And now for something completely different:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That is to say a good-news story which has every reason for grounds for optimism:

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/ICC-Finds-Congolese-Warlord-Guilty-142613986.html

The International Criminal Court, in trying one of the war criminals from the forgotten continental wars in the Congo, has found one of these men guilty. This is the first such verdict in the ten years since the Court was established, and as such is setting a new standard for and about international law, which is also a plus. It's the first occasion since the end of the World Wars that there's been such a trial that has not been held by a Great Power of the losing side of a war, but instead a trial conducted by a court of war crimes on the basis *of* such a court.

This is a good sign, really, on an international scale as it means that the global legal system is evolving in a good way, less prone to the internal domestic politics and dickwaving of the Big Powers and in theory at least more impartial and fair and balanced for all Powers.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, the Western role had been to create Mobutu, the dictator whose fall set off the Congo Wars in the first place, by assassinating Patrice Lumumba. The Congo Wars came from the end of the Mobutu Dictatorship and the spiraling effects of the Rwanda Genocide, in the latter case the Western Role being to create out of Patron-Client systems a much stronger Caste system that was never going to end well and didn't end well.