I thank Raggytash for exposing this calamitous period of which I was unaware. I knew the Germans had colonies in Africa but I was sort of 'snowed' by the supposedly outstanding record of the German General von Lettow-Vorbeck who supposedly had the devotion of his African troops and of course after reading a few news articles or online blurbs I only had superficial knowledge. And when I write 'knowledge' I mean 'information'. Not the same thing.


And of course Jim Carroll has not for the first time displayed his utter condemnation of those evil colonizers while excusing, ignoring, giving a pass to, maybe even approving of depradations committed by those he regards as ideologically pure, maybe because a great deal of it was indigenous-on-indigenous genocide. Like Cambodia. It reminds me of a conversation I had in college when I was at lunch with my Chinese buddy and a student of Japanese origin. The Japanese student was going on about white colonization across Asia. I don't recall disagreeing with his citations, but then my Chinese friend said: "How about the Japanese takeover of Indonesia's colonies. Not much of a liberation for the local people, was it?"

"That's different! Those people didn't want to WORK!"