I call bullshit. I submit that defeating Khartoum would be quick and easy. And the precedent is not Iraq, but Serbia.
For three years the western powers dithered over what to do about Bosnia. Send in outnumbered UN "peacekeepers" who sat back and watched as Bosnians were massacred. Send a token jet it to allow food convoys to pass through, only to have them blockaded again. We can't intervene because we can't fight a war, we can't sort through centuries-old ethnic hatreds. Excuse after pathetic excuse. Blah blah fucking blah.
Finally President Clinton acted, and started bombing the Serbs.
The war ended in a month.
Four years later: repeat identical scenario in Kosovo. Chomskyites started screaming about imperialism in the Balkans and how all this would strengthen Milosevic....who was overthrown within a year.
The NIF regime in Khartoum do not have the military power of Hitler or the political cunning of Milosevic. They are cowards, pure and simple, murderous cowards who can kill children and rape defenceless women, but who have no ability to fight a truly determined enemy.
A NATO force that bombed the shit out of Khartoum and the oil fields would end the genocide in a week.
But only black people would benefit, so we don't do it.
(And if you insist on the Iraq parallel, the correct analogy is not 2003, when the regime had snuffed out opposition and was firmly in control, but 1991, when the regime faced two-front revolts and could have been overthrown by local elements with only token external aid. Today, Iraqi Kurdistan, the only place where this was allowed to happen, is Iraq's most peaceful and well-governed region.)
Just do for Darfur exactly what was done for Bosnia. Bosnia may not have a truly stable peace, but it is miles better off than it was 1992-95.
Again, you want the US to bomb Khartoum and the EU to pick up the pieces?
There are two Chapter 7 resolutions empowering UNMIS already, 1560 and 1709, with authorisation to deploy almost 20 thousand troops. The troops could come from anywhere.
I hasten to add that we're still busy coming up with 15000 troops for UNIFIL to cover Israel's ass in Lebanon. Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
While I don't think it would be quite as quick and easy as all that, I agree it would be well within the capabilities of the EU or the US, and could be done at minimal cost in EU or US lives. The problem is keeping the peace afterwards. Bosnia initially had sixty thousand well armed troops. We'd need far more in the much larger Darfur. Where are we going to get them? In Bosnia we also had the convenience of fairly clear ethnic boundaries courtesy of the ethnic cleansing that had preceded the intervention. That made preventing reverse ethnic cleansing easier, unlike in Kosovo where most of the Serb minority was scattered among the Albanians.
we can't sort through centuries-old ethnic hatreds.
It's not centuries old ethnic hatreds that I'm worried about but rather quite understandable hatred generated by what has happened over the past several years.
Exactly. Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
Does anybody know how many US troops are still on the Balkans? Isn't slowly becoming a rule or tradition that the brave US "bombs some stuff" and the "fucking retarded" Europeans then babysit for the next few decades? Atlantic Review - A press digest on transatlantic affairs edited by three German Fulbright Alumni
Depending on your meaning of Europe, in what way was the Balkan mess "its own"? (Example: you interpret Europe to mean the EU, and so the mess would not be in the EU but in its "back yard", a problematic concept in itself) There are subtle ways in which Powell's Pottery Barn rule applies to the EU-12 and the Balkan Wars, but is that what you're thinking about?
See also this thread for a look a who is actually busy cleaning up messes not of their own making (the US deployment in Iraq doesn't count: the pottery barn rule applies).
In any case, in the 10 years since the war in Bosnia the EU has developed its Common Foreign and Security Policy and the European Defence Agency precisely to address its failures in the Balkan wars. Some attempt has been made to learn from past mistakes, especially so that US bombing or troops is not necessary.
Who's cleaning up Israel's mess in Lebanon? Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
