Armenians, Jews, Kurds, Tutsis, the list goes on and on. Humans killing, raping, displacing their fellow humans in large numbers, over and over again.
In my mind Somlia has ended any chance of us every going back into Africa for peace keeping. What can we do about it? I don’t know. It hurts just thinking about it.
Heh, seems to be our new reason since no WMD have shown up. Speaking of which, how’s that going?
Which threat was that? His whopping chemical weapons arsenal or his nukes?
The country has better things to concern itself with, I hope you notice the subtle difference. :rolleyes:
There’s a country beyond Brooklyn that needs attention, and it ain’t Iraq, try and guess which.
What’s happening in the world? The world is getting sick of our shit, that’s what. We’re over extended and thin, and we’re starting to write checks we can’t cash. Instead of dealing with the Saudis, we’re pissing away in Iraq wasting hundreds of billions literally paying for people to hate us more, it’s a bad investment.
Well blah blah blah, I’ve been around the globe myself, and a lot of motherfuckers don’t like us. We need to take a long hard look in the mirror.
Perhaps we should have tried to strengthen ties with Saddam before invading right? :rolleyes: That’s what they’re attempting to do here.
So a military occupation totally works fine for Iraq, but would be totally inappropriate here? Riiiiiiiighhhhhht.
So, what I’m getting from you is that we shouldn’t intervene, although the people of Sudan sorely need intervention? You’re losing me here, World Eater.
Your argument lacks coherence and reason.
Instead of merely criticizing what the administration is doing in Sudan, maybe you should share with us exactly what you’d do differently? Especially since you’re so reluctant to send troops yourself, as stated earlier.
I’m dying to hear it, myself.
Perhaps if we weren’t streched so thin in Iraq we could lead a UN mission to stop this.
Emphasis added.
Everybody may already be aware of this, but just in case I wanted to point out that Darfur is in western Sudan. This current conflict has absolutely zero to do with the decades long war in the south, which in fact is in a bit of an abeyance right now. While that conflict was often ( mostly erroneously ) couched in religious terms, this one is not, as the people of Darfur are overwhelmingly Muslim. The more salient issues are ethnic ( Arab vs. non-Arab ) and cultural/economic ( pastoralists vs. agriculturalists in an area hard hit by drought ).
I’m sure World Eater can explain his stance better, but it appears that he’s questioning why it was so EASY to go to Iraq and not go to the Sudan? Especially when Iraq wasn’t a threat to us?
Had we not wasted time, manpower and resources in Iraq, perhaps we could serve the World abit better and really helped those in dire striats.
Why are we in Iraq? Human rights? International Law? Protecting the innocent? How does the Sudan compare to Iraq in those regards or for that matter the rest of the World?
Either you believe in protecting human rights or you don’t. If protecting human rights depends on how much resources a country has, then something is wrong with us as a country.
I’m not for the US to be the Policemen of the world either, but Christ have a consistent policy.
How many times are we going to fail Africa? Or will we ONLY step in when some South African national comes here and blows up Walmart and somehow we decide its really the Sudan?
So, they got oil in the south–and Sudan is exporting some of it. What is it that keeps either Sudan or some foreign investor from exploiting this resource and thereby alieviating somewhat the economic disparity? Is it crapy oil? Or would the people rather cling to a non-viable economy than make changes? Saudi Arabia ain’t exactly an oasis begging for goats & gardens either, but they have managed to make a living with the hand that was dealt. Why is Sudan different?
Sudan only began exporting a significant amount of oil in 1999, so it really hasn’t had much time to reap the benefits. Insofar as that goes, it has helped and Sudan’s economy appears to be limping in the right direction. But you still have a dominant agrarian economic sector that is very vulnerable to both drought and the disruptions of civil war, two things Sudan unfortunately has no shortages of.
Also, while Sudan has oil, it doesn’t have Saudi-levels of easily accessible oil and it has ~40% more population and a far more depauperate infrastructure ( especially transportation ) in a vast, chaotic, violence-wracked country. Even Saudi Arabia is struggling economically at this point, as the oil revenues aren’t enough. Sudan has been called ‘the potential breadbasket of Africa’ because of the large amounts of potentially arable land in the south, it will always just be potential because said land is covered and surrounded by the Sudd, the world’s largest (or second-largest, I forget ) swamp ( the draining of which would not only probably be impractical but an ecological disaster as well ).
Make that ~60%. ~40 million vs. ~25 million
Holmes, I believe the most important question here is how many times is Africa going to fail itself. You can only forgive so much debt, and prop so many dictators, and mop up after so many massacres, before you have to question why it is you’re doing so.
There aren’t many countries on the African continent that can be judged as successful by any standard. And what they share in common is telling. Economic systems that are not free, and plagued by corruption. Tax collection that is inconsistent and unfair. Routine and rampant corruption and kleptocracy. One-party or one-man rule. The absence of a rule of law. Brutal justice, torture, disappearances, unexplained deaths. Educational systems that reward the elite and ignore the rest. Infrastructure that favors the ruling party and makes no allowances for the future wellbeing of the country.
Another thing they have in common is a U.N. and a world diplomatic corps willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses, sip wine with the leaders at Davos, and forgive the debt when it piles up too high, regardless of what these individuals have stashed away in the Caymens. Anybody who isn’t sickened by this isn’t paying attention.
Maybe Powell’s visit, and the get tough attitude on Sudan, can accomplish something. I hope so, because tough action has been needed for a while.
Screw the UN! They are a toothless, overblown Rotary Club with all the importance and signifagance of a condom with a hole in it.
Maybe “we” are “streched so thin” in Iraq because the UN couldn’t be bothered to tuck in and join the team after years and years of meaningless santions and resolutions failed.
The UN is the “mall cop” of the world.
Overheard in the public restroom: “That’ll leave a skidmark all the way to the treatment plant!”
Dying to hear it? You’re going to be disappointed. I bet I’d have no problem getting together a true coalition this time, so that’s what I’d do. I’d offer up some troops as part of a NATO peacekeeping mission. I’d use (assuming we never thumbed our nose at the UN with this Iraq debacle) our status as sole super power to lean on the UN and make sure this gets done. The difference between this and Iraq is we’re not going in on false pretenses, and I doubt most of the civilized world would have a problem with stopping a genocide. We’d also be going in with the only intension to stabilize the place, no rebuilding, let them worry about that. I’d prefer to stay the hell out of course, but possibly a million dead in a year is too much to ignore, even for someone that would rather worry about domestic affairs.
Right, so what you’re saying is the Africans deserve what they get. They don’t pay their bills, they can’t seem to get the workings of democracy down and they kill one another. So let them die, even to the millions. It’s their own fault.
It doesn’t matter WHAT brought them to this point…history is unimportant, justice is unimportant, human decency is unimportant. It’s not important the role the US and the rest of world played in creating this mess.
We’re not invested anymore…let the Africans clean it up, even though we’ve kept them from developing the tools they need.
All that matters is the here and now, and if they die; they die.
Is that your stance, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but that’s what I got from your post.
Well, it works for its actual true purpose, which is to terrify and drive away the population. The benefit to the power that’s seeking to drive them away is that it’s easy to get criminals and thugs to volunteer if you offer them a chance to rape lots of women. The rapists are just sociopaths and thugs who like raping people.
This isn’t an uncommon tactic. Croatian and Serb “armies” used the same tactic against various undesirables during the Yugoslav civil wars; Bosnians probably did too although they were mostly on the defensive and didn’t get as many chances. Plenty of sociopaths and murderers were happy to sign up for the chance to rape teenagers and burn old women to death and other stuff.
That is putting words in my mouth, holmes.
The African victims of famine, and war, and oppression, didn’t deserve their fate. But let’s be clearheaded about who and what caused these problems, and what the solutions are.
If Kerry were to endorse such action, I’d start thinking about voting for him, in all honesty. This is the sort of atrocity that should be fought anywhere it exists.
Question: Somehow, I have a memory of the Sudan still being on the UN human rights commission. True, or am I crossing wires here? Honestly asking, can’t remember.
Correct, Spoofe. When Freedom House delivered to the UNHRC its annual list of the fifteen most repressive countries in the world, five of them were on the freaking Commission, including Sudan. An additional eight countries which FH rated as “not free” (as opposed to “free” or “partly free”) were on the Commission, making a quarter of the Commission’s members “not free.”
Just in case you were wondering if the UN were going to do something, Kofi Annan’s awareness of and anger at the situation notwithstanding.
I’m not clearheaded, please explain to me, not tell me; explain to me who and what caused these problems and what the solutions are.
Damn…I thought the slavery in the Sudan was bad enough, but now this!
