So, the big boss of the South Sudan army has a plan. He gave his soldiers seven days. One week. That is it. In seven days, they are supposed to 'crush' the rebellion. It sounds like a line from a bad movie. It sounds like a guy who has never actually stood in the mud and the heat trying to look tough for a camera. Seven days to fix a mess that has been rotting for years. It is funny if you do not think about the people actually living there. But let’s be real, the guys in charge stopped thinking about the people a long time ago. They only think about the chairs they sit in and the money they can shove in their pockets.

They are sending more guys to a town called Bor. The news calls Bor a 'strategic staging post.' That is just a fancy way of saying it is a place where people used to have lives before the guys with guns showed up. Now, it is just a spot on a map. It is a place to park trucks and wait for orders to go kill someone else. Bor is on the way to Juba, the capital. Everything is always about the capital. That is where the big buildings are. That is where the power is. If you control the capital, you get to call yourself the government. If you do not, you are just a 'rebel.' It is the same game, just different labels on the jerseys.

Let’s look at the two sides here. On one side, you have the government. They have the uniforms and the official titles. They have the army chief who likes to give deadlines. On the other side, you have the rebels. They probably want the same thing the government has. They want the titles. They want the big chairs in Juba. Neither side is doing this because they love the people. Neither side is doing this to make life better for the guy trying to grow some corn in a field. They are doing it because they want to be the ones holding the whip. It is a race to the bottom, and everyone is winning.

Giving a seven-day deadline is a classic move for a guy who knows he is losing control. It is supposed to sound strong. It is supposed to make the soldiers run faster and shoot straighter. But all it really does is tell the world that they are desperate. You do not give a one-week deadline if things are going well. You give a deadline when you are tired of waiting for your paycheck to clear. The army chief wants this done. He wants the rebellion 'crushed.' That is a heavy word. It means he does not want to talk. He does not want to fix anything. He just wants to stomp on the other guys until they stop moving. It is the only way these guys know how to lead.

South Sudan is the newest country in the world. They have only been around for a little while. Most people would try to keep their new car clean. They would try not to dent the doors or spill coffee on the seats. But not these guys. They got their own country and immediately started tearing the engine out. They have been fighting over who gets to drive since the day they got the keys. It is a tragedy, sure, but after a while, it just becomes boring. It is the same cycle of violence over and over. A guy in a uniform says something tough. People die. A town gets destroyed. Another guy in a uniform says something tough back. It never ends.

And what about the 'reinforcements'? That is just more young men being sent into the meat grinder. They get told they are heroes. They get told they are saving the country. But they are just tools. They are being used to help one group of rich guys beat another group of rich guys. They will go to Bor. They will sit in the dirt. They will wait for the seven days to run out. And when the seven days are over, and the rebellion is still there, the army chief will probably just give them another seven days. Or he will blame someone else. That is how it works.

The world watches this and does nothing. They send a few letters. They say they are 'deeply concerned.' That is code for 'we are busy doing other things.' Nobody is coming to help. The people in the middle are stuck between an army that wants to crush things and rebels who want to take things. It is a bad spot to be in. But that is the world we built. We let these grifters run the show, and then we act surprised when they act like monsters. Seven days. A week of blood for a chair in Juba. It is pathetic. It is human. And I am tired of looking at it.