13/04/2021 strategic-culture.org  5 min 🇬🇧 #188245

Cnn and a Senator Are Gently Pounding the War Drums for Ethiopia

Tim Kirby

Black Africans are competent just like the rest of us and if anyone can understand the solution to the problems in the Sudan-Ethiopia-Somalia corridor then it will surely be the locals.

No matter how scary or violent an internet video from a far away land may be, the reaction of Washington to it is far more terrifying in the long term. Recently, some rather  disturbing footage has supposedly come from the tense Tigray region of Ethiopia. The interesting thing here is that it has been brought into the public's consciousness by United States Senator Chris Coons and  Mainstream Media outlets like CNN and the BBC. In the past the combination of media and government seemingly working in tandem to present a problem that requires a bombing solution has happened many times. So what should we think about this new situation in Ethiopia, is this another tragedy worth fighting over?

Image: Protestors in New York are already trying to raise public consciousness of the situation in Ethiopia.

When looking at the language CNN is using to describe the ugly scenes caught on blurry video, the verbiage very much plays to the heartstrings of the audience. We have terminology like "atrocities", "massacre", and "mass killing" that naturally pushes on the emotions of any sane morally upright person. But the problem is that any sane morally upright person's natural sense of reasoning leads them from any tragedy to the desire for "something to be done about it". This is where the real problem lies but more on this topic later. Another typical tactic (or tendency) being used by the Mainstream Media to describe the Tigray video is placing the opposing view way at the bottom of the article. If human beings were angelic rational beings this would not be a problem but the human mind tends to build a picture of an event based on the information that comes first with all contradictory views later having to unseat or drive out the first view.

This is, in short, is why everyone wants to get to the hearts and minds of children first - storming an empty ideological trench is much easier than one with decades of opinions standing in it with bayonets. To be clear, this does not mean that every article that presents the opposite views of the author second is some grand scheme of manipulation, but certainly when you have 80%-90% of the article pushing one view that briefly touching on the absurd notion that there could be a counter view, then we know that we are certainly the PR zone. This type of strategy is very often used against Russia and China having their official reactions and viewpoints shoved to the bottom with unenthusiastic wording.

So what is to be done about this "deeply disturbing" footage?

How about doing nothing? Let's not allow our First-World egocentric altruism to blind us from the fact that launching some sort of intervention will cause far more horrors than the occasional deaths of a few dozen men. Perhaps Saddam Hussein was brutal to his political opponents but for all his years in power he never "achieved" anything close to the Iraqi death toll caused by the invasion and destabilization of the nation. Living under a mid-twentieth century Communist dictatorship in its revolutionary phase sounds rather "unpleasant" and one would certainly have to walk on eggshells to keep their brains inside their heads, but being napalmed from the sky on a daily basis still seems like a downgrade for your average bloke in Vietnam.

Image: Can our "great" Western minds really be so sure that we understand the plight of this armed gentleman?

Judging by the racial chaos in American society that relatively recently set the nation ablaze in protest both metaphorically and literally, it is clear that Washington cannot solve its own interethnic problems and yet it is always sure it has the key to the puzzle of racism in regions all over the world that U.S. Senators cannot find on a map.

If we look at the dustry Sudan-Ethiopia-Somalia corner of Africa we see a lot of various ethnic and religious groups with official borders that may be arbitrary. There have also been generations of brutal poverty sitting on top of ancient culture. Perhaps at the top universities of the Ivy League there are professors who have lived in these regions, dedicated their lives to knowing the language(s) and culture and have a solid knowledge of why this area of the world sees so much seemingly (to us) avoidable violence. But those experts are not in Congress nor are they in the top brass of the U.S. Armed Forces. The people who have the ability to enact a U.S. Foreign Policy move in Ethiopia are too ignorant to possibly solve the problems there.

So what's the plan of action?

Let's take a deep breath, "check our white privilege" like the Lefties tell us to, and just let this one go. Black Africans are competent just like the rest of us and if anyone can understand the solution to the problems in the Sudan-Ethiopia-Somalia corridor then it will surely be the locals. Furthermore, I think we have all had enough of seeing former marines slowly rot away living under bridges addicted to one thing or another after losing their minds overseas after years of risking it all and seeing their buddies die for nothing.

The Ethiopian government rightly said about this viral violent video that "social media posts and claims cannot be taken as evidence". So let's admit that we cannot be fully sure of what's going on and that our Western involvement will make things work since that is exactly what happens every time we've played regime change since the end of WWII. It's finally baseball season, turn on your TV, crack open a beer, and let the Ethiopians find their own destiny.

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