So I've been watching Nightline with Ted Koppel lately. He isn't as smart as Ray Suarez but he tries, and that counts. He's been in the Congo, in Africa, and it has been terrible. I mean the show is fine, but the Congo isn't doing so well. More than 2.5. million people have been killed in the last three years. Each of eight tribes is at war with the other seven. Genocide...
"I knew that was taking place over there," Tony said. "But I didn't know that it was that bad..."
"It's terrible," I told him. "Two and a half million people dead. In one village they interviewed about fifty or so women. All of them had been raped, most of them numerous times."
Tony shook his head. "That is amazing. It is so difficult to even process how things like that can happen."
"I know. I can't get my mind around it. I keep wondering how people could do things like that."
"Do you think you could do something like that, Don?" Tony looked at me pretty seriously. I honestly couldn't believe he was asking the question.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Are you capable of murder or rape or any of the stuff that is taking place over there?"
"No."
"So you are not capable of any of those things?" he asked again. He packed his pipe and looked at me to confirm my answer.
"No, I couldn't," I told him. "What are you getting at?"
"I justwant to know what makes those guys over there any different from you and me. They are human. We are human. Why are we any better than them, you know?"
Tony had me on this one. If I answered his question by saying yes, I could commit those atrocities, that would make me evil, but if I answered no, it would suggest I believed I am better evolved that some of the men in the Congo. And then I would have some explaining to do.
"You believe we are capable of those things, don't you, Tony?"
He lit his pipe and breathed in until the tobacco glowed orange and let out a cloud of smoke. "I think so, Don. I don't know how else to answer the question."
