I can't stand hearing hypocritical American and western colonial idiots talking about Zimbabwe. People like you are totally empty of credibility on this issue.

At least Zimbabwe holds regular elections, and has an opposition controlled legislature (and admitted Mugabe lost the first round of elections this year). That is far far more politically free than almost all of the puppet governments that the USA dominates (example: Saudi who regularly beheads people for petty crimes and has never held an election at all, or Egypt which is much more repressive and jailed Ayman Nour, the last and only opposition presidential candidate the country has ever had).

Yet you never hear even 1% as much criticism of Saudi or Egypt (for example) as you do about Zimbabwe. Either grow a backbone and criticize everyone who has these policies, or shut your fat mouth.

Picking on the poorest and weakest countries in the world is soooooo bold of you! It takes so much guts and boldness to criticize countries like Zimbabwe.

Dan is not picking on Zimbabwe. He is picking on the rulers of Zimbabwe, who are screwing the people of Zimbabwe.

I am sorry you can't tell the difference. You seem to have no empathy for the people.

I have empathy for the people. But my point was that the rulers of Zimbabwe are much less oppressive than many of the rulers of governments that he does not criticize (though, Dan didn't do much direct criticizing here. and, specifically, I am making a point about the criticism, not about the people). My point was that I am sick and tired of people selecting governments like Zimbabwe to criticize, but ignoring those who's oppression fits their neocon agenda (Dan, is not necessarily a neocon, but he has those tendencies from time to time).

And since you tried to blur my argument, when I mentioned Egypt and Saudi did you think I meant the people? If so, then I feel sorry for you.

"Much less oppressive"? I don't think so. Ask yourself the veil of ignorance question, "If you were about to be randomly turned into a non-ruler in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Zimbabwe, which country would you least like to wind up in?"

Of the three, Zimbabwe would be my first choice to avoid, probably followed by Egypt for the grinding poverty. It really wouldn't matter to me that American presidents make hypocritical speeches about how the rulers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia are our allies but the rulers of Zimbabwe are bad people.

BTW: the few neo-cons I know hate the Saudi government and aren't real fond of the Egyptian one either.

The whole essense of this is not about anybody picking on Zimbabwe, but that its leaders are losing it seriously. The suppliers cancelling their contract won't change much as there are firms willing to do business with them.
The elites in Zimbabwe have cushioned themselves are an example being that their members of parliament get paid in US dollars while ordinary Zimbs get their ZIM dollar bearer cheques. There arent any notes as such.

Roger Sweeny,

If you applied your idiotic veil of ignorance theory, I am sure you would have been beheaded by now had you landed in Saudi Arabia. And the poverty in Zimbabwe might be largely related to the poor rule of Mugabe, but it is also largely the result of actions of the western nations who continue to force sanctions on the people of Zimbabwe.

Do you realize that there is almost always a directly proportional relationship to the "craziness" of a ruler the amount that western governments hate the ruler personally? It has nothing to do with objective standards for political openness or economic matters. But if bush says Iran is evil, the next day you get all kinds of people coming out of the woodwork saying how bad Iran is, regardless of the standard applied. But it is clearly self-indulgent bullsh*t most of the time (if not all).

Mugabe is not the best ruler in the world, but he is also obviously not the worst ruler in the world. And his country is clearly more open and honest politically than dozens of America's closest allies (and less violent than the USA, for example. How many wars did he start?).

And even if neocons claim not to like governments like Saudi or Egypt, why do they support them over legitimately popular movements that would be less politically oppressive like the Muslim Brotherhood? Obviously, the answer is that these people don't actually give a sh*t about the people of the countries they attack or support, but only see the countries as political chess pieces in their stupid American/Israeli game for world domination. they can claim they hate the Saudis all they want, but it's garbage unless they stop kissing their feet.

I thought the veil of ignorance idea was pretty good. It forces you to think of what happens to ordinary people.

You seem less interested in "the little guy." You also seem awfully American-centered. If the American government says a government is bad, you figure it can't really be all that bad. If the American government says another government is good, you figure it can't really be that good. I don't take my cues from the American government, either to agree or disagree.

Well, I am American centered to the extent that it is the point of reference in international relations.

The British government is the most resolute on attacking Zimbabwe, and has been for a long time (not the USA). And I think it is largely because of some sort of colonial envy. It is only recently that the USA has come on board this. (so I wouldn't say I am as USA centered as you think). Commentators will follow the lead without a thought, as usual.

But what bothers me is that the entire block of western countries (and commentators) are totally hypocritical about these issues. It is not limited Zimbabwe. They like to find one tiny country that they can criticize and attack, and they use it to try to show that they believe in human rights or some bullsh*t, while at the same time they are so close to countries that commit much worse violations than the ones they target. It shows how hollow their views are.

And the reason I don't sound interested in "the little guy" is because I am purposely talking about policies of western governments here. But the point of addressing this hypocrisy is to improve awareness of the little guy overall (even if the specific criticism is not about the little guy directly).