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When War is Part of the Answer

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Last night at a Seder, we discussed the difficulty of accomplishing what so many on the left (as well as others of all political stripes) cry out for us to save Darfur. I share the sentiments of those who want to help the people in that troubled Sudanese province.

But, to help those people, we would have to defeat those oppressing them, the Sudanese government and the allied Janjaweed militias, the word defining those Arabic-speaking militants meaning, “a man with a gun on a horse.” In other words, they, like the Islamicist regime which supports them are armed.

Much as we would like, it doesn’t seem possible to stop these forces without some armed intervention. Would those who press the president to do something about Darfur support a military intervention similar to the one which toppled the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein? Would they complain if we left too early before helping set up a government strong enough to protect its people from militias like the janjaweed and allied terrorist organizations eager to win back their power and/or establish an Islamicist regime?

Unfortunately, we may have to go to war to help the oppressed people of Darfur. While it would be better to resolve this diplomatically, the United States, the United Nations and other nations have tried for years to negotiated a solution.

War may not be the answer here, but it could well be part of the solution.

I wonder how many of those who sport the self-righteous little bumper stickers proclaiming, “War is Not the Answer” on their car, also have one demanding that we “Save Darfur.”

Right now, as we’re trying to stabilize Iraq, we’re doing more than waging war against the terrorists seeking to undermine the elected government. The Bush Administration (and those supporting its broad policy in Iraq) never thought war in an of itself would be the “answer” to a brutal dictator who oppressed his people and defied the mandates of the United Nations. It was just the first step to ridding the world of his menace.

War was not the answer there. And it shouldn’t be the answer, but sometimes it’s an essential part of the response to tyrants such as Saddam Hussein and militant organizations like the janjaweed.

Comments

  1. In every country, some people in the world want to live off of killing, enslaving or otherwise oppressing others. Whether such people realize it or not – whether they act in the name of Islam or The Race or The Nation or Cosa Nostra or whatever – they are, in fact, evil.

    Stopping such people takes good men and women, willing to risk their lives, and a good and wealthy nation backing them up. It’s dirty and painful. The losses are tragic. Things get worse, before they get better. But I’m grateful to all the Americans who have done it, in all the wars America has fought in its history.

    It’s impossible for America to stop every evil person, or to fight all the world’s wars. Therefore, we must pick and choose. Our own interests – that is, our own defense and/or the defense of our close allies – is a reasonable and just criterion to use in the picking and choosing.

    In Saddam Hussein’s case, 12 years of U.N. resolutions had effectively voided his sovereignty; he was a proven threat both to allies like Israel, Turkey and the Gulf Arabs and to the entire international system, having attacked no less than four of his neighbors at different times; he was a proven seeker of WMD, and a proven sponsor of international terrorism, including his indirect-but-growing links to some branches of al Qaeda. Do any of those criteria apply in the case of Darfur? I suspect, only the very last one.

    As we have found in the combined cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, once we do intervene to liberate the oppressed, we have a mess on our hands – a ruined nation that takes years to secure and rebuild. Doing an additional intervention in Darfur, at this point (or anytime in 2009 or 2010) would be plain stupid. Isn’t there some other country, as morally good as America, who will look to it?

    Some lefties on this blog want to constantly tell us how wonderful and morally better the Europeans are. Why aren’t they intervening in Darfur? I mean, since they are barely in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Isn’t it their turn? If they are so morally grand?

  2. I hate the crushing tragedy in Dafur. It is the most visible open sore in fifty most desperately poor nations: Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati, Laos, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Samoa, Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, East Timor, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda, Tanzania, Vanuatu, Yemen, Zambia.

    Beyond these, there are horrible pockets of poverty and abuse in Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, India, Pakistan, China, Viet Nam, Indonesia, Egypt, Morocco, Zimbabwe, former Soviet republics, and so on.

    Obviously, we must be concerned and take steps to help alleviate the effects of famine and plague. But when a people can only be helped by liberation, it is necessary to understand that long term military occupation and martial law are a key component in the decision to “liberate.”

  3. It may very well be that some military action is necessary.

    It would be best if peace keeping forces from African nations could handle the situation, but apparently that hasn’t worked so far.

    The tragedy isn’t solely a United States responsibility. The entire world has obligations. I believe that if the United States ever does commit military forces our involvement should be limited to participation in a much larger United Nations force.

  5. The situation in Darfur is pure Jihad. If we tangle in Darfur, we’ll be tangling against forces just as determined as we find in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    This is something I tell the Democrats who think we need to intervene in Darfur… Their demand makes no sense.. if we leave Iraq before it’s time, we’ll be leaving the people of Iraq to suffer at the genocidal hands of Jihadists… only for us to go fight other genocidal Jihadists in Darfur (which is very hard to get to, is totally uncivilized)., then we’d have to go back to Iraq (only this time, the population will loathe us and I suspect we would never actually make it back into the place)

    Face it folks.. we can’t be everywhere. There is no other country capable of doing anything about Darfur.

    This is the future… failed states, infecting other failed states.. attracting Salafitst Sunnis and Khomeinist Shiites.

    Constructing the Khalifah from the bottom up, erasing the nation-state.

    The Democrats had best not win the next election.. we’ll be totally emasculated and unable to do anything about it anywhere.

  6. A number of years ago there was a group called Protest Warriors. They’d go to all the anti war rallies and walk around with signs. Their most famous one was:”Aside from ending slavery, Nazism and communism, war never accomplished anything.”
    I think that pretty much says it all.

    From my point of view, I’m sorry for the people in Darfur, but it’s not Americas’ problem, it is time for someone else to step up to the plate. Since that won’t happen, there will be many more dead, enslaved and raped Africans. But hey, it’s the muslims who are doing it, so we can’t even criticize them.

  7. Problem is people look at the war in iraq as “the war”, fact is we’ve started a much larger war against jihadis across the globe and Darfur is just another hot spot. We’re probably gonna find ourselves there sooner or later unless a future president recalls all soldiers back to U.S. soil.
    Personally I’m not against the idea of going into Sudan and clearing out the militias and any AQ there, the faster we start the faster those nations can be rebuilt and added as allies which is the only thing that’ll win this war. We might be the strongest nation in the world but we’re not strong enough to win this by ourselves and who better to help us than the people who have lost most to said jihadis

  9. “War is not the answer” is no more than a plaintive bleat. Scratch the surface and you will see that, no, these folks are not ideological pacifists but simply political opponents to the current conflict. The current war may not be anti-muslim (yet) but it is and must be anti-jihad. In lieu of US military intervention we might consider arming the victims of jihad. We know who they are quite well; Christians and animists mostly. Black africans in any case, as opposed to their oppressors of arabic extraction.

  10. That’s the thing. People say they’re “anti-war” – as if not everybody is, somehow – but in reality, they’re merely anti-American or pro-the-other-side. Classic example: the “human peace shield” activists who actually went to Baghdad and offered their bodies for the defense of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Evil!!!!!!