London Letter: Living in cloud cuckoo land

Vietnam? Korea? Syria? The Arab-Israeli wars?

You wouldn’t even be close. The biggest human massacre since Hitler or Stalin has been happening right on South Africa’s doorstep, and yet there’s barely been a murmur in the global media.

It’s the war currently raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

So far at least six million people have died, most of them women and children. It’s bigger than Korea’s and Vietnam’s death toll combined and multiplied by 60.

The 100 000 people who have died in Syria are a mere blip by comparison, and the Six Day War, where Israel was officially declared the hyena of the world, claimed 16 000.

As Stalin once observed, one death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic, and proceeded to prove just that by slaughtering more people than anyone else in history. Strangely, he is still a leftie hero.

The sheer scale of the killings numbs us, which is possibly why no one talks about the Congo. It’s also why President Obama is able to say with a straight face that the world is safer today than it was when he took over the American Presidency. Yeah – tell that to the Congolese.

But to give Obama his due, what can he or any other Western leader do these days? For the real 21st Century battles have been won by Human Rights lawyers, not soldiers.

In Britain, over the past two years alone, the Ministry of Defence has received 5 827 claims for damages and paid out £36-million in lawyers’ fees.

In other words, soldiers are now not only expected to take on the Taliban who fight using woman and children as shields, they also have to do battle with an army of judges, lawyers and activists who treat fighting men with absolute contempt and scrutinise every move they make with the sole intention of suing them.

Brutal business

War is a brutal business; people get killed. Those at the frontline are courageous people. But who would want to be a soldier when you arrive home, miraculously unscathed from Taliban snipers or roadside bombs, only to face frothing-mad activists who accuses you of not treating someone who has just killed your mate with kid gloves?

To make matters worse, the human rights lobby almost always gives far more weight to the enemy’s usually unsubstantiated claims of wrong-doing than they do to a troopie’s defence. That’s why the British Ministry of Defence pays out so often. It’s cheaper than going to court.

Indeed, Al Qaeda handbooks instruct their followers to exploit the bleeding hearts’ naivety and West’s liberal legal system at every turn. That’s why every terrorist captured manages to get the hand-wringers screaming ‘foul’. There is absolutely no doubt that taxpayers’ money paid out to spurious claims is ploughed directly back into more terror attacks.

The chickens have now well and truly come home to roost – so much so that Western armies are having a torrid time trying to recruit soldiers due to the intimidating environment created by the human rights lobby. This is hardly surprising as not many sane people are prepared to dodge bullets in combat only to find themselves in the dock for committing alleged war crimes when they return home.

But what is really puzzling is this: Why is the human rights lobby so intent on pursuing the West’s armies? They, ironically, have the most to lose. They, along with gays and feminists, would be the first to be persecuted if the insurgents they’re so eager to defend ever got into power.

I believe it’s because their goal – a stated one – is to disarm the world. It’s a noble ideal. The only flaw in that noble ideal is a simple reality check.

The enemy will never disarm.

So Iran can continue building a nuclear bomb. Al-Qaeda can plan more terror from the sanctity of Somalia. North Korea’s people will continue boiling stones for soup.

And the Congo? Well brace yourself for another six million deaths.