Around two years ago while the talking heads were banging the drum of war, I remember seeing George Will on some cable show or other complaining that Clinton's wars were conducted largely for humanitarian reasons. His argument was that Bush was on the right track, because invading Iraq would be a significant strategic benefit to the United States since permanent military bases in Southern Iraq would provide a much better US military position in the region than the (at the time) existing bases in Saudi Arabia. I despise George Will, and find it baffling that he is still allowed such a prominent place in the pundacracy after his crass manipulation of the 1980 Carter-Reagan debate. However, he does at least usually present the conservative position clearly: humanitarian wars are bad, strategic wars are good.

I have always believed this is the difference between Clinton's war in Kosovo and Bush's war in Iraq. For Clinton, intervention was done primarily for humanitarian reasons (to prevent a nascent genocide in Kosovo), whereas for Bush the original arguments for war were almost entirely security and strategic related. Only now after those arguments have been shown to be bogus have conservatives come to fixate on the supposed humanitarian reasons for the invasion of Iraq.

Back in 1994, I was pretty pissed off when the international community did nothing to stop what was taking place in Rwanda (800,000 dead). In fact, during the run up to war in Iraq and during the occupation, I often wondered if I was hypocritical in my opposition to the invasion and soon-to-be occupation because of this. I do believe that military intervention to stop genocide is justifiable when all other means of prevention have been exhausted, and I supported intervention in Kosovo on these grounds. I opposed invasion in Iraq because we were not stopping any ongoing genocide, and because when the Iraqi genocide was taking place (1980-1993), we either did nothing to stop it or we actually aided it. I believed and now believe that invading Iraq and continuing to occupy it only compound existing problems and make things even worse for the Iraqi people (and, of course, the American people as well). I also believed that containment had worked to such a degree that Saddam Hussein's regime was on the verge of collapse on its own. This is not even to mention to obvious goals of Empire for hawks such as George Will and the neo-cons.

Still, sometimes I worry about my support for the war in Kosovo and my opposition to the war in Iraq. Was I wrong in either case? Am I being hypocritical for continuing to support one and not the other? Should I have opposed (or supported) both? When is military intervention justifiable?

Should the United Nations pass a Security Council resolution that will send troops to intervene in the nascent genocide in Sudan? With 140,000 US troops in Iraq, I suppose the ability of the US to intervene is a moot point. However, it is not impossible that we could participate in an international effort to stop what is happening in southern Sudan. At the very least, there needs to be widespread debate on this topic. Here are snippets from an article in the Washington Post by two Republican Senators that takes up that discussion:

Imagine that we could rerun the events that occurred in Rwanda 10 years ago. With the certain knowledge of horrific events to come, would the world's great nations again stand idle as 800,000 human beings faced slaughter? If the recent expressions of grief and regret from world leaders are any indication, the answer is no -- this time things would be very different...

Yet, in 2004, just as in 1994, the international community is on the verge of making a tragic mistake. Mass human destruction is unfolding today in Sudan, with the potential to bring a death toll even higher than that in Rwanda.

The numbers are appalling. Some 1.1 million people have been driven from their homes, and as many as 30,000 are already dead. The U.S. Agency for International Development estimates that, even under "optimal conditions," 320,000 may die by the end of this year, and a death toll far higher is easily within reach. In the face of this catastrophe, the government and the Janjaweed continue to block humanitarian aid, and widespread killing and destruction persist. While civilians flee, the government's Antonov bombers target water wells, granaries, houses and crops, clearing villages so that the Janjaweed can enter and take over. In the meantime, famine looms...

We must do more, and we must do it immediately.

I am tempted to agree with McCain and DeWine, with whom I agree on little else. Am I nuts? Have I become a hawk? Am I rightfully pissed off that we invaded and occupying Iraq, thus greatly reducing our ability to intervene in situations such as this? What is to be done? Here is the latest news from Sudan. Let's start by talking about it.