Century's first Genocide-

welsh

welsh

Junkmaster
What's with Dafur?

Is it because the people who are dieing are black?

I can understand why the Americans aren't involved. I could argue that the US has overcommitted itself in Afghanistan and Iraq and can't spare the troops (afterall there might be another Tsunami). Or I could argue that since the US helped broker the deal between the South and the North that ended the Civil War (so that a pipeline could run), that the US doesn't want to rock the boat. Alternatively I could argue that Bush is just an opportunist asshole who only does what big business wants him too- and there just isn't enough interest in big business in Sudan.

So what excuse do the Europeans have?

Interactive piece from the New York Times can be found here-
century's first genocide?

also-
http://www.sudanreeves.org/
http://darfurgenocide.org/
http://savedarfur.org/


and a radio interview- hell on earth
 
Well, they're essentially the same excuse that we have, unless they're claiming the moral high ground.

Oh wait...
 
Well, if Bush were as oil-crazy as people make him out to be, he would be all over Sudan, especially because the Chinese have made numerous deals with Darfur for said oil.

I think we should be in Sudan already, personally, and I don't buy the 'not enough troops' argument. If the militias were controlled by the government (as I suspect they are) the presence of a single regiment of Marines would do the job. Plus, the Militias are facing only unarmed villagers now. Imagine the militias going head-to head with a modern army- from any nation. On the relatively open plains of western Sudan, they wouldn't last long. I don't know why something isn't being done. Perhaps Bush is fearful of the popular backlash from another war, I'm not sure.

That said, the Europeans certainly don't have any excuse for not being in Sudan- it's not like their troops are tied up in Iraq or anything. But, given the UN's abysmal record in Africa (Rwanada, one of the genocides of the lastcentury), I'm not sure they would be too keen on getting involved either.
 
Consider The Source

Consider The Source



At random, I have sampled the AM and FM frequencies.

Old impulse from when the air waves were less cluttered, when there was less "variety".

Formulated, "smart money', programing still prevails. Boredom shall forever be with us.

This 'christian' talk radio station had this schtick. Authors selling their books about the APOCALYPTIC disaster waiting for the planet at Y2K, and then commercials about buying 6 months of survival rations. Smart money programming.

This 'human comedy' got my attention, and casual listening to nourish my inner cynic.

........

It was this 'christian' talk radio station that was discussing the Sudan situation .....

YEARS AGO.

Any casual feeder on American news media "could' have known about this mass displacement of group A by group B. Assigning a 'value' and 'label' to the ethnicity and professed religion 'could' be 'local color' or
proof of whatever belief one could imagine. Please supply your own detail, your own devil.

The missionary and christian World/African aide agencies were not shy about sharing. It may have been that the pontificators, and politically correct were too busy elsewhere to 'listen'.

More turmoil and ethic strife in Africa.
Sadly not as newsworthy, or emotionally invigorating as the color of metal in our pop stars' belly button piercings.



4too
 
15 years ago genocides were being commited not 50 miles from where I'm sitting right now (in the middle of Europe) and nobody did jack shit, why should they now...
 
So what excuse do the Europeans have?
Click to expand...

Our leaders are assholes too. As you said, there really isn't any economic incentive to intervene, and there isn't much popular pressure, so why should the politicians care.
 
There is a real crisis in Sudan. There is no crisis in Iraq anymore. Sure there is still problems in Iraq, but we need to start pulling out troops out, since considering the amount of troops we have there it seems more like we are occupying the country rather than helping it.
 
Europeans won't act without UN backed. We dont just invade a country you see. ;)

All kidding aside, the UN are full of spineless cowards who quite honnestly don't quite care about a backward patch o' land, the chances of seeing an intervention soon are rather slim.

Before you go blame europeans, blame the UN, blame the world. Guess all our leaders are spineless cowards, who won't act without having some kind of gain. The human race at its best.
 
PhoenixRising said:
There is a real crisis in Sudan. There is no crisis in Iraq anymore. Sure there is still problems in Iraq, but we need to start pulling out troops out, since considering the amount of troops we have there it seems more like we are occupying the country rather than helping it.
Click to expand...


Do you even watch the news?
 
welsh said:
I can understand why the Americans aren't involved. I could argue that the US has overcommitted itself in Afghanistan and Iraq and can't spare the troops (afterall there might be another Tsunami). Or I could argue that since the US helped broker the deal between the South and the North that ended the Civil War (so that a pipeline could run), that the US doesn't want to rock the boat. Alternatively I could argue that Bush is just an opportunist asshole who only does what big business wants him too- and there just isn't enough interest in big business in Sudan.

So what excuse do the Europeans have?
Click to expand...

I dunno. My guess would be that the total armed forces of the EU-15 are actually smaller than what the US has left after commitment in Afghanistan and Iraq, especially if you consider EU countries do have blue-helmet armed forces spread about. Our armed forces aren't that impressive, 'member?

I don't think a "you suck, we suck" is really helpful here, since both parties are equally uncaring about the issue. Politics? I dunno, doesn't solve the problem, though
 
Kharn said:
especially if you consider EU countries do have blue-helmet armed forces spread about. Our armed forces aren't that impressive, 'member?
Click to expand...

Uhh, those are U.N. if I remember correctly...
Also, they are completely f****** useless if you ask me...
 
DirtyDreamDesigner said:
Uhh, those are U.N. if I remember correctly...
Click to expand...

yeah, 'cause the UN has *magic money*. The member-states don't have to fund their armies to work on international peace projects for the UN because the UN can do it all with its *magic powers*

Jebus H. Christ.
 
Aren't the biggest Blue Helmet contributors non-European? I think India, for instance, provides the most.
 
Bradylama said:
Aren't the biggest Blue Helmet contributors non-European? I think India, for instance, provides the most.
Click to expand...

I'd say that's accurate. Biggest single contributor, anyway.
 
PhoenixRising said:
it seems more like we are occupying the country rather than helping it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and we don't want anyone to get funny ideas, do we?
 
Darfur is the most recent proof that a) international politics are driven by business interests and by business interests alone and b) people in developed countries don't give a flying fuck about suffering of others.

Why haven't USA intervened in Darfur? Well, obviously the incentive to get hold of the region's oil reserves is outweighed by the Bush regime's inability to come up with an excuse to yet again stomp on relations with its foreign allies and the UN charter. For Iraq they could fabricate semi-believable evidence of terrorist connections and existence of WMDs, but nothing of such is viable for Sudan. As for the United Nations, they would neve back such an invasion. Remember that UN is designed to serve only economic interests of world's most powerful states. When those interests clash or are non-existent, the UN is completely paralysed. This was proven many times over in the 20th century and to expect decisive action from the UN now is incredibly naive.

Europe? The only difference between USA and Europe is that the latter have a greater abdunance of hypocrisy, displayed in the way they claim an even more elevated moral high ground than Americans in foreign issues. In truth, Europeans tend to be much more unscrupulous and ruthless when dealing with situations abroad, and their mixture of laughable inefficiency and utter insensitivity in face of suffering of others is both legendary and sickening. To anticipate any sort of fruitful initiative from Europeans in regard to Darfur genocide is ludicrous; at best they make a lukewarm attempt at condemnation, followed by a proverbial accusation of imperialism directed at Americans, while at the same time stripping Darfur victims' corpses of valuables.
 
UN Peacekeeping forces are the most worthless on the face of the planet. I get so angry at their absolutely ridiculous "rules of engagement." They can't even return fire if they're be shot at...one of them has to be HIT before they can do anything. If they're in like Rwanda and they see a woman being gangraped, they can't do a thing about it. If that woman, before she was raped, was like hiding behind UN Peacekeepers and some snipers were trying to pick her off, the Blue Helmets can't do a damn thing about it. Good lord...it just really gets me.
 
Generally speaking the problem is not the "blue-helmets" rather than the rules of engagement that the blue-helmet UN forces must abide by. Remember these are peace-keeping, not peace-making forces and are usually lightly armed. It would be very easy to drag a group of Blue-helmets into a conflict by having them intervene in a rape. The rape might not have had world-wide attention, but a dozen blue-helmets killed by an angry mob, or a battle between the UN and some warlord faction would gain a lot of news.

As for the US and the oil interests- The US actually supplied covert arms to the Southern Sudanese resistance for many years through Kenya. As for the oil- that was part of a brokered cease-fire between the South and the North after many years of civil war. The reason why had much to do with the oil pipelines that ran through SPLA controlled terrritory in the South to regions of the North. Now both the North and South share the oil profits.

Which leaves Dafur on its own.

Sorry Kharn, but that the Europeans can't intervene is pretty thin. The web links above point out that it would take very few troops to make a difference in Dafur. With the ability of the Europeans to deploy troops in Congo, in Ivory Coast and in Sierra Leone. And as has been posted above, Europe has gotten involved when it's in their financial interests. Humanitarian interest? Not quite.

I think a better issue might have something to do with French interests in Sudan. Or maybe that the primary beneficiary is China and Europe wants to place nice with the Chinese these days?


Considering that the Sudanese get a lot of their money (and weapons) from China
 
I dunno. If the Europeans or the Chinese had anything to gain from non-intervention, we'd probably start giving more attention to it. (the administration, I mean)
 
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