May 13 - Another great read I came across at Newsbeat1: Stephen Taylor has a fascinating look at "Google Trends" and has an interesting tidbit for those of us for whom Darfur was of deep concern long before it became a popular issue:
On first glance, it appears that the Sudanese region of Darfur is within the mindset of a greater number of Canadians than Afghanistan. [Stephen has a really cool chart here.]I'm a normal person so I just naturally seize upon something that piques my interest! Evidently, Darfur, which wasn't very important when the Liberals were in power, is suddenly a Subject of Great Interest in this nation's capital. True, the Liberals did approach the Sudan government about sending a modest force to stave off a confidence motion in the Canadian Parliament but the Sudanese said No without the thanks and it all kind of fizzled. But now, after years of killing off the Canadian Forces by monetary starvation, the Liberals and the NDP are calling upon the current government to send troops to Darfur.However, on closer inspection, it appears that Darfur is really only being researched in Ottawa rather than by the rest of the country. Certainly others in Canada are interested in Darfur, however, in reference to Canadians that search for information on Afghanistan; those that search for Darfur are in Ottawa.
It's kind of funny in a sick, twisted way: they are inadvertantly heeding Usama bin Laden's call for the muhajadeen to go to Sudan but in order to do that they have to abandon their committment to stabilize Afghanistan, a country that once sheltered bin Laden and advanced his aspiration to restore the caliphate until al Qaeda dared attacked the USA on our own home soil and he fled because we smote them. Now they want to send troops to Sudan, another country that once sheltered bin Laden and advanced his aspiration to restore the caliphate until al Qaeda dared attack the USA on home soil (also known as embassies) and we smote them so they ejected bin Laden and he went to Afghanistan.
I need to find those who declared that irony was dead and beat the crap out of 'em.
I wrote the above before I noted a link to a column (again from Newsbeat1) by Jim Travers in today's Toronto Star that stops just short by a millimeter of urging that the Canadian military leave Afghanistan and go to Darfur but reminds us that Canada is only in Afghanistan as a concession to the USA - evidently the vicious reign of the Taliban didn't offend Canadian values - and even though he acknowledges that the state of the military is one Harper inherited, not created, he fails to be consistent and give proper consideration to the fact that the committment to Afghanistan in general and the Kandahar mission in particular were also inherited and should be honoured.
The best part lies in his desperate need to find some way to conclude the column. I do sympathize; its often easier to begin a piece than to end it, but I mean really, was this the best he could come up with?
Still, the continuum between past, present and future is serendipitous. In the first decade of a new century, peacekeeping is subordinate to peacemaking, failing states compete with newsreel victims for scarce resources and even the most dubious policies are justified by the search for the holy grail of security."The holy grail of security." Isn't he clever? He's oviously channeling the Da Vinci Code, but I wonder if he's familiar with another Holy Grail tradition and, no, I'm not referring to Monty Python but to something slightly more appropriate to military matters: Wagner's Parsifal and the Holy Spear which some scholars believe to be the relic which is referred to as the Holy Grail (and which, interestingly, may actually have belonged to Charlemagne rather than a Roman soldier, and the former attribution has a definitive context which I find quite appealing.)In trying to balance those forces, Harper is gambling that Afghanistan won't come to haunt his government and that Darfur won't redefine this nation as one that no longer cares.
Serendipity is a great word. It's all about accidental but pleasant discoveries and has nothing to do with inattention to historical events. The "continuum" - a great, Star Trek: the Next Generation word - is far from serendipitous when rooted in blood and death, or maybe Travers forgot the famine in Ethiopia which was neither the first or the last of "newsreel victims for scarce resources" and for whom the world - well, actually, those with European traditions - rallied to save. It appears he also missed that little incident in 1993 when some say peacekeeping without peacemaking died along with 18 U.S. Marines although others say it died in 1983 and no matter how you look at it, all the noted events, according to my calandar, were in the last century. (This century, as most of us realize, also opened with a bang and it too was unpleasant.)
As do all good liberals, as Ann Coulter has said, he only wants the military to engage in wars which it cannot win. I'm not sure it's intentionally defeatist, but there it is. There will be no adjacent land base from which to deploy or supply troops so any intervention there will need air power, and, for those who have a memory, being denied a northern base from from which to launch an assault hurt us when we invaded Iraq so imagine the difficulty of having no land base.
Don't look at us. I think we may be busier than many realize, and I've got my wonders about the real circumstances behind recent events in Somalia (mums the word) and besides, I think our guys should be allowed to finish their jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan and, you know, go home to their families and loved ones and that's not even taking into account possible action in Iran. Certainly an intervention in Darfur is in keeping with everyone's values but the U.N., which until quite recently was pronounced to be the only legitimate authority under "international law" to wage war, seems disinclined to sanction military force to end the not-genocide so I fear that Darfur will be like the weather: everyone will talk about it, but no one will do anything about it.
And who's fault will that be? I know, it will be all our fault. Everything is our fault. Certainly we can't blame Canada and other value-laden countries who were busily dismantling their militaries to meet the entitlement demands of their populations and felt secure in doing so because ... well, because the U.S. had always been willing to pick up the slack. Until Sept 11, 2001, when we were attacked and we learned where we really stood in the world.
John Robson makes this point and others in Plenty of mercy, but no muscle for Darfur (via Daimnation!) and he makes the one vital point about a reality that is neither unexpected nor pleasant:
Liberals talked about the duty to protect. But they ignored the capacity. So now the pitch to those-awful-macho-Americans in sunglasses and body armour is, we didn’t join you in Iraq but you should join us in Sudan. Well not exactly join. More let’s you and him fight.There are Americans who are desperate for world approval and then there are the rest of us, and if outsiders understood American politics they would see how far to the right John Kerry swung in '04 yet still lost and how much farther to the right Hillary is swinging now yet her poll numbers are poor. Maybe then they would begin to realize how angry we are and, if they think it through, they'd suddenly realize that we're taking Mom's advice and ignoring the people who bug us. That's why we can have our silliness with American Idol, attend NASCAR races, keep our guns clean and our ammo close by, and produce wonderful moves like Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and do all the stuff that so offend the elites because the only thing that really matters is how we feel about ourselves, and we kind of like us.Ahem. Dear President Bush, remember all that joshing about how you lied and were a war criminal and the worst president in a century and an imbecile and stuff? Ha ha. Just kidding. Actually we share your idealism but um forgot to have an army, navy or air force so could you maybe just totally invade and occupy an oil-rich Muslim country for us a bit? If trouble erupts elsewhere, like Korea or Taiwan, and you’re overextended because you took on Darfur, well, you can count on us to rely on you. But we’ll cheer … until something goes wrong. Then we’ll denounce you as an insensitive imperialist and start muttering about Halliburton.
So the situation in Darfur is undeniably desperate - albeit only one in a frighteningly long list (be sure and look at the entries for May 5) but we're kind of busy right what with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and probable players to be named later.
But it's not hopeless: the world could still face this challenge without U.S. leadership.
I propose that France assume leadership in a Coalition of the Used-To-Be-Unwilling. They possess aircraft carriers and might even be able to use their presence in Congo and Ivory Coast from which to launch a land assault and besides, it will demonstrate French superiority. The Spanish could redeem their honour by participating and Belguim too could demonstrate that their horror for crimes against humanity is not just rhetoric.
I devoutly hope, however, that Canada doesn't trade its valued presence in Afghanistan for an adventure in Sudan for many reasons not the least of which is because, like it or not, any intervention there will be one without an exit plan
I would be heartened should there be a genuine humanitarian intervention in Darfur. It's lonely being the only guys on the block willing to take on the bullies. But I have my doubts, though, because doing such would also require taking on the Russians and Chinese and I'm not sure the French in particular are willing to abandon their playing-off-the-USA-against-Russia-and-China strategy.
But shh! don't tell anyone that Sudan has oil. I'm sick of those posters.
May 13 - I meant to go to sleep but I foolishly visited Newsbeat1 and I've spent the better part of the night (morning? whatever) reading some great stuff.
Top of the list is Michael Yon currently writing from Afghanistan. I need to put a post-it on my monitor to remind myself to complain about the "mainstream media" rather than the shortened "media" because assuredly Michael Yon is a member of that profession -- or maybe he is what they wish they were: someone that writes from heart and mind rather than studied artifice.
Just as he does always, this latest post, The Long Road Ahead, has filled me with a sense of joy, sorrow, laughter, fierce pride and all-round general choked-up-ness.
After reading it I realized I need to return to Right Wing News to re-read John's Favourite Hindu Story.
The thematic connection between the two is not restricted to dogs, though, but to the kind of steadfastness and loyalty we so often see in honourable warriors.
Now here's a thought: we should encourage the Lefties to send a peace delegation to a Hindu village in Afghanistan to explain to them why removing the Taliban was wrong.
If you followed the last link, by the way, you'll note a name that recently popped up yet again: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. I swear this guy is like an Afghan Keyser Soze.
Mar. 1 - Two news items with one striking similarity: U.N. troops in 'heavy fighting' with Congo militia and U.N.: Chadians flee to Sudan's Darfur.
The striking similarity can be dispensed with in a few words: colossal U.N. failure. The fighting in Congo ended nearly 3 years of inaction and was begun in preparation for June polls. That means they've given themselves 3 months to restore order in a section of the country that is most noted for its disorder and does nothing about the disorder in the rest of the country and, in short, it seems more like a public relations endeavour than a serious attempt to end the fighting permanently:
Thousands of Congo government soldiers and hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers battled ethnic militia fighters on Tuesday for control of an eastern town, killing some government troops, the United Nations said.I'm crossing my fingers and assuming that it is the government that is trying to raise taxes and not the U.N., but that may be naive.U.N. peacekeepers backed up by helicopter gunships and mortar fire fought alongside the national army to retake control of Tchei, 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwest of Bunia in Ituri district, where militia violence has killed 60,000 people since 1999.
[...]
Long accused of doing little to stop fighting in Congo despite peace deals that officially ended a five-year war in 2003, the U.N. has adopted a more robust approach in recent months, aiming to cut militia activity ahead of polls starting in June.
"There are quite a few Congolese soldiers wounded and a few have died," Reichen said, adding that one U.N. soldier had also been hurt though not by enemy fire.
[...]
Peacekeepers and Congolese government troops are trying to end chronic violence by a range of different local and foreign armed groups left behind after years of warfare that has killed an estimated 4 million people since 1998, mainly through war-related hunger and disease.
Ituri has seen some of the worst militia violence.
The militia involved in Tuesday's fighting was formed last year from the remnants of rival Hema and Lendu ethnic groups.
Experts say they have resisted disarmament and rejected any form of government or U.N. authority in Ituri to protect their economic interests, which include some mining activities as well as the ability to raise taxes from local civilian populations.
The fact that no U.N. peacekeepers were harmed in the fighting is not necessarily a wise thing in a conflict in which the combatants respect manly men. As we Americans have learned to our sorrow, discretion can be confused with appearing weak and no one respects an armed force that seems obsessively fearful of casualties; perceptions as those serve to embolden the enemy, which for some reason doesn't respect those who appear to run away because of or in order to avoid their own bloodshed. (It's not a far stretch to believe that the insurgency in Iraq sustains itself by drawing on the experience of past U.S. withdrawals once blood was shed. We -- or rather the members of our military and support personnel -- are paying for those past mistakes today.)
Furthermore, offering support while staying way behind the battle lines is bound to look cowardly as well as hypocritical. Real allies stand shoulder to shoulder literally as well as figuratively.
The second item is more alarming in that it is a new development of an already bad situation:
Fighting between soldiers and rebels in eastern Chad is sending civilians fleeing into Sudan's Darfur, site of one of the world's bloodiest conflicts over the past three years, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.Read the whole thing. The complicated tribal associations defy geographical boundaries and maybe, if the international community had any real guts, they'd shred the old boundaries and encourage countries to form on the basis of shared heritages, languages and ethnicity. (Please note the maybe. It's just a thought but it may be more workable than trying to scold the combatants into nationalist sentiments.)Human rights groups have said Chadians are also targeted by cross-border attacks by Sudanese militia. The refugees fleeing the fighting in Chad is "further evidence of the spreading insecurity that now straddles this increasingly insecure region," UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis said.
Most of the Chadians in Sudan are women and children.
Chad hosts about 300,000 refugees who fled the conflict between rebels and Sudanese government forces and militias in Darfur. Sudan has accused Chad of harboring Darfur rebels, who have tribal ties across the border, while Chad has said Sudan backs Chadian insurgents.
The article notes that the African Union passed over Sudan for rotating chair at their January meeting due to their "concerns over Darfur, Sudan's relations with Chad and its human rights record" which, as things stand, is probably the strongest measure initiated against Sudan by any group over these past few years.
In truth, I doubt the U.N. can resolve the problems of these two countries precisely because it lacks resolve (unless it comes to censuring Israel. Then they're all action.)
May 17 - From the Globe and Mail, Ottawa to comply with ban on troops in Darfur and those sent will work out of Khartoum.
Sudan has criticized the Canadian government for making the announcement they would send troops without proper consulation and both they and the African Union, which leads peacekeeping forces in Darfur, stated they didn't want European or non-African troops.
May 15 - This is disturbing on many levels: Sudan rejects Canadian military offer.
It brings a different context (or should that be contempt?) to Bill Graham's assertion "We cannot invade Sudan" and despite the temptation to ridicule Canada's Rogue Government for failing to discuss this with Khartoum's government this refusal brings to mind issues that go beyond the political crisis here:
1) If, as many assert, the Sudan government is behind Janjaweed attacks on the people of Darfur, permission by the Sudan government is irrelevant;
2) the assistance of Canada should be up to the African Union which is are organizing and conducting the peacekeeper mission in Darfur rather than the Sudan government;
3) Welcome to my world, Canada. The rapist has denied permission for you to stop the rapine - what now?
4) Shut up, Kilgour. The party from which you just scuttled is the sole reason that the Canadian Armed Forces can barely gather 100 soldiers together for even a token force, and your humanitarian pretensions at this late date are little more than opportunistic posturing.
8:35 - Despite Sudan's opposition, Canada said it would go ahead with plans to send its troops. So over Graham's objections, Canada will invade Sudan! The item also notes the opinion that it is up to the AU to get Sudan's approval of the plan.
There is also some dispute as to whether the Martin government contacted Sudan before announcing the intended aid and peacekeeper deployment, but I've had experience with Martin's spokesperson's lying in the past as well as the failure of CTV to use common sense much less do any fact-checking.
10:52 - Excellent post from Keith on the Sudan mess and Mar-toon (heh) which includes some facts about Lord General Charles Gordon and an excellent logistical reason why the cooperation of Khartoum is necessary: landing strips (as in "rarity of in Sudan.")
14:01 From today's editorial in the Washington Post Beyond Darfur:
A good example of the potential gains from pressuring Khartoum is provided by the Lord's Resistance Army, which terrorizes parts of southern Sudan and northern Uganda. Thanks to the LRA, northern Uganda has been in a state of low-level war for 18 years. Thousands of children have been kidnapped to serve as soldiers or sex slaves, and perhaps 1.6 million people have been driven from their homes. The LRA's leader, a self-styled messiah named Joseph Kony, has received arms and a safe haven from Sudan's government. In return he has attacked Sudanese civilians, acting as a proxy for the government in its long war with the southern rebels.Worth while read.[...]
The United States and its allies have sometimes viewed Sudan's various conflicts as separate issues ... But the truth is that all these conflicts reflect the same challenge: The willingness of Sudan's government to sponsor atrocities. It will take a common effort from the United States, Europe, Russia and (most awkwardly) China to pressure the Sudanese regime into changing its ways. But the diplomatic effort is worthwhile: The stakes are bigger even than the awful genocide in Darfur.
May 12 - Another bit of retro-posting, still relevant even though attempts to aid Darfur have been sideswiped by the government in Khartoum.
PM pledges $170 million aid package to Darfur including airlift capability, humanitarian aid, diplomatic support and up to 100 military personnel to train local forces.
May 8 - People who think bloggers are wannabe journalists might stop and try to name journalists who link to and get feedback from other journalists to the extent that we do!
A case in point: news that Canada is sending her military to Darfur. I was focused on this bit from the CBC report which seemed to be talking about the mission:
"This is a complex and relatively dangerous environment," Gen. Rick Hillier told CBC News.Relative to what? Iraq? Afghanistan? Kosovo? Halifax? Call me too quick to criticize, but I think the environment in Darfur is much more dangerous for unarmed villagers than armed (at least I hope they'll be armed) soldiers.
So I missed the dumber part of the dumb statement, but fortunately Kate didn't.
The dumber statement (from the same CBC report) is highlighted:
The minister wants military intervention to be only one part of an overall plan for the northeastern African country.I have no idea what that means, unless a newly legislated piece of international law states that if the U.N. says it's okay to go into a country uninvited then it isn't an invasion. Or they are going to Darfur but won't actually go in to Darfur? Or, significantly, has someone decided that Darfur is no longer considered part of Sudan?"We cannot invade Sudan. It requires United Nations action ... it requires political as well as military and aid matters," Graham told CBC.
One of the unacknowledged downsides of sending Canadian peacekeepers to Cyprus is that Greek Cypriots were unable to take back the sections of that island which the Turks had seized. The Turkish invasion was thus successful entirely due to the intervention of the U.N., which is why the U.N.-crafted peace accord was rejected by the Greek section of the island last year.
According to a report late last night, Canadian officials are finalizing plans to send all of 150 military personnel to "war-torn Sudan."
Now it's "war-torn." Only a few days ago it was a "conflict, stemming from the fallout of a peace deal to end the country's decades-old civil war" (I've counted several failed peace deals between Sudan and Darfur, but the CBC is probably alluding to the one of two years ago although it might be the one of a few months ago.) (Wikipedia has a reasonably good history of the conflict.)
The CBC report from last night says the Canadians also plan to donate some "used military equipment" to ... wait, it doesn't say to whom they will donate that equipment, but I'm guessing it will be to AU forces, not the Darfur rebels.
Then there is this:
Canada has also already promised 31 soldiers to act as advisers to an African Union mission in Addis Ababa, the capital of neighbouring Ethiopia.So why the sudden realization of Canadian international duty? The CBC doesn't pull any punches here:The additional Canadian military personnel would serve as short-term advisers, mechanics and trainers, CP reported.
The Canadian government has a new sense of urgency to deal with Sudan as it seeks the support of members of Parliament for a looming confidence vote in the Commons this month.What other blogger is most likely to be on top of this? Damian Brooks, of course, so I headed there and he's linked to an article in the Globe and Mail which calls the Darfur region blood-soaked but has more specific information than the CBC provided and fills in some vagueness:
General Rick Hillier, the chief of the defence staff, said the Canadian Forces will be ready to deploy a large contingent overseas for "significant operations" by late summer after a year of recovery and rebuilding.It is more clear from this quote that Hiller is in fact saying that the environment is dangerous to civilians, but also that he thinks 150 constitutes a "large contingent." Even applying the ten-fold rule, which would mean the equivalent of sending 1,500 US troops overseas, that is not a large contigent. Although the Globe doesn't have Graham's "We cannot invade Sudan" disclaimer, the clarification in this article is that the peacekeepers are indeed going to protect the refugees. But wait, most of them have fled into neighbouring Chad.The Darfur situation, he said, "is a complex and a relatively dangerous environment and the tragedy that is unfolding there is on a scale that is very tough to determine."
So exactly what is the mission?
Graham's next words seem to answer that question in that this is not actually a military mission but an advisory mission, and it implies that Canadian troops will indeed not set foot on Sudan soil:
Defence Minister Bill Graham said whatever the Canadian military does in Darfur, it will be in a support role to the African Union, which is in charge of the peacekeeping operation and whose member states will supply most of the ground troops.In other words, the Canadians will not be in Sudan, will be kept away from any potential danger and will safely lead from the rear.
This is not good. Leading from the rear will not win respect for Canada in the eyes of the AU soldiers or African nations but will make Canadians look timid at best and arrogant at worst -- too timid to put their own precious lives on the line but willing to arrogantly send others into danger to do the job Canadians are too good to do. And too, Canada cannot "invade" Sudan, but they can advise AU forces to do so. Canada can be so naive at times.
"We'll be looking, from a government point of view, at every way we can help the people of Darfur," Mr. Graham said. "The military is part of the solution."And then there's this bit from Hiller:
Many living in camps find the conditions better than anything they had previously known in their villages. "They have enough to eat. They have some security. They have some medical care . . . and they have some schooling, in many cases for the first time in their lives."Well golly gosh, the villagers should be thanking the Janjaweed hordes! Hiller is obviously in a perverse competition with Graham to see which can be more fatuous.
The long-term challenge, international development agencies say, will be to build a lasting peace and provide tools for the people of Darfur to become economically self-sufficient.Words like those seem to imply that not only will Sudan not share their oil wealth with the western region of the country but that someone really is contemplating the establishment of a separate Darfur nation.
Sheesh, I was only speculating when I was making fun of the CBC article, but now I am truly suspicious that the long-term plan is to either set up the refugee camps in Chad as permanent settlements (look how well that worked with the Palestinians) or partition Sudan. And let me be the first to say that "it's all about the oil."
By the way, Damian's post on this subject, which is cautiously optimistic has a most memorable phrase:
I know I should be skeptical. I know I'm just setting myself up for a fall if the Liberals continue their "walk loudly and avoid carrying sticks" policy, as one would expect them to.
Mar. 16 - According to Jan Egelund, special U.N. envoy, Darfur death toll double previous UN estimates:
Jan Egeland, the UN's under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, said that war-induced starvation and disease were killing around 10,000 in Darfur every month, with many of them dying in squalid refugee camps.What, exactly, is the numbers threshold to declaring mass murder to be genocide?Mr Egeland's latest assessment indicates that Darfur's crisis is far worse than previously thought.
Moreover, the figure of 180,000 does not include those who have died violent deaths. Sudan's Arab-dominated regime has been accused of waging a "genocidal" counter-insurgency campaign by unleashing the notorious janjaweed militia on Darfur's black African tribes.
Those who have been killed by these mounted raiders and government forces - or the equally brutal rebels styling themselves the Sudan Liberation Army - number in the tens of thousands.
We have a legal concept known as "accessory before and/or after the fact." Those who have died in refugee camps were murdered as surely as those who remained in their villages and died.
If people think I am too harsh of Canada's reduced military, it is precisely because of places like Sudan, or Haiti or even Lebanon. Peacekeeping missions with Canadian troops would be viewed far less suspiciously than American troops would be and would re-affirm Canada's role as peackeeper.
Feb. 3 - The top U.N. envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk, has urged that peace be achieved before the January 2006 African Union summit which is to be held in Khartoum (Darfur attacks horrify U.N. envoy.)
He noted something that has been fairly obvious to most people who've been following the situtation in Darfur:
Pronk said one of the most worrying points of the report was that these human rights abuses were continuing during the investigation, between November and January.He's right to be worried, because those engaged in the
I'm sorry if I seem snippy. I'm sure the U.N. envoy means well, but attacks on civilians by the Janjaweed have been widely reported for nearly a year yet the situation remains unchanged and the U.N. continues to dither, delay and argue definitions rather than look at what is being done to the (former) inhabitants of the Darfur region.
Maybe the U.N. should change it's motto to "It's Your World (Until Someone Makes you Re-Locate.")
Pronk did have some good words to say about the African Union troops dispatched to the region as truce observers and urged that more be sent, and although he stopped short of accusing the Sudanese government of complicity, he did urge them to stop making low flights over the areas because it might give the impression that they are doing reconnaissance for the Jajaweed.
Aug. 16 (Au) -- more from Australia:Amin's son plotting rebellion
File this under un-freaking-believable:
A UGANDAN army officer says a son of former Ugandan dictator IDI AMIN, based in Congo, is plotting a rebellion in his late father's home region.Brigadier Kale Kayihura, a military adviser to President Yoweri Museveni, says Taban Amin is recruiting fighters near the junction of the borders of Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
He says the overthrow of the Kampala government is a dream they keep dreaming.
His statement follows the announcement today of Idi Main's death in a Saudi hospital.
Posted by Debbye at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)
