Where Are The Anti-War Activists On Darfur?

[NATO AIR]

Glad to know the liberal left cares more about the "war crimes" of American soldiers than a genocide by jihadists in Sudan.
Max Boot tells it like it is.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0419/p09s02-coop.html?s=hns

Where are the antiwar activists on Darfur?

By Max Boot

NEW YORK – To anyone who didn't know better, it might seem that the world is finally getting serious about stopping the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, which over the past two years has claimed at least 300,000 lives and displaced at least 2 million people.
After months of huffing and puffing, the UN Security Council finally agreed to freeze the assets of war-crimes suspects, impose a travel ban on them, and refer them for trial to the International Criminal Court. The latter resolution was the subject of tortuous negotiations between the Bush administration, which loathes the ICC (even though it hasn't done anything wrong yet), and other Security Council members who argued, correctly, that an ICC proceeding would be the most expeditious way to get the gears of justice turning. The Security Council deserves kudos for putting its ideological differences aside in this case.

But, important as the war crimes resolution is, who will deliver the bad guys to court? Not the Sudanese government, which is in cahoots with the Arab Janjaweed militia committing atrocities against blacks in Darfur, who happen to be fellow Muslims. The Islamist regime in Khartoum, led by Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, is one of the most loathsome on Earth. It has been responsible for mass murder not only in western Sudan but in the south, where victims have been black Christians and animists. The Security Council voted to send 10,700 peacekeepers to southern Sudan, but even if they're competent (history suggests otherwise), who will bring peace to Darfur in the west? At the moment, there are just 2,000 lightly armed peacekeepers from the African Union covering all of Darfur, a region the size of France. And they have no authority to stop rape, pillage, or murder; they're only supposed to monitor a meaningless cease-fire proclaimed last year between Khartoum and two rebel groups.

So who'll stop the killing? That question should trouble any tender soul who has ever mindlessly muttered, "Never again." That incantation is repeated after every genocide - after the Holocaust, the Cambodian killing fields, Rwanda - and yet the next time mass slaughter breaks out, the world conveniently averts its gaze. The major exceptions in recent years have been Kosovo and Bosnia, which had the good fortune to be on Western Europe's doorstep. The rest of the world is treated to high-minded clucking and, maybe, ex post facto prosecutions.

The only way to save Darfur is to dispatch a large and capable military expedition. But Security Council members France, China, and Russia have blocked a UN decision on armed intervention because they covet trade ties with Sudan. That still leaves the possibility of civilized states acting independently of the UN, as they did in Kosovo. But the only nation with a serious military capacity, the US, is overstretched in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The European Union should step into the breach. Its economy is as big as that of the US and its population is even bigger. But it has chosen to spend its euros on extravagant handouts for its own citizens rather than on the kind of armed forces that might bring a ray of hope to the "heart of darkness." Although the European members of NATO actually have more ground troops than the US - about 1.5 million soldiers - only about 6 percent are readily deployable abroad. The Europeans could still scrape together the 25,000 to 50,000 soldiers it would take to pacify Darfur, but it would be a stretch for them, given their existing commitments, and not one they're willing to make.

Even if they're not willing to send their own troops, the US and the EU could offer to provide much more logistical support to allow the African Union to dispatch more of its own peacekeepers to Sudan. That's not asking a lot, yet it's more than anyone has been willing to do so far.

Remember how exercised everyone around the world was about crimes committed at Abu Ghraib? Infinitely worse deeds are being done in Darfur daily. Where's the outrage? The street rallies that might spur Western governments into action? Aside from a handful of journalists and human rights activists, the only Westerners who've shown sustained interest in Sudan are evangelical Christians, who've been exercised primarily about the fate of their coreligionists in the south. The silence of the "antiwar" masses speaks volumes about their priorities: They don't object to war crimes as long as they're not committed by Americans.

• Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ©The Los Angeles Times.

 

[nosarcasm]

The killing can only be stopped if the Europeans and the USA put
a force together mainly financed by the EU.

Both sides excuse their inactivity by pointing fingers.

 

[William Joyce]

The killing in this region is Arab-on-black. This particular racio-ethnic combination-slash-conflict is simply not one that commands any media or government attention in the Western world.

If...

* Whites were killing blacks, attention would be drawn.
* Arabs were killing Jews, ditto
* Whites killing Jews, ditto

In other words, your best bet for getting an intervention is to have either white perpetrators or Jewish victims. Nobody cares if Catholics kill Protestants in Ireland and vice versa.

I'm open to examples that deviate from this general pattern, but I don't think you'll find many.

 

[dilloduck]

The killing in this region is Arab-on-black. This particular racio-ethnic combination-slash-conflict is simply not one that commands any media or government attention in the Western world.

If...

* Whites were killing blacks, attention would be drawn.
* Arabs were killing Jews, ditto
* Whites killing Jews, ditto

In other words, your best bet for getting an intervention is to have either white perpetrators or Jewish victims. Nobody cares if Catholics kill Protestants in Ireland and vice versa.

I'm open to examples that deviate from this general pattern, but I don't think you'll find many.

I sadly agree

 

[Gunny]

The killing can only be stopped if the Europeans and the USA put
a force together mainly financed by the EU.

Both sides excuse their inactivity by pointing fingers.

WHo needs Europe? Once again, we'd be messing with France's financial colonization of North Africa, so your idea would not happen. Might as well wait on the UN to act as that.

I think we could handle it just fine on our own.

 

[nosarcasm]

you need Europe to pay part of the bills
dont be stupid.

 

[Gunny]

you need Europe to pay part of the bills
dont be stupid.

How about YOU don't be stupid? Fuck Europe. Fuck the EU and the UselessN. Thinking we need them for something is what's got us all caught up with their dumb asses to begin with.

Time to cut bait. Let them fend for themselves since they're so damned high-n-mighty nowadays.

I'd hit those gov't-backed murderers with everything I had available in the region, and if Europe -- specifically France -- don't like it, they can bring their fat asses down and do something about it.

 

[nosarcasm]

:scratch:

 

[Gunny]

Good response. It does my heart good to know that you and those ostriches who think like you will get what you deserve in the end. It's just a shame you're going to take a lot of good people with you.

 

[NATO AIR]

How about YOU don't be stupid? Fuck Europe. Fuck the EU and the UselessN. Thinking we need them for something is what's got us all caught up with their dumb asses to begin with.

Time to cut bait. Let them fend for themselves since they're so damned high-n-mighty nowadays.

I'd hit those gov't-backed murderers with everything I had available in the region, and if Europe -- specifically France -- don't like it, they can bring their fat asses down and do something about it.

:clap1: The silence of the EU and UN on genocide in Sudan is deafening.

 

[IceEyes]

:clap1: The silence of the EU and UN on genocide in Sudan is deafening.

It is a disgrace. After the failiure in Somalia it seems no one dare to intervein in a conflict like that. It's just like Rwanda. Again people are dying while we argue.

When Saddam invaded Kuwait USA and UN for the first time ever managed to strike one devastating blow to that kind of behaviour. (With hindsight, maybe they should have gone all the way?) After that, I believe strengthend by the success, both UN and USA rushed into Somalia. USA had no interest there what so ever than that they could not stand watching the cruelties go on. Sadly, and I think it is a real tradegy, everything went wrong. USA and UN failed infront of the media that was there to catch the event. Since then UN and USA haven't been able to act together and UN is terrified to enter a similar mess.

It is too weak.

 

[HorhayAtAMD]

In other words, your best bet for getting an intervention is to have either white perpetrators or Jewish victims. Nobody cares if Catholics kill Protestants in Ireland and vice versa.

I'm open to examples that deviate from this general pattern, but I don't think you'll find many.

With Catholics killing Protestants, you have "white perpetrators" so, by your definition, everybody should care. And while it was going on, it certainly was very big news and much attention was paid to it. Either way, your Catholics vs Protestants is a particularly poor example.

But, you wanted examples that deviate from that pattern:

9/11 had arabs killing whites, are you suggesting that this didn't make the news?

Iraq/Kuwait had arabs killing arabs and the US cared enough to intervene.

Somalia and Rwanda had blacks killing blacks and the US cared enough to intervene.

Yugoslavia had muslims, christians, bosnians, and serbians all killing each other and the world, including the US, cared enough to intervene.

Vietnam and Korea didn't have anything to do with whites or jews and yet much attention was paid to these places.

In fact, I would say that Darfur is one of the few examples that deviates from the norm and not the other way around. I'll reverse the challenge and ask you to name many large conflicts that didn't have white perpetrators, didn't have jewish victims, and didn't draw much attention.

 

[KarlMarx]

Glad to know the liberal left cares more about the "war crimes" of American soldiers than a genocide by jihadists in Sudan.
Max Boot tells it like it is.

Actually, it's more like "why doesn't the World Worker's Party have anything to say about the Sudan?"

The anti-war activism from two years ago was paid for in part by the World Worker's Party a communist front organization for foreign communist dictatorships.

In other words, if it doesn't serve to subvert the United States, they don't care.