Zimbabwe

I've been paying a lot of attention to the situation in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe is a truly evil human being and deserves a lot worse than he's ever going to get at the hands of people who just want a decent and just government, who want to live free of the kind of fear we've rarely known in this country. And yet he still won't step down, even after losing the election in what was according to exit polls a landslide... but we'll never know, he won't release the results.

Now, this:

"We know there are 18 snipers, and the military intelligence directorate is in charge of this," MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti told reporters in Nairobi.

"Mugabe's military intelligence has compiled a list of 36 to 40 people to be assassinated. Top of the list are our leader Morgan Tsvangirai, myself and our spokesman Nelson Chamisa," Mr Biti said.

The US ambassador to Zimbabwe has warned that post-election violence makes a fair second round run-off vote impossible.

Opposition and human rights groups have said hundreds of opposition supporters have been beaten up and at least 30 killed since the first round on 29 March.

Here's a country that really could use our military assistance to uphold their democracy, to have violence-free elections and get back on track.

Notice how the White House has nothing to say about Zimbabwe?

I'm not proposing that we actually invade another country - we could use to chill on that for a while. But if anybody in our government were serious about nourishing democracies across the globe and saving oppressed people, like they said was the case with Iraq, where are they now and why aren't they rushing to the rescue? Because there's no oil there? Because these are black people?

It doesn't take a particularly bright person to realize that if you let nations like this slip into oblivion and oppression, you face a darker and less secure world for your own children.

"This hurts the image of liberation movements everywhere," said the president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, and he's right, it hurts ours, too.