Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Darfur and the UN

Check out Nicholas Kristof's op-ed piece in the NY Times today about the world's lack of response to the situation in Darfur. As any reader of this blog knows I hate George W. Bush's foreign policies, particularly his disregard for the international community. But the Republicans do have a point when they talk about the inability of the UN to respond rapidly to international crises. Where is the response on the Sudan? What point is the UN if they cannot intervene to stop genocide? The UN was of course not designed for such actions but nonetheless if the organization is to play an importanigned for such actions but nonetheless if the organization is to play an important role in the world, it must remake itself to be able to respond quickly to stop situations such as Bosnia, Rwanda, and now Darfur.

Should the US act unilaterally in Darfur? I don't know. Even if we wanted to, we are so overextended now that it seems impossible. But I will argue that it should be the role of international powers to intervene and stop horrible situations like this from occurring. Sanctions aren't enough--what does a nation such as the Sudan care for sanctions? They do not have an oil economy or any other resource that would make the nation's elite worry about sanctions hurting their profits. Military intervention is necessary to put down these militias. In an ideal world this military intervention would contain the US, parts of Europe, and especially an especially strong presence from Arab countries. Unfortunately, the US has so damaged its relationships with the rest of the world that who will step up now to take the lead with the US on the Sudan? I have read that nations such as France and Russia have refused to even listen to the US on this because they are so angry about Iraq. This reflects poorly on those nations, but also on the US that our international standing has dropped so low as to get no respect for even humanitarian uses of our military.
has dropped so low as to get no respect for even humanitarian uses of o