Clooney, Brownback, Obama and Osama call for Sudan intervention

i hear you.

i think different measures may be necessary for Spring, Texas than for Sudan, though. we don't have a full out assault to eliminate an entire people from the planet in Spring, Texas...certainly not with any real power or organization.

i think some sort of peacekeeping group to protect the people in Sudan is certainly worth doing. i can't tell the people who are being killed there today that in a few generations it will all be different.

 

When the government acts to prevent food and aid from reaching those in dire need, deliberately, and tens of thousands die, with far more suffering with problems that will affect them the rest of their lives (if they don't die as well), and they are part of an ethnic and/or religious group that is not the one of those in power, what else would you call it?

A bummer, and little else?



Keep D&D Civil.

 

I just don't consider troops real peacemakers. If that was the case we would have world peace instead of destruction.

 

I think a lack of food and medicine in the Sudan are due to a lack of funding and supplies:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/4a65ada62e8f14a31bcb8b38000ab7cd.htm

It's difficult to deliver food and medicine when there is a civil war going on as well:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4954096.stm

Also, remember it was the US that destroyed the country's largest pharmeceutical plant claiming that chemical weapons were being produced there...no telling how many people died as a result of that action

It still doesn't meet the definition of a genocide and for Colin Powell (who was the first to use that term) to call it one was very irresponsible and made the situation worse, because comments like that only emboldened the rebels fighting the state and made them even more uncompromising

Even though sporadic fighting continues, there is some sort of cease fire in place and I hope this can lead to breakthrough in negotiations

What happened in Rwanda was a genocide and what has been going in the Congo for the past 5-10 years can almost be called the 2nd Congolese Holocaust (the 1st ocurring during the colonial era, where 10-15 million Congolese died of unnatural causes)....what's happening in the Sudan is a civil war with the state on one side and rebel groups on the other fighting each other

 

also, i just dont see why this conflict gets so much attention when there are worse situations out there

 

MadMax,

I don't know if you're aware of the situation in Niger, where millions of people are literally starving with no war or anything else going on, just a lack of resources to feed the people there.

There're millions and millions of people around the world who die from famine and hunger in the absence of war, it wouldn't be the first time.

In this case, Sudan is one of the world's poorest nations, so it's nothing weird.

 

I'm aware of it. I agree that there are horrible circumstances all over the world, especially in Africa. You do what you can, where you can. If something can be done, or is being done, in the Sudan, I don't understand the logic of decrying the fact that help is being extended to those in need, because of situations out there where it's not, and/or because those situations haven't popped up on everyone's radar screen. I know you are saying this, tiger.

(I'm very aware of them, but I'm a news and political junkie... most people are not, although we probably have a fair percentage of people here who are)



Keep D&D Civil.

 

The situation in Sudan is desperate. It is close enough to a genocide that I don't care about the technical definition of it. A cvil war in which one side tries to starve out the other side is close enough for me. Hopefully something can be done.

The UN should do something about it. The Bush anti-UN bashers make this type of action harder by deligitimizing the UN. They have also made any intervention-- even humanitarian or "peace keeper" missions unilaterally by the US much harder by their disatrous Iraq War.

It is an interesting question as to why the larger problem in the Congo is not receiving as much attention. Creepy is probably right that the suffering in Sudan is receving more attention due to the neocons and the anti-Mulim angle, but that is no reason not to emphasize the humanitarian aspects and what can be done.

 

Sudan accepts Darfur peace deal, but rebels balking

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/05/01/2003305494

 

Ethnic cleansing... I think legally the UN can intervene in genocide, but a NATO campaign (or an ad-hoc coalition) would be necessary for intervening against ethnic cleansing.

Should this happen, the NeoCons could definitely gloat. The south sits on a bunch of untapped oil, while the North would love to share it with us as soon as they wipe those puny villages sitting on the black gold. To make the situation more similar, you have the East who also wishes some form of autonomy or separation.

 

I think Prof. Juan Cole of Michigan explains it best here:

http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/googlesmear-as-political-tactic-google.html

the "Arabs" of the Sudan are black (some are brown or lighter shades of black, but not by any means all, and anyway so are Eritreans just to the south). The Sudanese "Arabs" just speak Arabic or identify with the Arabs. It isn't a matter of US-style race, which is based on color. Moreover, the people of Darfur are Muslims and many know Arabic. So the massacres in Darfur are not about "Arabs" versus "black Africans." They are between two groups of Muslim black Africans.

[neo-cons] and right wing zionists definitely want to racialize the Sudan conflict in American terms, as "Arab" versus "black African" because they want to use it to play American domestic politics, and create a rift among African-Americans and Arab-Americans. What is happening in Darfur is horrible with regard to the loss of life and the displacement of persons, but the dispute is not about race. It is about political separatism and regionalism.

 

Don't play dumb, Hayes.

 

I don't agree totally with Raimondo, but he has some good points.
*************
What About Darfur?
The case against intervention
by Justin Raimondo

Whenever I speak on campus, I always get the "But what about Darfur?" question. This usually comes in tandem with the inevitable Holocaust question, which goes something like this: "Yes, I agree with your opposition to the Iraq war, and your anti-interventionist sentiments in general, but what about our moral responsibility to prevent another Holocaust?" This is usually accompanied by a paean to "the good war," i.e., World War II, and the assertion that "of course" we had to intervene (and not just because of Pearl Harbor).

I will spare the reader my detailed answer to enthusiasts of "the good war," except to say that if we hadn't intervened in World War II at precisely the moment Hitler turned on Stalin, the likelihood of the two totalitarian monsters destroying each other is a bit more than mere speculation. I will also note that the Holocaust, far from being prevented by World War II, was instead hastened and accelerated by the conflict. American intervention in the European war had nothing to do with the Holocaust, did nothing to prevent it, and may have worsened it.

In any case, to get back to the case of Darfur: my questioner, I should point out, is usually not some warmongering neocon, but the most well-meaning of all lefties, who is savagely critical of the neoconservative agenda of "democratizing" the Middle East at gunpoint, but, when it comes to Darfur, all discernment, all the lessons of the past, are thrown out the window, and emotions take over. It is like an alcoholic, who, after a long abstinence, quaffs a bit of wine, or has half a beer: after just a little sip, all caution is abandoned, and they find him the next day, passed out in the street.

Darfur, where as many as 300,000 may have been killed, has become an international cause célèbre and rallying cry for the internationalist liberals, the kind who pride themselves on having a conscience and who constantly invoke the tragedy of Darfur as a potential model for "humanitarian intervention." They think that they are different from the neocons in kind because they advocate intervention for a "good" cause, because they are motivated by kindness, benevolence, and all those other liberal internationalist virtues that make them such so much better people than Richard Perle and Bill Kristol.

This shows that whatever foreign policy debate occurs in this country is not about the policy – almost no one questions the wisdom and absolute necessity of global interventionism – but about motivation: President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice care about oil, money, Israel, and self-glorification, not necessarily in that order. We care about helping poor blacks, stopping genocide, and dispensing American treasure to the underprivileged albeit deserving peoples of the Third World.

To get a little perspective on this, let's look at what the invaluable John Laughland, a writer and longtime observer of the War Party, has to say:

"The Darfur crisis is following a pattern which is so well-worn now that it has almost become routine. Saturation reporting from a crisis region; emergency calls for help broadcast on the electronic media (such as the one recently on the BBC Radio 4 flagship 'Today' programme); televised pictures of refugees; lurid stories of 'mass rapes', which are surely designed to titillate as much to provoke outrage; reproachful evocations of the Rwandan genocide; demands that something must be done ('How can we stand idly by?', etc.); editorials in the Daily Telegraph calling for a return to the days of Rudyard Kipling's benevolent imperialism; and, finally, the announcement that plans are indeed being drawn up for an intervention."

Writing in 2004, Laughland averred that Western intervention is "inevitable," and it looks like he was right on the money. The Washington Post carried a story, prominently featured in the Sunday edition, about the "growing outcry" to "do something" about Sudan:

"Massive 'Stop Genocide' rallies are planned on the Mall and across the nation today to urge the Bush administration to take stronger action to end the violence in Sudan's Darfur region. Thousands of people are expected to converge on Washington, including 240 busloads of activists from 41 states, local and national politicians and such celebrity speakers as actor George Clooney, Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel, and Olympic speed skater Joey Cheek."

While early reports of plans for the demonstration reported an expected turnout of 100,000-plus, the rally permit obtained by the "Save Darfur Coalition" estimated 10,000-15,000, and the actual numbers were far less. Reuters generously reported "several thousands," but, never mind that: the sparse numbers were magnified by the star power of the celebrity speakers. Piggybacking on titans of Hollywood and the world of sports like Clooney and Cheek, Democratic party bigwigs – including Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California – sought to extract political benefits from this supposedly spontaneous upsurge of interventionist sentiment.

That, only a few days before, Osama bin Laden had made Sudan the focus of another of his tirades against the West – warning the Muslim world that Darfur would be the next entry point for the "Crusader-Zionists" – was surely a coincidence, albeit an enormously convenient one for the motley collection of liberal do-gooders, Hollywood glamour-pusses, and Christian zealots who make up the "Save Darfur Coalition." President Bush was glad to endorse the rally: "For those of you who are going out to march for justice, you represent the best of our country," Bush said at a meeting with persons described as "Darfur advocates" in news reports.

Before we send tens of thousands more American troops into a very troubled region of the world, let us examine what these "Darfur advocates" are advocating. Both Tony Blair and retired U.S. general Wesley Clark have argued in favor of intervention, raising the "successful" war and occupation in Kosovo as a model. That was one war we didn't hear much about from the great mass of present-day "antiwar" protesters, who apparently thought that attacking a country that represented no threat to the U.S. and had never attacked us was okay, so long as it was done by a Democratic president. By going into Darfur under the rubric of "humanitarianism," the War Party can sell to anti-Bush liberals the idea of opening up another front in the Muslim world.

The Dubai brouhaha showed how easily anti-Arab sentiment can be exploited on the ostensible "Left" and utilized by the War Party to demonstrate their effective control of both major political parties – and distance themselves from an increasingly unpopular administration. The Darfur campaign is another example of their strategic shift: in both instances, instead of following President Bush's lead, they stood in opposition to the White House. Up until this point, the Bush team has been skeptical of getting involved in Sudan. As the Bush White House drags its feet in provoking the Iranians into war, the War Party is turning increasingly to the Democrats – and the ostensible liberal-Left – for support. This is beginning to pay off, as Hillary Clinton tries to out-hawk the GOP on the Iranian nukes issue, and leading Democrats take up the banner of Darfur.

From a realistic point of view, there is nothing U.S. military intervention can accomplish in Sudan except to make things far worse. Sudan would soon become Iraq II, with an influx of jihadists and a nationalistic reaction against what would become, after a short time, a de facto occupation very similar to what the Iraqis have to endure. The rebel groups, aided by Sudan's neighbors, such as Ethiopia and Eritrea, would metastasize, more weapons would pour into the region, and the probable result would be a humanitarian disaster on a much larger scale. Intervention, in short, would lead to the exact opposite of its intended result – a principle that, as a libertarian, I hold is true in economics as well as foreign policy.

But you don't have to be a libertarian to see the folly of interventionism in the case of Darfur, or Iraq. In the latter, it is the presence of the U.S. occupation force that empowers the rising anti-U.S. insurgency: the same principle would operate in Sudan. There is no reason to believe that we would be welcomed with open arms by the Sudanese any more than we were by the Iraqis. An initial euphoria – some of it staged – would soon be supplanted by a growing resentment, and the influx of jihadists would destabilize the entire region, requiring increased U.S. and "allied" forces.

"Saving" Darfur would mean opening up another theater in what the neocons refer to as "World War IV." Spreading outward from Iraq, this global conflict will pit the U.S. against a wide variety of enemies, both freelance and state-sponsored, swelling the ranks of terrorist outfits and inviting further attacks on U.S. soil. This could be construed as a "humanitarian" intervention only in the Bizarro World inhabited by our leaders, including those hailing from the entertainment industry.

A coalition of liberal internationalists, opportunistic politicians of both parties, and the usual neocon suspects have banded together to lure us into yet another quagmire, this one in Africa. This new crusade is so imbued with the aura of humanitarian uplift that anyone who questions the wisdom of intervening in a complicated and obscure civil war will be denounced as a "racist" who doesn't give a hoot about Africa.

Oh, so you're against intervening in Darfur, eh? Don't you care about starving African babies? That our intervention will likely as not lead to more starving African babies, rather than less, is in my opinion indubitably true, yet even if it were not, intervention would still be a mistake. It would be a grave error because there is no lack of "humanitarian disasters" in this world, and the alleviation of all of them cannot be the goal of U.S. foreign policy. That would have to mean perpetual warfare, on a global scale, waged by the U.S. against countless legions of enemies, including many yet to be born.

It is a recipe for endless trouble, increasing expenditures, and eventual bankruptcy, moral as well as financial. Because, in the end, we'll discover that the whole thing was cooked up by disparate interests with hidden agendas, in order to profit financially or politically. The truth will come out: it always does.

We cannot help Africa, except by trading with it and increasing our humanitarian private efforts to alleviate suffering. The least we can do, however, is to stop encouraging the worst, most illiberal elements by subsidizing governments like those of Ethiopia and Eritrea, run by common thugs paid to do America's bidding. If we really want to help Africa, we'll stay out of their internal political affairs, start granting more visas from that continent, and get over our own sense of moral superiority that lets us imagine we can somehow uplift the entire world to the level of a typical American suburb.

Finally, if this doesn’t underscore the unselfconscious irrationality of the "left"-wing do-gooder-Hollywood wing of the War Party, then nothing does.


http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8922

 

I'm sure you'd find it curious that others , even Bush, at times, wonder if there are times when the use of armed force might do more harm than good.. For you it always so simple apparently. Never met a war on intevention that you didn't like.

 

Things are complicated for most folks. They don't proceed totally from assumed definitions and little points devoid of content to bolster them.. Guess what? Free markets work some time; sometime they don't. Oh, you got me!! I don't agree totally with Raimondo. I guess I said that initially, but so what..

Just like free markets don't always workr bes, same with armed intervention. I know, tough.

YOU are a total ideolgue in your militarism.

Russian Communism is dead ;get over it. No need to find substitutes.

As far as armed interventions go, the US has forfeited virtually any moral authority due to folks like you. As to when UN intervention is helpful, it is a case by case thing. As we have seen in Iraq and Vietnam, proceeding from a rigid idiological point of view without takng into account the particulars of each case is disastrous. Not tidy theoretically, but tough. Go back to reading neocon theory if the real world is too messy for you.

 

BTW I cited Raimondo, as a counterweight to what might be a rush to intervene miilitarily in Sudan. I'm not sure what is the best course, but I'm sure it is not US troops unilaterally invading to supposedly do good, which hgas the undesireable effect of reinforcing US militarism. I believe that we actually must exhaust all possibilities short of war or military intervention before doing so