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Darfur peacekeeping force at risk of failing, already

iht.com — What a joke: only 9,000 soldiers! No helicopters or APCs... "Some even had to buy their own paint to turn their green helmets United Nations blue, peacekeepers here said."

Bury

yonoz 239 days ago

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19 Comments
Who Dugg It?

gbudavid, on 03/23/2008, -2/+12Wait Till Obama Guts our Military and Sends it to Darfur Like Ol'Bill did in Somalia. That ought to scare the living hell out of you...
TheHomeOffice, on 08/08/2008, -3/+13gbudavid, do you honestly think those in the antiwar crowd really care about the troops? I sure don't when they burn troops in effigy at antiwar rallies, tell me they wish I was killed when I was in Iraq.
- gbudavid, on 03/26/2008, -0/+4Nope I don't was a troop once myself
americangoy, on 03/24/2008, -6/+7Ugh- if there is one region on Earth right now where UN should be involved, it is Darfur. The Arab janjaweed militia is basically a mobile rape/murder unit, which swoops into Christian villages and then literally kills its inhabitants/rapes the women.

DUGG.
PS - I am antiwar BECAUSE I care for the troops and want them fighting a war ONLY when absolutely necessary!
- txchica, on 03/24/2008, -0/+6Dugg up because I agree with you on the Darfur comment, although I completely disagree with your antiwar stance, but hey you have every right to your opinion.
Iconoclast25, on 03/24/2008, -0/+13Apparently Darfur, like most everything the un touches, will be a complete FUBAR.
Picaroon, on 03/24/2008, -2/+11Here's my question. I see a lot of college kids with those save Darfur shirts. Yet they're invariably liberal. They aren't for the Iraq War. Why do they think that securing the Janjaweed AND taking out the Darfurian government would be easier than Iraq? Why do they think it's more important than securing Iraq was?

My personal guess is simply that they don't think.
- txchica, on 03/24/2008, -1/+9 I'm with you and don't see how you could support the liberation of one group and not the other. But then again, college kids are not very realistic, just very idealistic. Give them a few years in the real world and see if their views change with maturity. It would only be for the better.
- vault, on 03/24/2008, -0/+10The irony is if we DID go in and conduct a peacekeeping mission in Darfur, we'd be accused of exploiting their oil wealth which is what PetroChina is doing there and getting flack for.
  
  It is absolutely worth doing though, however you can't win with idealist sophomore poli sci majors and they have no money to make political donations either, so it's not worth trying to please them. In the case of Darfur though, we'd likely have the backing of the rest of the world and it would be through the UN...bit different attitude towards it than Iraq.
- kieranmaine, on 03/25/2008, -5/+3How is protecting the Darfuris the same as invading Iraq and destorying most of the country? We could protect (or help protect) the Darfuris without having to do what we did to Iraq.
  
  Why would you want to take out the government as well? If you just replace one government with another (of your choice) you may well end up with a situation like Iraq. I believe more lives be saved if you simply protected people in Darfur and then worked with the Sudanese diplomatically to get things to a point where peace keepers aren't needed.
  
  I think Iraq has shown us overnight regime change is a terrible idea and leads 100k s of needless deaths. Yes, 400k + have died in Darfur, but if people spent less time fighting over the oil reserves of the middle east and more time worrying about genocide then things like this might not happen.
  - txchica, on 03/26/2008, -0/+7How can you justify protecting the people of Darfur and then not protecting the people of Iraq? Saddam had the same systematic genocide going on with the Kurds, the rape and torture rooms, death to a dissenter and their family if they publicly disagreed with the official govt line. Did you miss all the mass grave sites we are still finding 5 years after the invasion, and these are not new grave sites, but ones predating the war. How do you justify not going into Iraq knowing what was happening to the people who weren't Baathist's?
    Life in Iraq is getting better slowly, but surely, with all the growing pains of a new nation. Down playing the strides the country has made would be disingenuous, no one said it would be easy or smooth, especially with all the external forces trying to exert pressure. But it is happening and violence is falling. Kind of similar to what happened in Germany after WWII. Look to history to see how this kind of nation building has happened before.
    - kieranmaine, on 03/26/2008, -5/+1I didn't say you shouldn't protect both sets of people did I? If we wanted to protect Iraqis we shouldn't have done what we did since the 80's : help saddamn, then destroy all the infrastructure, then sanctions, then this new debacle. Unless you think that is a good idea? I'm reading about the torture of Iraqi women at this very moment in fact. However the killing of a 500k to 1M+ Iraq's (sanctions deaths + current war deaths) doesn't sound like it will be very helpful in solving the problem.
      
      IMO we should take Iraq's history as an example of how not 'help' people and 'nation build'. As an alternative, lets start by not selling weapons and components for chemical weapons to current dictators. Lets pressure other nations to not sell weapons. Lets support populations through NGOs to have some basic living standards that might actual make them empowered enough to overthrow a brutal dictator. Lets work with the UN and other countries to get peace keeping forces into areas where genocide is taking place. Iraq has shown us sudden change is nothing but a bad thing. Gradual change means, sadly, people will endure brutal torture + executions. But at least they might be able to get on with there lives and hopefully free themselves.
      
      If you'd actual read my post you would have seen that this statement is false 'How can you justify protecting the people of Darfur and then not protecting the people of Iraq'. I said regime change Iraq style leads to masses of needless deaths.
      - txchica, on 03/27/2008, -0/+5And not having regime change leads to just as many needless deaths. I apologize for assuming you were against the protecting of the Iraqi people, however it's obvious you are against the war and that's fine, although obviously I disagree with you. Do you honestly believe that the UN is the answer? They are a bunch of bureaucrats who have a hard time making a decision to do anything. I think the fastest decision I've seen them make was to cut and run when their headquarters were bombed in Iraq. What is with that? Run when the going gets tough? Ridiculous. For heavens sake Libya is running the committee for anti-racism, does that sound like an organization that makes smart decisions? Here's a link dating back to 2005 where the UN was still unable to come to any kind of resolution to send troops to Darfur, because China buys a lot of oil from Sudan and Russia sells them arms, and both have veto power, thus a stalemate. http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/03/24/ ...
        IMHO the UN is not the answer, we only get things done when we, the US, makes it happen. I agree that with increased standards of living lives are improved, but overthrowing brutal dictators is not that easy, look at Tibet and China as an example. It doesn't matter if countries say they won't sell weapons, if a country wants something they can find it on the black market. Look at Iran's nuclear program as an example, they got their info from Pakistan's black market.
        Only time will tell if we did the right thing and I think we need to give it time. We as Americans are so impatient, we want it now and if we don't see it immediately then obviously something else must be done...... truly sad of us as a society. What's that saying? Good things come to those who wait..... only time will tell.... BTW hindsight is a wonderful thing, too bad we don't have the luxury of it when we make the decisions.
      - kieranmaine, on 04/02/2008, -0/+1I'd disagree the UN is all bad. However the current setup of the UN and security council is pretty much retarded, and should be democratized. For example, the fact that Britain holds veto power, yet has a population of only 60M, is grossly unjust for countries such as India which have a massive population yet no say over issues in the security council. I recently read a book by the British left-winger George Monbiot (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Consent-George-Monbiot ... that talks about a world parliament. Until the UN is changed to represent all countries and not just the richest, it will at times be ineffective. The US has in the past itself veto many good natured resolution. I'll shout you some examples, when I get home.
        
        However I'm perplexed at why you think the US can only make things happen. As I've said Iraq is a fine example of how not to do things. Hindsight isn't really needed either. The 80's and 90's showed what our selfish meddling and oppression of Iraq could do (500k deaths due to sanctions). History also provides us with what happens when you take over and country. The French Algeria and Russian Afghanistan both were good examples of what happens when you invade a country. The Bush administration could have looked at these as why not to invade. South America also experienced the 'make it happen' approach of the US in the last century. Nicaragua was attacked by the US (http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3& ... and http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/2842 - Both must be read to get a complete understanding) and the US supported terrorists and dictators throughout the region (Pinochet, Contra Rebels, Somoza). Horrific deaths and killings ensued. There's also the brutal destruction of Vietnam. Nothing really gained lots of lives lost. East Timor is reported to have been brutalized while the US just looked, doing nothing.
      - kieranmaine, on 04/02/2008, -0/+1Hi, I found this link to voting pattern of the US in the UN - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20 ... There's also a more detailed list here relating to Israel/middle east votes - http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/usv ...
        
        Further to your comment; Of course over throwing evil dictators is not easy. It took hundreds of years for us to gain the rights we have today. China is an interesting example. It has terrible human rights - in fact Amnesty International says it is cracking down more than ever, so as to present a harmonious front to the world during the Olympics (http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/ ... I'd say applying continual economic and diplomatic pressure would be a good start. The spread of mobile phones is also good - more stories about China get out and information can flow more freely. Tying human rights advances to business deals should also be an objective of the international community. What would your approach be?
        
        There may be a black market in many things, but time and money should not be put into stopping the illegal trade of weapons. The US has spent billions on the drugs war. Why not spend billions on creating stringent arms trading standards? Sadly, politically, politicians loath to try and address this issue. My own Member of Parliament supports the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia even though they rank up there with the most evil of dictatorships. However we shouldn't say 'there will always be a black market, lets not try and stop something that is wrong'. Changes towards improving peoples live happen slowly, but it shouldn't stop people from trying.
      - txchica, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1Hi, glad to see you come back to this. Thanks for the links, there were two links that didn't work, the 2 that were about the voting patterns. Now, to your comments, I didn't say that all the UN is bad, actually they're very good with the WFP (world food program) except during the oil for food thing in Iraq, and with UNICEF. It's the rest of it that's not very efficient, as my previous links show. I agree that it will continue to be ineffectual until a better representation is achieved. What I meant when I said it takes the US to get things done is just that it seems that the rest of the world is too worried about public opinion to initiate programs or even contemplate protecting their allies without months and years of debate, to me that's ludicrous. Some countries ex. Darfur didn't have that much time and millions died because we debated instead of acting on the genocide that was/is occurring. There's' still not enough troops there to sufficiently protect the people in Darfur. Now of course non Americans and some Americans will disagree with my take on this and that's fine, its just my opinion.
        Now, the UN is responsible for the sanctions in Iraq in the 80's and 90's and Saddam himself is responsible for the deaths due to his abuse and the misuse of the funds and foods sent in to keep the people from starving. My comment on hindsight correlates well with the examples you used (Afghanistan, Central America etc), we did what we thought best at the time, but knowing what we know now, would probably do it differently. That was my point. We've all done something in our past that we thought was a good idea at the time to now look back at it and say "What was I thinking?".
        On the China human rights situation, that's a tough one, especially as we truly don't know how bad it really is, we have an idea, but I think it's probably worse than we think. I agree that we must put stipulations on any business dealing we have with them, the problem would be in verifying that they are following up with the agreements. Military action would not be beneficial in this instance as they have a huge standing army and spend quite a bit on defense, so they wouldn't be intimidated as other countries are. Yes, I said intimidated, hey if it works and saves lives I'm all for it. So basically we'd have to attach conditions to all business dealings and trade.
        I agree that money should be put into stopping the illegal trade of anything, especially weapons, my point was that if a country wants something bad enough they will find a way to get it, like they say money talks. I think we have an obligation to improve the lives of others,whether that's showing them how to grow their own crops, teach them a trade, protect them from dictators etc... we can't necessarily stand back and say "It'll work its self out eventually and they'll get tired of getting killed and just maybe they'll overthrow that dictator"; if we have the means to instigate that change then we should. But that's just my opinion. If you want to shout anything to me you'll have to befriend me, I only accept from friends.
Ell3, on 03/24/2008, -2/+8The UN isn't interested in anything that doesn't involve lots of money. Too bad there's no oil in Darfur. If the sleazy UN "diplomats" could line their pockets with (Food for) Oil money, they'd have a huge army there. Oh well. At least the UN troops will be able to rape the women and girls, so I guess it's not a total loss for the UN.
MurphyWatson, on 03/24/2008, -4/+2Picaroon, you are a complete ***** moron. There wasn't a single god damn reason we should have invaded Iraq this decade(not any reason the mount of money we will make off oil won't cover the debt Iraq put us in). The last time Hussein did anything close to genocide was before the first Gulf War. In Darfur, right now, genocide is taking place. How the ***** could you be so ignorant to think we should be in Iraq right now, the general ***** populous over there, the one we claim to have given democracy to, they want us out.
- kieranmaine, on 03/25/2008, -3/+1Heart disease was the biggest killer in Iraq pre-war.
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Darfur peacekeeping force at risk of failing, already

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