Redstate

I am not fully on board with your position here, but I am squarely alongside you as far as why you believe as you do. We can't just saunter into a country where we are feared as evil by those whom we would liberate, and expect them to embrace the vacuum we would create in toppling all that they have ever known from the control over their lives.

I just can't squat down and nod that them killing eachother is going to produce a lower fatality rate than if we change the way they govern and are governed.

Sigh, in the end, all I got is a despondent nod over your last sentence...the questions are no more palatable than the answers.

Proud to be: politically incorrect, straight, white, pro-life Christian, and of the opinion the spotted owl tastes just like chicken.

Certainly is something everyone would like to solve, but in all reality, I'd say it is out of the question. Where are we going to get the troops for something like that? We're barely holding on to Iraq, a country that has roughly half as many people.

If we want to keep ourselves from going the way they do, we certainly don't want to be forking out 100B a year to multiple wars over decades. Especially when we have no reason to believe violence will end once the current evil regime(s) are destroyed.

I seem to find Posner quite compelling:

The problem with humanitarian intervention is not only that the costs are usually too high, but it turns out that the benefits usually are low. There are just too many risks and imponderables when war is used to prevent atrocities rather than to defeat an enemy. Military weapons inevitably kill civilians, and smart tyrants foil smart bombs by using their own civilians as shields. Dictators understand that a war premised on humanitarianism fails if they can make the invader kill their citizens. Removing the dictator risks civil war, which is almost always worse than the original abuses. Replacing him with another dictator only puts off the atrocities until another day. Long-term occupation breeds hostility, then insurgency and violence. In comparison with this, the original ruler might not seem so bad after all.

This has just played out too many times to ignore. I think it's right on.

But with the money you save not getting into a decades long conflict, you can provide quite a bit of humanitarian aide and strategic economic incentives to try to get the people to solve it themselves.

You do what you can realistically do. Trying to force a culture change (without breaking the collective will of the people first) is pretty much an exercise in futility. Regime change without culture change is just as useless. And the military aggression used to break down the people enough to force a culture change is simply unwarranted for someone who has never attacked us.

"The Babel fish could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. Q.E.D." - HHG2TG

Thankyou for a wonderful article, but as usual, I'll focus on concrete things.

Regarding Darfur: I've been following it for more than a year, and have come to the conclusion that the only solution is men with guns who know how to use them.

Bush has done every single thing with Darfur that the international weenies and the US Democrat party wanted him to do with Iraq -- with predictable results.

Here's the dirty secret: I'm beginning to suspect that nobody (except possibly the Darfurians) really wants to solve the situation, since it has so many benefits to so many parties:
Darfur is a fundraising asset for the African Union, a wonderful debate topic for the Arab Union, a club to bash Bush with for US liberals, and a dandy way to get Bush to agree to ICC involvement. With predictable results for the folks in Darfur, who are still being sliced and diced every day.

The Non-Aligned Nations have already come out in support of the murdering government in Sudan. In Khartoum, they already have their "Death to America" signs out, and out of work Muslims lined up for demonstrations in the unlikely event of actual intervention.

The drum beat of Blood for oil is already being started in the event of military intervention by the US, and I think that the liberal groups who are so interested in having Bush intervene will be the first to howl about how inhumane US GI's are ...

Various groups have contacted me to help with publicity for Darfur intervention. In each case, I have agreed to help, if they pledge to support any US troops that wind up there. To date, I have not heard back from any of them, except for one guy.

Could we intervene there? Probably. Should we intervene there? Only if we demand an absolute pledge from all parties involved, including US liberals, Democrats and journalists to actually support any US GI that winds up there.

I do not have a problem with humanitarian military intervention; in places like Darfur, it is the only thing that will save lives. However, I have a huge problem with setting the US up to get kicked in the teeth for doing it ...

Do we stand aside and other than spending the blood and treasure to bring along selected, strategically valuable nations into Barnett’s “functioning core” just let them die.

It makes me sick to say this, but the answer is probably yes.

We're not God. We cannot solve all the problems of the world. We cannot stop all the tragedies that happen day in day out. We cannot get rid of all the dictators and terrorists and others who commit atrocities.

We should focus on helping a limited number of nations were we believe we can make a real and lasting difference.

"The greater danger is not that our hopes are to high and we fail to reach them; it is that they are to low and we do." Michaelangelo

because the compassionate part of me says-no way to we stand by while millions of people are murdered. In hindsight the Nazis and various communist regimes don't sit on my stomach well, and essentially sitting by was our method.

But I think outside of some other legitimate interest, war to stop internal conflict may not be the best solution, and I do think the one thing Kosovo (which the media doesn't cover much, but is not anywhere near stable) and I think Iraq are teaching us, is stable governments aren't created because you had a war and deposed the bad guys. So I am not convinced war for humanitarian reasons only is the best solution to this problem.

I do think a huge part of the problem is the UN itself. The UN is essentially a good ol' boys international network, that legitimizes murderous despots and dictators, it gives them voting rights and voting power. At the very least I would like to see the UN remove any power or ability to sit on any commission/council or vote on any resolution from any country that is not openly democratic (note to UN just having an election doesn't equal openly democratic, and including it in the name of your country doesn't either) or is engaged in known genocide.

I am not convinced removing their power would make them be nice or anything, but it really sickens me that the UN gives these governments legitimacy by allowing them to participate at all, so at least it is something.

I will say at this point I don't think the US can do this, even if the desire was 100% there. If the world wants something done with Darfur, they are going to have to step up to the plate and do it.

The crisis in Darfur has been ably handled by that most eclectic of institutions, the United Nations.

Why, the UN has passed Resolution 1547 establishing a UN mission in Sudan; passed Resolution 1556, which demanded that the Sudanese government disarm the Janjaweed and bring to justice those leaders who had incited and carried out human rights abuses;the Security Council passed Resolution 1564. Declaring its “grave concern” that the government of Sudan had not fully met its obligations; Resolution 1574, which passed unanimously, failed to include any specific criticism of the government of Sudan for failing to meet the demands to disarm and bring to justice the Janjaweed, which were in the Resolution 1556 and 1564, and it replaced the mild threats of sanctions in those resolutions with a vague warning.

All this was done by the UN prior to 2005.

Clearly, the UN is handling the situation in the exact manner, (as you point out in your post) in which the US was supposed to handle Iraq. No doubt, the results would have been much the same.

See The World In HinzSight!

I say we let the people who caused the instability in the first place take care of it. Whoever colonized the countries that are in such bad shape has to go in and clean things up. The US gets criticized all the time for trying to intervene internationally, but I guess people just forget the colonization that caused the problems in the first place.

~~~ www.tomutley.com

...so that they can defend themselves rather than simply await slaugther, enslavement, or starvation. Armed Eritreans outlasted Selassie's and Megnistu's regimes, armed Tutsis overthrew the Hutu genocidaires, armed (with Stingers) Afghan tribal fighters took down Soviet helicopters.

Darfuris, like the Animists and Christians in Southern Sudan before them, are doing all of the dying. Let the Janjaweed and their Sudanese enablers share the pain -- couldn't happen to nicer people.

--furious

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." -- Darth Vader

Separate your feelings of what is right from the experience.

By that I mean that it is a MORAL imperative that we do not cause more harm than good. Even in Iraq where the evidence seemed so overwhelming that Saddam just had to go, you can now see that things are still in the balance and if we slip up we might have created a worse situation for those people.

Just because it looks good, and people are dying does not mean its always right to get involved. In fact, just the opposite. IF you look hard at the track record of Western interventions in the post colonial period, the long term effects do not look good.

I do not think there is any differences in human beings but I do think there are many important differences in human cultures. Some cultures will just have to work their way up slowly out of barbarism. While others were able to do it quickly. I don't see any short cuts that work.

So my vote at this time, and in that place (Darfur) would be to not be involved.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

I really wish I had not read this fantastic piece the evening before launching for 8-days of vacation, but now that I have I've been compelled to contemplate the awful problems posed and cannot get past the feeling that the least awful solution is:

Let them die.

It destroys me on more levels than I can contemplate to say that. If offends me deeply as a Catholic, as a human - but I am left with the dread that comes from the knowledge that every, single solitary option other than digging a moat and letting them have at each other is doomed to cataclysmic, disastrous failure.

We could, and perhaps should, arm the Darfuris (as suggested by FB up-thread). But we should not even offer so much as a technician to fix any broken equipment should the weather or mal-use cause one to be necessary.

I suppose the reason I'm forced into this horrible mindset is my fear, dread really, that these folks are simply not tired of killing each other yet. Injecting our forces into such a mess is not going to make them want to kill less. To the contrary - it will give them a bigger challenge and, let's be honest, an easy target to hate. No, far from tiring their souls of the desire for further bloodshed, our presence will stock their baser instincts anew. But it will do even more than that - it will provide them with a fresh crop of foreigners upon which they can exercise their trade.

It will be, in a word, apocalyptic.

Let the leftists with their "Impeach Bush" bumper stickers and their "Save Darfur!" lawn-sign littered yet otherwise perfectly manicured lawns work out the contradictions in their own twisted minds. Ours is the burden to see the world, glorious and debased, as it is.

Involvement in Sudan would be folly of the first degree. And so we must watch as they slaughter each other.

At least until such time as they tire of burying their children.

And for what it's worth, you could extrapolate this thesis to about 80% of the globe. Why?

As much as I agree with Barnett I look across the landscape and save Britain and Australia I see no allies worth the powder it would take to blow them to Hell.

Couldn't have said it better.

-------------
"I don't know." -- Helen Thomas, when asked by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, "Are we at war, Helen?"

...But one thing I want to hear from anyone who is advocating intervention in Darfur (particularly from American liberals) is a public statement of how many Americans they are willing to see killed and wounded and how many Sudanese they are willing to see us kill.

I happen to think one of the great philosophical questions is contained in a memorable scene in the movie "The Untouchables":

<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared to do?
Ness: Anything and everything in my power.
Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they're not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead.
Ness: How do you do it then?
Malone: You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone! Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?
Ness: I have sworn to capture this man with all legal powers at my disposal and I will do so.
Malone: Well, the Lord hates a coward. Do you know what a blood oath is, Mr. Ness?
Ness: Yes.
Malone: Good, 'cause you just took one.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It would be very easy for us to lose 300+ troops in a single charter airline crash. If we have people there for any period of time we will lose some folks just to accidents and disease.

We certainly will have to kill some bad guys. Lets just assume they are same version of nutcases as the Somalian militia who, at least while the drugs last, are willing to engage in the suicidal swarm tactics we saw in Mogadishu and from the Fedyaeen Saddam in Iraq and thereafter to try to put some guerrila campaign together. So when when we cut a swath through a horde of people with an A-10 or with attack helicopters and we start getting video's back here of a couple hundred dead folks (including woman and children who were coerced into walking along with the bad guys) laying on the ground after a single nights engagement, are we up for that?

I know Streif makes his comments with full knowledge of the potential cost. Probably most of the folks in this thread also know this. That is why some people here oppose intervention. But I want to hear the Clinton's and the Dems's who advocating intervention say it out loud.

As for me. I think killing 20k or so Janjuweed and/or assorted international jihadi's is good gene pool maintenance practice. If we can depose a radical Islamic government in the process so much the better. If we get to save a 100k lives in the process that is a bonus in my mind. If that upsets other Islamic regimes, I think that is a teaching moment.

As to the cost? I don't have a clue as to what the actual cost will be to us or how many forces we will have to commit and what the impact would be on our other commitments. But I do know that if you are not willing to lose at least 2,000 American servicemen, don't go. I don't think it will cost that much (after all, Iraq has "only" cost approximately 3,000 dead so far) but a couple bad accidents (airplane crashes or big fires or explosions in barracks) and a couple lucky mortar rounds (lighting up a fuel depot say) and some over achieving snipers and IED planters and you are in the neighborhood.

Weighing costs and benefits, I would be perfectly willing to stay home and send sympathy cards and sagely recite John Adam's pronouncement about not going abroad to slay dragons etc. if that is what the folks who get paid to make these decisions decide.

What I am not willing to do is put a bunch of folks over there and have one or more bad things happen and listen to a bunch of whining about it, crying about how we should pull out. So I think we need to say up front: "What are you prepared to do?"

With Streiff are well-known to him; indeed, I've been known to be downright diagreeable. But, if you'll accept a compliment, this is an excellent entry.

Regarding Bosnia: The intervention was not within my realist viewpoint, but I do believe that it was a success and, in retrospect, likely a positive good. The last thing we need at this moment is a radicalized Bosnia/Kosovo-Moslem population, and we likely prevented the nearby E. European countries from further destabalization. The entry points to Europe, and thus the US, are simply too easy.

The points regarding the misadventure in Somalia are well made and well taken.

For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.

Strieff. I am in general agreement with your thesis. As a practical matter, we do not have the capability to effectively intervene in swuch areas as Dafur. We may develope such a capability as a result of our ongoing military development in aysmetrical warfare but such capability is still many years away. As an aside, Woodward's book has caused me to revise my oppinion of Rumsfelt as being more of Bush's Grant. Whatever he is drinking, Bush should give to the rest of his administration. Rumsfeld seems to have the best understanding of asymetrical warfare of anyone I know.