolved into states organically.

Unfortunately it is anethma to suggest it's conceivable to let these boundaries redraw themselves via warfare, via annexation, via independence.

Re: The Yes Men iPhone

Nyongesa — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 06:05:46 -0000

"Is the above sufficient to bring an end to the conflict? Absolutely not but it can certainly help quicken the path to peace"

Beyond hilarious. Kagame simply replaced Nkunda with a new proxy as a sop to the Nordic threats of stopping AID.

I will respect you for caring about Congo, but given your response congolese you are not.

Re: The Yes Men iPhone

GUEST — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 10:38:18 -0000

The author obviously misses the sarcasm of the spoof site. Job well done, YES Men.

Re: The Yes Men iPhone

congobro — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 20:16:49 -0000

Mr. Gilson should read again Public Law 109-456. There are two provisions in that law (sections 105 & 107). Section 107 calls on the President to appoint a Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region, which has not been done and if done would send a strong signal to the leaders of the region that the US takes this issue seriously and willing to do what it takes to bring about peace and stability.

Section 105 calls on the Secretary of State to withhold aid from neighboring countries that have destabilized the Congo. The US government refuses to withhold aid from Rwanda which Sweden and Netherlands have taken the lead on. In part, as a result of the withholding of aid from Rwanda by Sweden and Netherlands, Rwanda "arrested" rebel leader Laurent Nkunda and facilitated the integration of their proxy rebel group (CNDP) into the Congolese military.

Is the above sufficient to bring an end to the conflict? Absolutely not but it can certainly help quicken the path to peace.

Re: The Yes Men iPhone

AyneAzra596 — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 15:21:48 -0000

By the way, the Wall Street Reform bill that was just passed this summer has Section 1502, which requires publicly traded companies to make and disclose their efforts to curtail their use of conflict minerals from the DRC. That may be what the yes men are getting at. That section is based on the McDermott bill in the house - keeps the McDermott process.

Re: The Yes Men iPhone

jcapatelli — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 11:04:50 -0000

LOL! Kudos to The Yes Men!

I love those guys. Making the world a better place for those of us who have minds and use them.