Globe: Margaret Wente - Never again? Who are we kidding?
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Never again? Who are we kidding? Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail, Thursday, May 11, 2006
There's hardly anyone these days who doesn't want to stop the genocide in Darfur. Darfur has become the cause du jour for people who are opposed to Western (read: U.S.-led) military intervention everywhere else. George Clooney wants to help Darfur. University students want to help Darfur. Jack Layton wants to help Darfur, especially if it means we get to pull our troops out of Afghanistan to do it. "Let there be no doubt," he said in an emotional speech this week. "What we are seeing in Darfur is genocide in slow motion."
Mr. Layton wants to bring back the glory days of peacekeeping under the umbrella of the United Nations. The blue helmets will protect the innocent (if there are any left alive by then) from being raped and slaughtered, just the way they protected those 800,000 people in Rwanda. Even Roméo Dallaire now says the UN is the answer. How he can say this after his experience in Rwanda is a mystery to me. He reminds me of a brutally beaten child who believes that deep down inside, Daddy is really a good guy after all.
If sentiment were deeds and talk were action, Canada would be a hero. "Dealing with Darfur has become painfully unavoidable," declared Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, after touring a camp full of miserable refugees. Just how to deal with it, she didn't say.
Fortunately, we have Allan Rock, who rode to the rescue last week and helped forge a "peace agreement." "My instructions were to . . . tell the participants here that I was bringing a strong message from the Government of Canada," he said. And none too soon. Now that he's laid down the law, you can be assured the notoriously mendacious government of Sudan will begin to keep its word. Any day now, the militias will throw down their arms and enroll in re-employment programs for former genocidaires.
Let no one say Canada hasn't seized the moral high ground on Darfur. Even if we don't have any troops to send, we can help in other ways. We can get Mr. Rock to talk sternly to Russia and China, who are stubbornly refusing to come around. And after the militias peacefully lay down their arms, we can send our experts to help write a constitution.
Unfortunately, I doubt Sudan's Omar Hassan Bashir is too worried yet. He knows his pals will stick up for him. China gets 7 per cent of its oil from Sudan, and in turn sells it weapons to arm its militias. I wonder if George Clooney has heard about this. Maybe there's a movie in it!
Other people aren't too keen on intervention either. The Arab nations have been curiously mum about the Muslims dying in Darfur. Is it because they're the wrong kind of Muslims? Or is it because they're being slaughtered by other Muslims, instead of by Americans and Jews? The African Union isn't enthusiastic about Western meddling either. They're insulted that people think their own 7,000-man security force can't do the job -- even though it has been totally ineffectual. The Europeans, meantime, have mostly got out of the peacekeeping business. They'd rather stand back and denounce American imperialism.
And that's the problem. Like it or not, only the Americans -- or NATO troops, led by the Americans -- can stop the killing , and only by using force. The U.S. has squandered its moral capital in the world. Even so, you need fighting men with guns to stop a genocide, and the UN is institutionally incapable of the job. You'd be better off to put your trust in the Tooth Fairy.
No one knows how many people have been slaughtered in Sudan. Some say 200,000, some 400,000. No one knows how many women have been raped and how many millions turned into refugees, their land and livelihoods so ruined that there is nothing to go back to.
Oh, sure, we care. But not enough to embrace the only possible solution.
Mr. Clooney and Mr. Layton and all the rest who care so much about Darfur are right about one thing. It's immoral to stand by and do nothing. So here's what we're going to do instead. We're going to talk and talk and talk about what we're going to do, until everyone is dispossessed or dead.
There's hardly anyone these days who doesn't want to stop the genocide in Darfur. Darfur has become the cause du jour for people who are opposed to Western (read: U.S.-led) military intervention everywhere else. George Clooney wants to help Darfur. University students want to help Darfur. Jack Layton wants to help Darfur, especially if it means we get to pull our troops out of Afghanistan to do it. "Let there be no doubt," he said in an emotional speech this week. "What we are seeing in Darfur is genocide in slow motion."
Mr. Layton wants to bring back the glory days of peacekeeping under the umbrella of the United Nations. The blue helmets will protect the innocent (if there are any left alive by then) from being raped and slaughtered, just the way they protected those 800,000 people in Rwanda. Even Roméo Dallaire now says the UN is the answer. How he can say this after his experience in Rwanda is a mystery to me. He reminds me of a brutally beaten child who believes that deep down inside, Daddy is really a good guy after all.
If sentiment were deeds and talk were action, Canada would be a hero. "Dealing with Darfur has become painfully unavoidable," declared Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, after touring a camp full of miserable refugees. Just how to deal with it, she didn't say.
Fortunately, we have Allan Rock, who rode to the rescue last week and helped forge a "peace agreement." "My instructions were to . . . tell the participants here that I was bringing a strong message from the Government of Canada," he said. And none too soon. Now that he's laid down the law, you can be assured the notoriously mendacious government of Sudan will begin to keep its word. Any day now, the militias will throw down their arms and enroll in re-employment programs for former genocidaires.
Let no one say Canada hasn't seized the moral high ground on Darfur. Even if we don't have any troops to send, we can help in other ways. We can get Mr. Rock to talk sternly to Russia and China, who are stubbornly refusing to come around. And after the militias peacefully lay down their arms, we can send our experts to help write a constitution.
Unfortunately, I doubt Sudan's Omar Hassan Bashir is too worried yet. He knows his pals will stick up for him. China gets 7 per cent of its oil from Sudan, and in turn sells it weapons to arm its militias. I wonder if George Clooney has heard about this. Maybe there's a movie in it!
Other people aren't too keen on intervention either. The Arab nations have been curiously mum about the Muslims dying in Darfur. Is it because they're the wrong kind of Muslims? Or is it because they're being slaughtered by other Muslims, instead of by Americans and Jews? The African Union isn't enthusiastic about Western meddling either. They're insulted that people think their own 7,000-man security force can't do the job -- even though it has been totally ineffectual. The Europeans, meantime, have mostly got out of the peacekeeping business. They'd rather stand back and denounce American imperialism.
And that's the problem. Like it or not, only the Americans -- or NATO troops, led by the Americans -- can stop the killing , and only by using force. The U.S. has squandered its moral capital in the world. Even so, you need fighting men with guns to stop a genocide, and the UN is institutionally incapable of the job. You'd be better off to put your trust in the Tooth Fairy.
No one knows how many people have been slaughtered in Sudan. Some say 200,000, some 400,000. No one knows how many women have been raped and how many millions turned into refugees, their land and livelihoods so ruined that there is nothing to go back to.
Oh, sure, we care. But not enough to embrace the only possible solution.
Mr. Clooney and Mr. Layton and all the rest who care so much about Darfur are right about one thing. It's immoral to stand by and do nothing. So here's what we're going to do instead. We're going to talk and talk and talk about what we're going to do, until everyone is dispossessed or dead.
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