Make Sudan an Offer It Can’t Refuse

DESPITE almost 1.5 million bombing sorties flown against Germany during the Second World War, the United States and Britain failed for lack of trying to destroy the system of transport that fed the gas chambers and crematoria. Thirty-five years later, America did not, despite its unquestioned naval supremacy, protect the Vietnamese boat people. That we and our two allies capable of projecting power, France and Britain, are now distracted and divided by the wars in the Middle East is terribly unfortunate for the people of Darfur.

The genocide there is thus an unattended stepchild left to well-meaning groups and individuals who further sap the possibility of decisive action by directing attention to delicate measures of relief and equally fragile diplomacy. Blankets are necessary, but they will not stop the razing of villages. As Sudan brazenly defies, if not the world’s will, then, its wishes, and the death toll closes upon half a million, the pity is that the people of Darfur can in fact be saved. In concert with our allies or entirely alone, we have the military potential to accomplish this.

The multinational troops in Darfur have neither the training nor the mobility to defend the population adequately. Seventy-eight countries, each with its own rules of engagement, are represented in what is less a rescue mission than a camping trip to the Tower of Babel. A possibly influential force is developing in Chad, where the European Union, soon to be supplemented by Russian helicopters, will deploy weakly to defend a line drawn across largely empty desert. But why not cross that line? Violating sovereignty is a matter of immense consequence and gravity. Then again, so is genocide. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>