Take Darfur as a case in point. One of them-- I think it was Senator Dodd-- went so far as to actually classify the atrocities correctly as genocide, but then he immediately followed this grotesque reality with lightweight niceties like "sanctions" being the solution. Yep, nothing coaxes murderous gangs out of their evil like a little economic hardship. This and all the other high and brave rhetoric about getting the U.N. and China involved and restoring America's "moral superiority" in the world such that Africa "wants us" to come help sounds so perfectly like the ineffectual rubbish that's being presently pitched as pop-solutions by the American Idol set.
Indeed, Green Day saw it as a grand display of activism to play some absurd John Lennon song on Idol that would rouse the masses to stand in solidarity against the carnage; well, not to actually stand, but to at least sign a statement at InstantKarma.org that says "My Name is ___, and as a citizen of the world I demand an end to the killing and mass atrocities in Darfur, Sudan," but in all caps to communicate just how strongly this online petition disapproves of such unenlightened behavior. But like Mark Steyn said somewhere regarding the U.N.'s "grave concern" about Darfur-- "That and $4.95 will get you a decaf latte. Ask the folks in Darfur what they've got to show for years of the U.N.'s "grave concerns" -- heavy on the graves, less so on the concern."
Michael Ledeen gets all of this exactly right:
And Steyn, in response to this observation, also bemoans the impotent-yet-culturally-aware inanities being proffered:On a hot sabbath, I am prompted to say that Darfur is a catastrophe that could and should be solved in an hour or so. The killers largely operate from helicopters and small fixed wing aircraft. We could destroy them all in an hour or so. But that would be "wrong," because it would violate the current hymnal.
Go tell the victims. Explain why sanctions are better, because it makes the Western politicians feel pious. Even though black Africans are being slaughtered. And while you're at it, tell the starving people of Zimbabwe why their killer and oppressor, Robert Mugabe, is left untouched by the entire outside world. Explain why St Nelson Mandela doesn't give a damn, while you're at it.
The Middle East is tough. These African horrors are relatively easy to fix. But nobody does a damn thing except talk about sanctions...and then largely fail to enact and/or enforce them.
When did Western leaders become vulgar Marxists? These evils do not have economic causes and are unlikely to be defeated by economic means (remember the Iraqi sanctions?). They have political causes and can be defeated by superior fire power.
Somebody? Anybody?
Michael Ledeen's Darfur post from yesterday has stuck in my mind all day. It's one of the saddest things I've read on this site, and it's entirely correct: the killers largely operate from helicopters and small fixed wing aircraft. We could destroy them all in an hour or so. But that would be "wrong," because it would violate the current hymnal.
Go tell the victims. Explain why sanctions are better, because it makes the Western politicians feel pious. Recently I interviewed Don Cheadle, who starred in that marvelous film Hotel Rwanda a year or two back. He's now written a book about Darfur. Very nice fellow. But he doesn't seem to appreciate that the big lesson of Rwanda is that the thugs understand very clearly that whenever the west starts working through the UN it sends the message: We're not serious.
Indeed, we're so unserious we're going to "solve" this problem through a process which gives mass murderers the one thing you need if you want to kill hundreds of thousands of people - time.
So Cheadle's book proposes all kinds of things you the citizen can do for Darfur - write your Congressman, send a letter to the local paper, etc. There's a lot of it about. A week or two back, the following caught my eye:
On Sunday, April 29, Salt Lake Saves Darfur invites the greater Salt Lake community of compassion to join with us as we honor the fallen and suffering Darfuris in a day of films, discussion and dance with a Sudanese dance troupe.
Very nice. But wouldn't it make more sense to try the Ledeen solution and save the Sudanese dance troupe for the post-victory party? "Salt Lake Saves Darfur" looks like doing wonders for "the greater Salt Lake community of compassion" but rather less for the people of Darfur. There is a grotesque narcissism in the determination of the Save Darfur campaign to embrace every strategy except the one that would actually save Darfur while there's anyone still left to save. The reality seems to be that these groups prefer to go the ineffectual dance-troupe route because it makes them - the "community of compassion" - the focus of things.
In any event, I'm still curious as to how exactly it's so easily assumed to be an unequivocally good and self-evident moral imperative for the U.S. to "get involved" in Darfur when to do so elsewhere is breathlessly decried as "imperialism" and "blood for oil" and whatnot. Why, for example, is Christopher Hitchens shouted down as a neocon for making a moral argument for intervention in Iraq when to make the same argument in favor of the Darfuris is de rigeur?
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