"This African Union archive is classified, but it was shared with me by someone who believes that Americans will be stirred if they can see the consequences of their complacency."

American cannot solve all of the problems and we cannot keep dying for others freedom. It will exhaust us, our resources, and our souls (even though it is the right thing to do).

Well said Stephen. Very well said.

Wait a minute! "America's complacency"? What about the U.N.? Aren't we supposed to work as part of the U.N. when confronting these kind of horrors? Is the NYT suggesting we, dare I say it, unilaterally intervene in Darfur? Isn't that exactly the kind of thing the left hates G.W. for doing?

Of course, implicit in all of this is America's veiled, or not so veiled, racism. We would never shed American blood for dark skinned peoples! Only whites! Hard to confuse an Iraqi with a Swede, though, if you ask me...

So it goes.

Whatever happened to "never again?"

Do you really want to know?

Nothing happened to it. The problem was a misunderstanding that has never really been clarified- Americans meant "Never again will we got caught with our pants down by a war". The Europeans meant "Never again will we tear apart our continent fighting each other".

With that understood, both the US and Europeans have done a good job of keeping the pledge.... but for some reason, a lot of people think it was about genocide.

...anyone who thinks that should pay more attention. Before Darfur, there was Rawanda. Before Rawanda, there was the Balkans. Before the Balkans, there was Cambodia. At no point has the UN, the organization supposedly created to uphold the "Never again" pledge, intervened in any of those genocides.... and the reason is not that the UN is a useless, corrupt, impotent, ineffective organization. The reason is that the UN isn't in the genocide-prevention/ending business at all.

Thank you, Will, for talking about this. And I'd rather do the right thing than the easy thing.

Bush & the State department need to force a Chapter VII on the Security Counsel. Even if it doesn't fall through-- at least our president is doing something-- which is better than nothing. Maybe the US should just bypass the UN and go straight to the AU.

The only realistic way to stop this genocide is to destroy all aviation in the Sudan, both aircraft and airfields.
Can anyone imagine such action being taken by the multi-polar UN?

No. The only realistic way to stop it is to send ground troops and replace the government that is supporting the janjaweed militias that are committing the genocide.

Can anyone imagine such action being taken by anyone, even the other african nations?

I blogged this too. I think it would be pretty easy to set up and enforce a no fly zone. AU peacekeepers are ready to act if they get support.

Josh: God willing, the AU will. Condi made peacekeeping efforts in Darfur part of the money she's asking for, so at least that's something. I think that you can donate to the www.genocideinterventionfund.org