March 23, 2006
Darfur Showcases a World Without AmericaAccording to anti-war website Iraq Body Count, 37,832 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the war started. In Darfur, nearly 400,000 have been killed according to the Coalition for International Justice.
And while Ted Kennedy and his ilk sowed seeds of fear by predicting there would massive waves of refugees who would represent a sudden humanitarian crisis, the number of Iraqi refugees is, of course, negligible. Contrast that to 1,200,000 Darfur refugees, according to Amnesty International.
America acted in Iraq and Afghanistan, and millions upon millions of people have been freed from murderous tyrannies. Naturally, these actions are not perfectly clean or without violence. But where America did not act, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur, for example, the blood flowed even more. The moral relativism of those who find America at the root of all evil is not only morally bankrupt, but also reveals a blatant intellectual dishonesty that refuses to acknowledge that America is the most powerful force for good in the world.
The Wall Street Journal today points this out.
Today's leading authority on Darfur is the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who prophesied a world "nasty, brutish and short."...Darfur shows, as did Bosnia and Kosovo, that the UN is a worthless organization that is hamstrung by the lowest common denominator and that without U.S. leadership and military force, the world would be a much more violent and chaotic place and many people's lives would be even more nasty, brutish and short than they are now.To his credit, Kofi Annan started shouting about the problem two years ago, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell labeled it "genocide" not long after that. The U.N.'s mighty peace-making machinery then started to roll and . . . nothing...
The Arab League--so quick to denounce Danish cartoons--has also stymied any global intervention to stop the murder of their fellow Muslims...
Amid this global abdication, Mr. Annan finally decided last month to call in the American cavalry. He visited the White House and, with media fanfare, all but begged President Bush to do something. Despite U.S. obligations in Afghanistan, Iraq and many other places, Mr. Bush responded by proposing an expanded U.N. peacekeeping force under "NATO stewardship."...
Sudan President Omar al-Beshir...threatened that "Darfur will become the graveyard for the United Nations and foreign intervention."...And rather than stand up to such threats, U.N. envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk has wilted...And he's warning against any NATO intervention without Security Council approval--as if that would be forthcoming...
One lesson of Darfur is that there really are limits to American power, and in its absence the world's savages have freer reign.
Posted by Jonathan R. on March 23, 2006 11:19 AM
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Comments
So, are you going to be the GOP member who finally admits that Iraq is in a civil war? Since you compared it to Rwanda, Sudan, and Yugoslavia all of whom were incivil war when the deaths you allude to took place it looks as though you are.
And on the topic of blaming the UN, maybe your research would be better directed toward the process through which the UN has to go--e.g. through the White House--in order to get things done.
Also, a NATO force controlled the Bosnia crisis, and was promised and not delivered to Rwanda.
Then there's the hypocrisy of your whole statement here. If we are doing what we are in Iraq and Afghanistan out of the kindness of our hearts, then why did we let half-a-million people die in the Sudan? It is afterall controlled by Muslim extremests and was the former base of Osama been Forgotten, and we don't wait for the UN--the impending civil war in Iraq shows that.
Posted by: R. Nicolas at March 26, 2006 11:40 AM
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