Your Chance to Go to School on TNC

Via Andrew, here's Jeffrey Gettlemen on Africa's long wars:

There is a very simple reason why some of Africa's bloodiest, most brutal wars never seem to end: They are not really wars. Not in the traditional sense, at least. The combatants don't have much of an ideology; they don't have clear goals. They couldn't care less about taking over capitals or major cities -- in fact, they prefer the deep bush, where it is far easier to commit crimes. Today's rebels seem especially uninterested in winning converts, content instead to steal other people's children, stick Kalashnikovs or axes in their hands, and make them do the killing. Look closely at some of the continent's most intractable conflicts, from the rebel-laden creeks of the Niger Delta to the inferno in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and this is what you will find. 

 What we are seeing is the decline of the classic African liberation movement and the proliferation of something else -- something wilder, messier, more violent, and harder to wrap our heads around. If you'd like to call this war, fine. But what is spreading across Africa like a viral pandemic is actually just opportunistic, heavily armed banditry. My job as the New York Times' East Africa bureau chief is to cover news and feature stories in 12 countries. But most of my time is spent immersed in these un-wars. 

 I've witnessed up close -- often way too close -- how combat has morphed from soldier vs. soldier (now a rarity in Africa) to soldier vs. civilian. Most of today's African fighters are not rebels with a cause; they're predators. That's why we see stunning atrocities like eastern Congo's rape epidemic, where armed groups in recent years have sexually assaulted hundreds of thousands of women, often so sadistically that the victims are left incontinent for life. What is the military or political objective of ramming an assault rifle inside a woman and pulling the trigger? Terror has become an end, not just a means.

I'm interested in what some of my well-informed commenters have to say here. This just isn't my area. Intuitively, Gettleman's analysis raised a couple of red-flags. Further down he admits that this is only true for about half the country continent, and towards the end he grants that his piece may "seem a gross oversimplification."

I can't call it. There certainly are thugs in the world--brutal people for whom power is an end in itself. And Gettleman is a really good reporter. But African countries often come in for sweeping, deeply-flawed analysis, even from reporters. I'm haunted by Keith Richburg's overwrought and logically-challenged declaration that he was glad the slave trade had saved him from Africa.