Why they call Africa the "Dark Continent"...

... and no, I'm not referring to skin color, but to some absolutely insane behaviors from Africans that make me wonder why we send so many billions of dollars in obviously wasted aid over there:


1. South African teenagers are actually smoking anti-retroviral AIDS drugs in order to get high, wasting precious resources in a country where one in five are infected with the HIV virus.

"What Nhlapo first thought was an isolated incident may turn out to be a nationwide problem: Many people in the areas she visited were aware of the new way to get high."

Oh, goody.


2. "Witch doctors" in Tanzania, long thought to be one of the most advanced countries in Africa, are defying a recently-imposed official ban and continuing to kill and dismember albino people for their supposed "magical abilities"

"Witchdoctors in Tanzania are defying a government ban announced on Friday,... It comes days after the latest murder of an albino man in Tanzania brought the national death toll to at least 40 since mid-2007." (Emphases mine)

Boy, the "authorities" really moved impressively fast on that one. Two whole years get around to outlawing chopping up people with no melanin for fun and profit. Anyone else think maybe those poor albinos would have benefited from possessing firearms for personal protection, in the most literal sense?

I guess Johnny and Edgar Winter shouldn't plan on climbing Mount Kilimanjaro anytime soon.


3. A bunch of psychopathic animals masquerading as human beings who comprise the "Lord's Resistance Army" in the Democratic Republic of Congo, apparently oblivious to the irony of their little group's name, used the fact that local people were celebrating Christmas Eve to attack and kill 620 of them, as well as abduct 160 children, presumably to use as either prostitutes or new recruits:

"The rebels waited until December 24 for the most devastating of their attacks, waiting until people had come together for Christmas festivities, then surrounding and killing them by crushing their skulls with axes, machetes, and large wooden bats. Most of the few who survived also had head wounds, but two 3-year-old girls had serious neck injuries, suffered when LRA combatants tried to twist off their heads." (Emphasis mine)

Are you crying? I was, after reading that. I was so angry and horrified I couldn't see straight for some time. Every single one of those brutal thugs should be shot on sight.

So where's the famed U.N., which somehow still thinks that worldwide firearms confiscation from law-abiding people is a good idea, despite examples such as this, which prove without a doubt that an urgent need exists for those same people to provide for their own self-defense? The same U.N. that's supposed to be resolving this very crisis?

"The United Nations Mission in Congo, MONUC, has a mandate to protect civilians and provides logistical support to the Congolese army, but is not part of this operation."

"Sorry, that's not our department."

Useless. Absolutely useless. Typical U.N. standard procedure, though. Swoop in, disarm the civilian population and then pull back to safety, leaving the poor peasants to defend themselves with rocks, sticks and whatever else is handy.

Why is America still sending so many aid dollars over to this continent both directly and via the U.N., if these are the kinds of results we get?