Australian blogger/journalist Andrew Bolt writes:

The kind of headline that newspapers really should drop:

Congo’s plight shames us all

No, it doesn’t.

So, who should be ashamed about what's happening in the Congo? Well, the Congolese who are doing the raping, looting, and killing should be ashamed of themselves, so should Robert Mugabe, who's been part of the trouble for years, according to the article Bolt linked to:

"Zimbabwe was one of a number of nations then taking part in the second Congo war (1998-2003). It was allying itself, along with Angola, Namibia, Chad and Sudan, with the Kabilas. On the other side, though sometimes fighting each other, were Uganda and Rwanda.

All sides in this many-phased conflict, which has claimed more than 5 million lives in the past decade, have been engaged in extraction of Congo's rich mineral deposits. These have been a cause of bloodshed in the region right back to the 1960s, following Belgium's messy exit from its former colony. These riches are one reason why regional collaborations to end the conflict have so far failed; another is the historical effects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide."

It sounds like there are a lot of people locally who should be ashamed of themselves, but not you and me.

Of course, what all of us in the civilized world are supposed to be ashamed of is not stopping the bad things from happening by invading and civilizing the place. However, we in fact did that, in 1880's: it was called colonialism, and the "shames us all" brigade didn't like it.

If anyone in the West should be shamed by the Congo atrocities,it's the liberals and neoconservatives who united in their hatred of "racist" white people in Africa, in what used to be called Rhodesia and in South Africa, and made the US pressure Rhodesia and South Africa to surrender. See, for example The Zimbabwe Disaster: What Did We Expect?, and Neoconservative Applauds White Despoliation In South Africa by the late Sam Francis.