...we could take out the Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists in Darfur and Khartoum. Maybe the left-wingers in Europe will actually use some of their multi-hundred billion dollar military to do something for the poor while we're busy. Nah, probably not. They are all talk and no action.

Its lighter skinned muslims that are doing this genocide against darker skinned christians, right?

This is a really nutty idea, I suppose, but I was thinking that, whoever's fault this all actually is, we should try to help feed the starving people. I was even insanely optimistic enough to think that, as ElizabethD said above, the blogosphere might be able to pull together and help make a difference for the people who are starving rather than just snarking about whose fault it is.

UN keeps international focus on peace and humanitarian aid

Yes, we need long term solutions. But I would also like to see these people not die of starvation while we are debating that.

I wrote a diary about General Zinni's biography, Battle Ready. Zinni describes the type of military planning and support that these types of problems require.

NGO's can't operate in a war zone without military support. With the U.S. bogged down in an immoral and illegal war in Iraq, the chances of any operation being mounted in Darfur without the U.S. is negligible.

Unfortunately, genocide isn't as important as strategic military control of the Middle East for the Theocons. The only way genocide in Darfur gets addressed is if a Democratic President is sitting in the WH in 2009.

One of the problems on the liberal side of the political spectrum is that they like to make contributions to "feel good" charities that really don't address the long term problem. There's nothing wrong with contributing to homeless shelters, save the whales, environmental groups ad nauseum or Save the Children.

These are all very good causes. The obvious problem is that all of these causes were undone by a single conservative president and two stolen elections. Liberals need to get smarter about who they contribute to and how their money is spent by those groups. There are an awful lot of redundant liberal groups.

In the case of Darfur, private contributions and private relief efforts are little more than useless. A long term solution requires a long term world wide commitment that replicates the examples Gen. Zinni described in Battle Ready. The sad pragmatic truth is that the United States is the only country with the military resources to lead an effective Operation Other Than War in the Sudan.

I would recommend anyone who wants to initiate grassroots support for an OOTW mission in Sudan contact a group like the Simon Weisenthal Center. The phrase "Never Again" resonates in the Jewish and the American public consciousness. There are many established holocaust groups that should be receptive to stopping genocide in Darfur. They may already be working on it, but have not been able to break through the information smog of the Iraq War and the WOT.

Peace out,
Gary

Nato and our government aren't doing anything in the Sudan.

Do you think its a matter that they just don't care or do you think its a matter of countries feeling that the potential cost of loss of life by their own citizens with ground troops isn't worth the potential of saving lives of many Sudanese?

In newspapers.  

I don't know about European news stations but our don't even report on it.  No pictures, no stories = no public outrage or organized efforts pressuring politicians to intervene.

 

I'm sorry to say it, but getting involved in the Sudan is a sucker's bet.

A little familiarity with the history of the Sudan might be in order.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sudan

If it suits you, you can read all of it.  Otherwise, go down to the Mahdist movement.

The Mahdist movement springs from the infux of Arabs and Arabized blacks into the Darfur region during the 1800s (a pretty common trend across the African Sahel during the 1700s and 1800s; similar trends are the origin of Islamic-African violence in the Invory Coast and in Nigeria).

The real problems start with the Mahdist movement during the 1880s.  The Mahdists were (and still are) an apocalyptic movement.  At the time their targets were British and Egyptian authority in the Middle East, with the ultimate goal of controlling Jerusalem and triggering the Battle of Armageddon.

The Mahdists fought the Brits for a decade, before finally being decisively crushed in battle.  By that point, half the population of the Sudan was dead.

When the Mahdists were finally quelled, a lot of their violence turned toward their African pagan neighbors.

This led to more than a century of pillaging, rape, and slavery which has yet to end.  To this day, the family name "al-Mahdi" is a point of pride and a source of leaders in Darfur and the Sudan.

Darfur itself poses a problem of geography, also.

There really is only one place in Darfur that can sustain a population.  This is naturally a problem if two groups see themselves as separate populations in conflict.

So, there is no relocation solution.  There is no partition solution.  There is no traditional way to bring this to a peaceful resolution.

It would take a wholesale re-education of the Arabs (we'll lump them altogether for simplicity's sake) in the region to actually change anything.

For one, you have disembed the Islamic notion that it is OK to enslave pagans, animists, etc.

Then you'd also have to deprogram the racial line between Arabs and blacks.

And, of course, you'd have to find ways to put essentially vagrant young men to work in a region that likely lacks enough resources to ever achieve anything vaguely resembling full employment.

Frankly, I just don't think the Sudan is fixable.

and Elizabeth D. Feeding people is paramount.  I used to give money to schools that gave me scholarships and leftist orgs as well as to food charities and Doctors Without Borders.  Now I give what I have to City Harvest and similar orgs to DWD that target preventable diseases in Africa.  It's a little confursing because my country is falling apart politically, but life or death is life or death.  Thanks for bringing this to our attention in such a direct way. And frankly, who cares if it's Muslims doing it to Christians or Northerners to Southerners etc etc?  Whether your village gets wiped out by the guerillas or the paramilitaries, your village is still wiped out, and if you look far back enough in history you can always find a counter example to cite (See: Spain, 1492: Christian expulsion of Muslims and Jews, and the lovely Christianity/slavery Mr Columbus brought to the Americas).

I just saw a very compelling story on the Sudan crises on ABC news.  The story focused on war crimes, exposed by one of our Marines,  by the Sudanese government against its own citizens.  Not exactly what you wrote about, Renee.  But it's the first televised story on the subject I've seen lately.

Hopefully, there will be more to come.

Acts of Faith by Philip Caputo.

Lays out lots of these issues in an superbly plotted action novel.

National Geographic story Feb. 2003:
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0302/feature2/
The photographer and writer were in Sudan during the summer of 2002. They were in areas where large groups (tens of thousands) of villagers, displaced by fighting and by their own government, were climbing the acacia trees to get the uppermost leaves. They'd eaten all the lower leaves. The starvation promting this desperate practice, and the resulting disease and death had been going on for some time.

To say it's a crime against humanity doesn't sound strong enough.

There's no drilling there.

Europe tends to be the only power that bothers to intervene militarily in African matters, being most of those nations are former colonies and by extention Europe is directly responsible for much of the dark continent's strife and discord. See Congo for a recent example.

Throw a couple Exxon drilling expeditions in Sudan and I'm sure George's attention will soon follow. Maybe a couple arms deals?