« I agree with Bill Frist | Main | Why voting Republican is a sin »
September 09, 2004
Powell uses the G word
Powell has finally called a spade a spade: Sudan is guilty of genocide in (we hope) the official opinion of the US administration.Now the more important question: what does he plan to do about it?
Currently, there are only 400 African Union peacekeeping troops in Darfur, lightly armed, underequipped and badly trained, with a weak mandate, and with no Western logistical support.
Sending US ground troops to Sudan is out of the question for both political and practical reasons. But the same restriction does not apply to air power. NATO jets should be enforcing no-fly zones over Darfur, and bombing known janjaweed encampments and supply routes. The US and EU should be supplying both money and transportation for more African troops, preferably from Muslim countries.
Of course, the Iraq mess interferes with the far greater crisis in Sudan. The US has half its army and all its political capital tied down there; the EU has fallen into a bizarre "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mode and is actually siding with Khartoum (see Howard Dean's smackdown on that subject).
Posted by Tyrone at September 9, 2004 02:38 PM