Too bad we don't do Regime Change for Humanitarian Reasons

[mburbank]

This has been going on for a very long time, at this accelerated pace for over a year now. Why was there never any push to install democracy here? I'm not saying we coould have, or that we wouldn't have made as much of a mess here as we have in Iraq, but doesn't a situation like this developing along side the same timeline as Iraq pretty much question our whole liberation theology?





UN and US warn that huge toll in Darfur crisis is now inevitable


GENEVA (AFP) - A humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions is now inevitable in western Sudan's Darfur region and up to one million people could die if aid cannot be delivered there swiftly, international officials warned.

"We estimate right now if we get relief in, we'll lose a third of a million people, and if we don't the death rates could be dramatically higher, approaching a million people," US Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Andrew Natsios predicted after a high-level UN aid meeting.

More than one million African civilians have been forced to flee their homes because of an onslaught by government-backed Arab militia and Sudanese troops in Darfur over the past year, and atrocities are continuing, the United Nations said.

The United States, European Union , France and the UN warned Khartoum that it must put a stop to atrocities by militia in the strife-torn region, and iron out "severe restrictions" which are still hampering aid deliveries.

Nearly half of the victims are in the westernmost part of Darfur, where aid agencies are struggling to provide help before the impending rainy season.

"This is also the region where the Janjaweed militia is at its strongest and in spite of the ceasefire agreement... the internally displaced report that they are seeing more atrocities, more rape, more pillage, more murder," said UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland.

Another 700,000 to 800,000 more people in Darfur are likely to run out of what they need to survive within months, the UN added.

Some 150,000 Sudanese refugees have fled across the border to Chad, 50,000 more than previously estimated.

"We admit we are late. Constraints have been so great, some agencies have been so slow, some donors have been so slow, the government restrictions have been so many," Egeland said.

"And the Janjaweed militia have been so harsh on the populations that we will have a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions even in the best of circumstances," he warned.

The UN said it faced a funding gap of about 236 million dollars for aid in the region until the end of the year.

At the meeting, the United States pledged 188 million dollars over 18 months and the European Union's Commission said it would come up with 10 million more euros, while France promised another 1.4 million euros for refugees in Chad.

Officials were adamant that the pressure was firmly on Sudan's government, amid the "most violent, mean-spirited kind of human conduct imaginable" in Darfur, said World Food Programme (WFP) chief James Morris.

Representing the European Union, Ireland's Minister for Development, Tom Kitt, said: "We must also send a strong unequivocal message to the Sudanese government that it live up to its obligations to protect its citizens and, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, disarm the militia and give access".

The meeting in Geneva brought together donors, Sudanese and Chad officials, Darfur rebel groups, the United Nations and aid agencies.

"Humanitarian aid is urgent but it is not enough. A political solution is necessary: the Sudanese government's ethnic cleansing must not stand," Kenneth Roth, head of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch Roth said here.

Six human rights monitors were due to be deployed in an area equivalent to the size of France, the UN announced at the meeting.

They will join African Union monitors who are due to oversee a frequently broken ceasefire agreed in April.

On Tuesday, one of two rebel groups -- the Justice and Equality Movement -- said 24 people had been killed in a two-day assault by government forces in the west Darfur village of Adjidji.

A UN human rights report released last month accused the Sudanese government of committing massive human rights violations in Darfur that may amount to crimes against humanity.

[GAsux]

Don't you think this is just as much the fault of the American public and people of the world as it is any nations government? How long would public opinion in this country support a President that committed troops to Sudan to save lives, particularly if it began to cost American lives?

It's easy to seel military intervention in the Middle East because it's not hard to sex it up with stories of seedy terrorists, radical fundamentalists, and the threat of some impending doom to Americans. It's much harder to convince selfish Americans that preventing genocide in a nation which has nothing to offer in return is worth it. Much like Somalia, Bosnia, and Sierra Leone.

It's sort of a double edged sword. The international community continues to ignore the civil war, famine, and disease that is decimating the entire African continent, but it's just as much the fault of people around the world with little compassion or patience to pay attention to such things.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by GAsux

Don't you think this is just as much the fault of the American public and people of the world as it is any nations government? How long would public opinion in this country support a President that committed troops to Sudan to save lives, particularly if it began to cost American lives?

It could be done, were it linked to the war on terror. To my understanding, the hired thugs who are driving these people out are predominantly Arab and Islamic, pushing out predominantly black Africans. In northern Africa, this one guy (can't recall his name at the moment) used ransom money to build a quite imposing militia there. It's no surprise that places such as this can be hot beds for Al Qaeda and terrorism in general.

If we are sincere about fighting a global war on terror, then it's places such as this that we need to be directing our attention to, not Iraq (oops...too late).

[GAsux]

No I completely agree. In fact, a strong case could be made that the "war" started in Somalia as there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that many of Adid's militia were trained and funded by future al Qeada types. It's also no secret that much of bin Ladens rhetoric in the late 90s stemmed from lessons learned in Somalia. Namely that if you kill enough Americans, the American public will lose it's resolve and no longer think it's worth the effort, hence forcing the govt's hand.

Regardless, it's bigger than the U.S. in my opinion. It's a black mark on the world in general. Virtually every industrialized nation in the world has preached some level of humanitarianism and compassion for human life, yet all fall strangely silent, especially in terms of action, with regards to the situation across Africa.

[AChimp]

I read a few articles about this a couple years ago. Africa is simply too large and too culturally diverse for anything practical to be done in a disturbingly high number of cases.

Many of these people still identify strongly with their tribal histories, and are literally programmed to hate the people who live in the neighbouring village, because after all, that's what they've done for as long as anyone can remember. There must be some reason to hate them, because if there wasn't, they wouldn't hate them right?

I've talked to a few guys from Nigeria, and that is seriously the kind of thinking that goes on for many people. Hopefully as more technology is introduced, new forms of communication will open peoples' minds more. Military and humanitarian intervention alone isn't enough to change these people; they have to do it on their own.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by AChimp

Many of these people still identify strongly with their tribal histories, and are literally programmed to hate the people who live in the neighbouring village, because after all, that's what they've done for as long as anyone can remember. There must be some reason to hate them, because if there wasn't, they wouldn't hate them right?

I've talked to a few guys from Nigeria, and that is seriously the kind of thinking that goes on for many people. Hopefully as more technology is introduced, new forms of communication will open peoples' minds more. Military and humanitarian intervention alone isn't enough to change these people; they have to do it on their own.

Right, but one step at a time. Satellite dishes that feed global news and culture would be great, but first people need to eat. A lot of these people are going to starve to death this Fall because they hiding from thu8gs instead of farming. The trees that provide the gum we use in candies and soda are being burned for fire wood, so that source of domestic income is getting exhausted for more pragmatic reasons.

Technology would be nice, breaking down bariers would be nice, but soon they'll take the Middle Eastern route and start hating us more than they hate each other. This is a condition of hunger and poverty, not necessarily "old tribal lines," or whatever. I know some Nigerians as well, but they're all upper-class and lived like royalty. They don't give a shit about which tribe hates the other, just like the lower-classes in every country often tend to believe very contrived, misinformed things.

Anyway, I guess my point was work on AIDS, work on starvation, and work basic matters of infrastructure, and guns will become less necessary. Right now, an old AK-47 means a meal and some stability for a young African male in many parts of the continent. Let's start there....

[GAsux]

Again I see the problem as being mounting a public awareness campaign to get people to care about the problems first. No one is going to offer those types of assistance as long as the world turns a blind eye to them. No government is going to take the lead in throwing billions of dollars and tons of support into Africa unless the general population represented by those governments begins to express it's outrage.

Until those events become "newsworthy" and better recognized and understoon by average citizens, governments are unlikely to provide little more than lip service.

[mburbank]

I agree with all of that, that it's harder to sell even though I agree with Kev that it's all about terrorism and the conditions that breed it. I agree the fact that no one does intervene has a lot to do with the people of america and the world, not just there leaders.

Here's what I'm saying. 1 million people are being murdered. You drive someone away from food and shelter in that climate, you know damn well you're killing them. It's genocide, there's no other desription. There are a lot of reasons why were not making a huge, military, multinational or unilateral effort to stop it. Some of them are horrible reasons, soem are practical reasons, and some are even arguable reasons.

But it being the case that we are watching genocide hppen and not trying to stop it pretty much wipes out the credability of any argument that we are in Iraq for humanitarian reasons. Sadaam Huessein was a bad guy, no doubt. He did terrible things to his own people, no doubt. But if that's why we're there, we would have been all over Africa first.

So, no WMD, no Liberation, what does that leave? The Neocons had a vision of dominating the middle east and controlling it's economy for the greater good of US hegemony. W had a sick little need to prove he's more man than daddy.