This article makes grim reading. The human cost of Mugabe-ism is soaring to nightmarish levels.

Zimbabwe is a case-book study in the cost of Bad Leaders – leaders who for one reason or the other lose all sense of perspective and responsibility, and who then grab all the controls and point the nose of the aircraft straight at the ground.

There is always a cost for ‘intervening’ one way or the other against a crazy dictator (Saddam, Milosevic). But there is also a cost of not intervening.

How to measure that cost in Zimbabwe’s case? It is far bigger than one can possibly imagine, since it amounts to the large wealth gap between where Zimbabwe could have been with steady if modest economic development over the past decade and where it has ended up now. That gap itself compounds up as time passes by, soaring far beyond what any conceivable external assistance packages can put right. Zimbabwe is experiencing a calamity which will not be put right for decades, if ever. 

Needless to say, Mugabe seems to think that he is doing the right thing by running for office yet again on his fine record, albeit with a good insurance policy. 

Meanwhile back in the United States the political Tower of Babel is babbling away. Ghastly though that phenomenon undoubtedly is when looked at from that point of view, what it represents is the unruly conversations of millions of free people hammering away at myriad points of view to help elect a new President. Who will get elected. And in due course step down gracefully.

Civilisation at work.