(Other) War Games (in Africa)

Now one of liberal america's pet causes at the moment is a very large country in Africa, where over the weekend African Union forces there have confirmed the government has used helicopters in a bomb attack against the village of Anka, and other bombings in the region of Wadi Korma. Annoying-as this violated the ceasefire brokered there earlier this month by the Democratic Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson. Not to mention the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) signed in Abuja, Nigeria, last May, which specifically prohibited aerial attacks by Sudanese helicopters. What country is this, you might ask? Why Sudan, and it's war-ravaged region called Darfur, where genocide is estimated to have claimed some 200,000 to 400,000 black Africans.

News to a random Crotchety Old Bastard out to unveil the moonbat strategy of SaveDafur: strengthen the AU mission already present, deploy UN peacekeepers, ensure aid to refugee camps, establish a no-fly zone. Good thing his blog has cut and past, or he'd not even get that right. The Bastard missed the DPA, has no idea that peacekeepers are specifically trained for low-level insurgency warfare just like this, thinks the refugees are killing aid-workers instead of the janaweed being guilty, and has no frakking clue that the Sudanese have real actual by-golly helicopters. Yes, because only the US military has... helicopters!! (I have posted a much calmer explanation of his specific inaccuracies on his blog, but the Bastard has comment moderation, so I likely should have saved my fingers their do-gooder efforts.) Bastard gets real amusing when he starts trying to elocute how Darfur is just like Iraq, and SaveDarfur is calling for the US to invade a soverign nation for its oil without any resulting loss of American troops. I need not waste my fingers debunking that, so I will just chuckle over a con claiming the UN is a masked costume for the US.

Bastard horrifies the likes of con-blogger "The Constitution is not a Suicide Pact" Conservative Beach Girl (and her readers, so get all the way down to the comment section). She knows the truth, of course before having to actually learn it, that "the UN is increasing an Islamic-controlled organization with collusion from willing European nations, themselves not yet Islamic-controlled but the nations nonetheless joining their international policies with those of the Islamic-controlled nations." As part of its worldwide conspiracy to wipeout Christians, the UN supposedly revoked the consultative status of the slave-advocate Christian Solidarity International NGO because "the interests of the appeasers of the perpetrators of the murders and enslavement of black Christians in Sudan far out-weigh the appeasers' interests in having the truth of Darfur told...in effect a tacit approval of the genocide, the slavery, and the wiping out of Christianity in Sudan." Of course it had nothing to do with the substative part of Sudan's complaint to the United Nations that CSI had chosen John Garang, a leader in the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, to represent them in Geneva that year. (Yes, technically John was an insurgent or a terrorist or a freedom fighter, pick your favorite term, but as long as CSI isn't actually formenting rebellion, then it's okay, right?) Lofty and noble ideals? Yes. Dumb beyond belief-that's CSI. Although somehow even a year later they were still using UN letterhead to distribute reports to the ECOSOC. As Sudan could point out, the rules were the rules, and if the CSI could let a terrorist in, then everyone would think they could bring terrorists.

American Thinker fails at a gallant attempt to explain how the genocide in Darfur is caused maybe first by liberals, or perhaps the media, but surely the United Nations, or in the end all three. James P. Whetzel's wandering braincells are cross-posted at Thoughts of a Conservative Christian, and try the straight-faced and less passionate approach to avoiding international intervention in the face of genocide. You see, even though liberals and SaveDarfur are calling for military intervention, they aren't actually calling for military intervention because they haven't really decided to be concerned about Darfur in the first place. And anyway, the media will suddenly love genocide once the first American soldier dies in a bombing from those pesky Sudanese military helicopters. Even though of course we could do as the liberals are calling for, and bomb the crap out of the Sudanese helicopters while they are still on the ground, but as the liberals aren't actually calling for military intervention, this sage advice doesn't actually exist.

You gotta love propaganda in action. American Thinker: "In times of crisis when the UN fails the world then looks to the United States to assist cleaning up the mess no other country can or will deal with, and herein is where the problem lies." No, the problem is a 2005 Rand Corporation Study that found:

"*Among those studied, two-thirds of UN nation-building operations can be counted as successful at this time, compared with half of such U.S. operations. In large part the lower U.S. success rate can be attributed to the more demanding nature of the American-led operations. But the difference also reflects the UN's greater success in institutionalizing past experience, establishing a doctrine for the conduct of such missions, and developing a cadre of trained personnel who carry over from mission to mission.
* Within its limits, UN peacekeeping is a highly efficient means of placing post-conflict societies on the path to enduring peace and democratic government, and the most efficient form of international intervention so far documented. Alternatives to the UN in this field are either vastly more expensive or considerably less capable. At present, for instance, the UN is manning 17 peacekeeping operations with more than 70,000 troops for less than the costs of one month of U.S.-led operations in Iraq."

Of the nation-building missions led by the UN studied by Rand, only the Congo remains at war, and only the Congo and Cambodia are ranked as "not free" according to the 2006 world rankings by Freedom House. The UN's successes included Namibia, El Salvador, Mozambique, eastern Slavonia, Sierra Leone. So American Thinker incorrectly insists that the only way to end genocide and start a country on the path to peace and reconciliation is to invade and conquer.

Several cons trying to stave off any possible US intervention in Darfur under the guise of the UN, have adopted the tactics of the Sudanese government by promoting the claims that UN peacekeepers will only rape the girls of Darfur, so best to just leave that to the janaweed. Pajamas Media columnist Victor Davis Hanson graces us at least with outrage over Darfur, but continues American Thinker's moans that liberals may be calling for military intervention, but those words are not actually coming out of our mouths. Victor has also not read Rand on this issue, although why be surprised, it's Pajamas Media. Victor has also not been awake for most of the US occupation of Iraq if he thinks still that "a brigade of American troops could shatter the poorly-led and poorly-trained bullies who are killing the innocent." How many brigades have we had in Baghdad over the past almost 4 years? The worn and tired con answer of shock and awe is not needed to end genocide in Darfur. Just a couple of million dollars and a few smoking helicopters.

If you desire to work to end genocide in the world today, please go to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's website or its exhibits about such modern killings and consider joining the Committee on Conscience.

Technorati Tags:
Sudan, Darfur, liberal, conservative, moonbat, United Nations, Africa, Iraq