October 1, 2004
IT'S WHO ISN'T INDIFFERENT THAT MATTERS:
The Most Evil Crime: As black Africans are murdered and raped, most Americans are indifferent (Nat Hentoff, September 24th, 2004, Village Voice)
Colin Powell, on September 9, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "Genocide has been committed in Darfur and . . . the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and . . . genocide may still be occurring."Genocide is indeed continuing, along with unabated raping of black African Muslim women by the Arab Muslim Janjaweed directed by the Khartoum government. And on September 13, the Associated Press reported that "As many as 10,000 refugees from Sudan's Darfur region are dying from disease and violence every month in the teeming camps where they've taken refuge, U.N. health agency officials said Monday." (Emphasis added.)
The United Nations remains lethally unable to stop the genocide. Its continually delaying Security Council is complicit in these crimes against humanity. As Samantha Power—author of "A Problem From Hell": America and the Age of Genocide (HarperCollins Perennial)—added on PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer on August 26:
"Even major European countries—including France and Germany—are at odds with the United States in terms of perceiving this crisis to be born of an ethnic cleansing onslaught. The French are disputing even that finding; they say it's just tribal violence, which is born I think of their own economic and oil and realpolitik interests in the country." (Other countries are also involved, such as China, which is heavily invested in Sudan's oil industry.)
Moreover, as the East African Standard in Nairobi reported on September 10: "There is no appetite in the U.S. government or among other major powers for an international military deployment to try to stop the violence."
Quoted in that story is Colin Powell: "There is nobody prepared to send troops in there from the United States or the European Union or elsewhere to put it down in the sense of an imposition force."
On September 16, the U.N. Security Council was considering an American resolution to threaten sanctions on Sudan's oil industry, which is vital to its economy—and to establish a commission to determine whether there is genocide in Darfur. Suddenly, Kofi Annan, mindful of his own catastrophic silence during Rwanda's genocide, said he would set up that commission.
He added, as reported in The New York Times: "It was the first time [in the Security Council's history] that the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide had been invoked and [it is] 'inconceivable' that the council would not respond."
Annan also emphasized, however, that definitions are not important. "No matter how the crimes that are being committed against civilians are characterized or legally defined, it is urgent to take action now."
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization, which is striving mightily—with other humanitarian organizations—to save lives in Darfur, says it will run out of money by the end of this month if more funds don't come in from concerned countries. The United States has been the largest donor.
It's not a matter where doing the most is sufficient, so we'll have to do more. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 1, 2004 8:17 PM
I don't know much about the reality on the ground in "Darfur", but someone not going in such as the, UN, US, EU, etc...and instituting a little old fashoned Marshal law, is the true moral outrage.
I will gladly stand corrected if the situation is something other than what is being portrayed by the news reports, (which I don't think are being spun, yet), but not sending in guns is indefensible at this point. Very evident to me President Bush was not convicted in his claim the African league (whatever) should handle it.
Perry
Posted by: Perry at October 1, 2004 8:38 PM48 hours of bombing in Khartoum (government buildings, army bases, etc.) will stop the immediate problem. Then we destroy the Sudanese helicopter bases and the MiGs they just bought.
But this time, we get Kofi to publicly bless it FIRST. That is the price he has to pay. What the Security Council does is irrelevant.
Posted by: jim hamlen at October 1, 2004 10:13 PMBy 'we' you mean you are arming yourself and heading over there? Because I can get you some great deals on rifles, so you really have no excuse.
Posted by: eric at October 2, 2004 12:27 AMIf America went around trying to solve all the injustice in the world through the use of military force, we would run out of soldiers in a trice.
Posted by: Bart at October 2, 2004 7:33 AMThere are always more soldiers.
Posted by: oj at October 2, 2004 7:48 AMOJ,
That's ridiculous. We are having trouble with enlistment under current circumstances. If we were to send troops hither, thither and yon, fighting 'injustice' wherever we define it to be, we will have no military left to defend ourselves and no cohort of 18-34 year old men to draw from to create one. Just look at French demographics at the time of both World Wars and see what I mean.
Posted by: Bart at October 2, 2004 10:51 AMWe've got a hundred thoussand guys in Iraq we'll be moving soon. We don't even have a draft and they needn't be ours. There's no end of cannon fodder.
Posted by: oj at October 2, 2004 11:42 AMBart,
With a nation of 300 million people, more than twice our population during WWII, we have no shortage of eligible personnel. We also have technological force multipliers now that make an armored cavalry regiment the equivalent of a WW II Corps. The problem is will, it is not manpower.
Young people enlist when they feel that they will be serving a noble, worthwhile purpose. If we use our forces to serve such purposes in the world, we will have the people we need. We (and the world) will rise or fall based on our ideals, or lack thereof.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at October 2, 2004 12:54 PMWell, I don't think we ought to be doing anything.
However, if you disagree, there is a relatively simple thing that we -- and no one else -- could do within 48 hours, which probably would have most, if not quite all, of the effects you guys want to see.
Flattop in Red Sea. Strike on the helicopters.
The Arabs might then get the idea that we are serious and draw appropriate conclusions.
No other country could do that, because -- contra Orrin who says our Navy is useless -- no other country has a big-deck carrier. There are a few countries that have aircraft capable of taking out the helicopters, but they do not have -- and probably could not easily borrow -- bases close enough to do the job.
I'll recommend (again) Helen Fielding's novel of about 10 years ago, 'Cause Celeb,' which practically predicts what's going on now. Remarkable.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at October 2, 2004 2:56 PMHarry:
Slight overeaction there. We just need to help the African Union and the murder and rape will stop, though the humanitarian problem will remain significant.
Posted by: oj at October 2, 2004 4:02 PMThe draft is an impossibility. It eliminates the freedom of action that we have to send troops to places where there is no existential threat to the US but affect US interests in a more oblique fashion. If we had a draft, we would not be in Iraq.
The notion that we would send conscripts to Sudan to protect people from the predations of savages is laughable. That intervention would last until the MSM gets a hold of the first mommy of an 18 year old draftee from Ottumwa, Iowa or Albert Lea, Minnesota, and she discourses about how the sacrifice of her son's life is just not worth it.
Posted by: Bart at October 2, 2004 4:41 PMThe notion that the African Union would intervene is even more ludicrous. Most of its members are engaged in behavior similar to that of the Sudanese government.
Posted by: Bart at October 2, 2004 4:42 PMBart:
They already have. They just need to send more. That's why we haven't.
Posted by: oj at October 2, 2004 5:46 PMWe don't need a draft. The draft would be counterproductive, for the reason Bart gave. We need to be idealistic and humanitarian in our goals, but ruthless in our tactics. No more Somalias, where a triangulating president held the military back from committing the forces necessary to take out Aidid. Volunteers will join if they know that they will be allowed to get the job done.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at October 3, 2004 2:16 AMeric:
If you can get me a great deal on an AC-130 gunship, complete with spare parts, fuel, crew, groundcrew, and ammo, sign me up.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 4, 2004 7:12 AM