Mugabe's Mess

Investors Business Daily:

Africa's Ills: Famine, disease, crumbling infrastructure, poor education, shrinking incomes — these are just a few of Africa's afflictions. And, as Zimbabwe shows, many are self-inflicted.

African leaders often point fingers at the West for "not doing enough." But last week's meeting of the Southern African Development Community shows why sensible wealthy nations are reluctant to give aid.

For at that meeting, some of Africa's so-called leaders disgraced themselves by endorsing the brutal, murderous regime of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe's 27 years of misrule have taken a country that was once prosperous — the breadbasket of Africa, it was called — and turned it into a poverty-stricken hellhole rife with famine, genocide and terror, and lacking rule of law.

The Heritage Foundation's recent Index of Economic Freedom ranked Zimbabwe 154th out of 157 countries in terms of economic freedom — and dead last in Africa.

"Corruption is endemic, inflation is in triple digits, most economic activity is informal, and controversial land reform has seriously undermined agricultural production," the report said. Gee, tell us what you really think.

Read the whole thing, and then click HERE."For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"