What To Do About Darfur

~ Laura

The editors of the New Republic say that the only way to stop the genocide in Darfur is with troops.

In the response to most foreign policy crises, the use of military force is properly viewed as a last resort. In the response to genocide, the use of military force is properly viewed as a first resort. 

The notion of force as a first resort defies the foundations of diplomacy and also of common sense: A willingness to use hard power abroad must not become a willingness to use it wildly. But if you are not willing to use force against genocide immediately, then you do not understand what genocide is. Genocide is not a crisis that escalates into evil. It is evil from its inception. It may change in degree if it is allowed to proceed, but it does not change in kind. It begins with the worst. Nor is its gravity to be measured quantitatively: The intention to destroy an entire group is present in the destruction of even a small number of people from that group. It makes no sense, therefore, to speak of ending genocide later.

However, they say, the war in Iraq has undermined our ability to stop the genicide by using our military. First of all, Americans have become pessimistic about our ability to do anything with our armed forces. Secondly, our troops are spent. Samantha Powers writes:

Thanks to the war in Iraq, sending a sizable U.S. force to Darfur is not an option. Units in Iraq are already on their third tours, and the crumbling Afghan peace demands ever-more resources. Moreover, sending Americans into another Islamic country is unadvisable, given the ease with which jihadis could pour across Sudan’s porous and expansive borders. Making Darfur a magnet for foreign fighters or yet another front in the global proxy war between the United States and Al Qaeda would just compound the refugees’ woes. 

Should we send our troops to Darfur?

Published by Laura

5 thoughts on “What To Do About Darfur”

  1. I’m not a TNR subscriber — what does Powers recommend? I’d trust her judgment on such matters far ahead of 90% of Congress.

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  2. She’s counting on American rallies to help focus the Bush admin on matters in darfur and on Europe to step up to the plate. Yeah, like they did in Bosnia.
    Sunday’s rally, and the anti-genocide movement it embodies, is essential. Without it, the Bush administration would reflexively focus on Iraq, Iran, and North Korea and leave Darfur to be managed by its in-house humanitarians. U.S. pressure–applied at a far higher level and in a far more sustained manner–has made a profound difference with Khartoum in the past, leading it to expel Osama bin Laden and to make essential compromises with rebels in the South. But, at this juncture, U.S. pressure is not sufficient to do the job, and other countries must be brought around. And, for that to happen, the burgeoning endangered people’s movement must spread beyond U.S. shores. 

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  3. No troops. Train up some of these feel good NGOs with small arms and let them put their money where their mouths are. Maybe we could provide air support.

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  5. Oh, heck, as long as we’re talking magic, let’s have cargo planes scatter microloans across the entire countryside, get Comcast to donate free cable for the entire country, and put a chicken in every pot.
    There ARE NO TROOPS. Even if it was a good idea to use US troops for this purpose. Which it’s not: it’s just as intractable to simple top-down applications of force as Iraq, if not more so. That’s what Iraq did, folks, whatever you thought of it. The gun of humanitarian intervention has about one bullet in it at any given time, and until the flesh you fire it into gives up the lead and allows you to reload, that’s about all there is available.

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