Conflict in Darfur, Sudan - The Mega Thread

[Edward Campbell]

Rick Salutin, the Globe and Mail’s resident loose left wing nut, is not someone I would usually quote; I think is either unbearably ill informed or trying, intentionally, to mislead Canadians because he is the last guy who doesn’t know that the Cominform and Comintern collapsed.

But, now and again, as even the village idiot must, Salutin gets it right.  Here is an excerpt from today’s offering, about the horror (right word, I guess) that is the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, formerly just Congo and, sadly for everyone who ever lived there, the Belgian Congo.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060512.wxcosalutin12/BNStory/International/home

… The DRC just doesn't qualify {for international/UN, NDP or even Hollywood celebrity attention} under what seem to be the rules for widespread sympathy and humanitarian intervention. These are:

1. There must be a genocide;

2. There must be clear victims and villains;

3 Act single-mindedly for the victims and against the villains;

4. Ignore everything else.

In fact, the DRC is almost a contradiction to these rules since Rwanda, now one of the main illustrations of the schema, actually invaded the DRC and carried out massacres there itself. (I base this on the account by New York Times reporter Howard French.)

Darfur qualifies though, and I am not being snide. It is Darfur's luck to fit the current fashion for compassion. It might help them get some help. In the DRC, people appear to know they are less favoured. "What struck me most," says Helen O'Neill, "was that these people seemed to have no expectations of being helped." Hopeless and cynical then. But not foolish, or ill-informed …

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

The point is that, as I said in  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/43032/post-379120.html#msg379120 (which the Ruxted Editors cited):

...
Many Army.ca members have opined that the primary utility of armed forces is to give the government of the day options.  To do that the armed forces must be capable of doing a certain range of tasks – decades, nearly four of them, of neglect and, occasionally, actual destruction of military capabilities have deprived the Government of Canada of many of its options.  Delaying the rebuilding of our military capabilities, even to help others to deal with a real crime against humanity, would a grave strategic error.

Darfur is bad; there will be worse.  The longer we postpone giving ourselves useful options the weaker will be our capability to respond.

Not only should we ‘sit out’ Darfur, doing anything else will impede Canada’s capability to respond to the equally bad/sad, maybe worse crises which will follow.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Edward Campbell: regarding Congo, a useful piece in Der Spiegel (English), "Spectre of Civil War Haunts Congo":
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,415642,00.html

And note the skimpy EU peacekeeping effort:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,404976,00.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

More on Congo, "U.N. releases report on Congo forces":
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1105AP_Congo_UN_Army.html

'The United Nations reported an upsurge of rapes, killings and torture by Congo's security forces and warned that U.N. peacekeepers overseeing the postwar transition in the country could end their cooperation with the police and army.

Congolese troops and police committed some 1,200 of the 1,866 rapes investigated by the United Nations between April and December, the U.N. said in a report released Wednesday. Some 800 rapes were blamed on security forces during the same period in 2004, while the overall number of investigated cases was about the same...'

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Jarnhamar]

I'd love to see Canadian soldiers, American soldiers, UN soldiers or any other professional soldiers sent to Africa.

I can't argue stats or operational tempo or administrative problems because I don't have that info. I'm sure there are a million reasons we shouldn't go there.
We don't have heavy lift capabilities.
We can't even afford ammunition to train for the missions we are currently doing.
Hurting for NCOs, combat arms needs more man power, jets need upgrades, can't eat the honey from the rations, you name it.

All I know is the dreamer out of touch with reality part of me compares the shit going on in Africa with whats going on in Afghanistan and all I can do is say wow, I wish we could do something.  If people have it hard in Afghanistan imagine how people have it in the Sudan.

Should we, say in the west, be responsible for policing, protecting, feeding the world?  Everyone is going to have their own opinion.  That out of touch part of me says yes.
Myself and I'm betting most of the soldiers I know would volunteer to go to Africa AFTER our tour to Afghanistan, back to back if need be.

The shit going on in Africa really justifies the quote (something along the lines of) one death is a tragedy, 100'000 is a statistic. And thats what we're facing isn't it? Wide scale death and suffering.

Canada's Forces is spread too thin. We can't juggle this or that. We can't afford the man power, we don't have the capability.
That isn't something new, that's been the story with the CF for how many years now?
I think the media, critics and nay Sayers really underestimate the average Canadians willingness to "do the right thing, regardless".

Going to Africa and saying the lives of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people is the right thing, regardless.

 

[tomahawk6]

The West cannot solve the problems of the world. Starvation and genocide are tough to watch, but we lack the resources to get involved in all these places. I would rather see the UN outsource peacekeeping to private military companies. Blackwater for one has already propsed this. They felt they could create a brigade size force for such missions. If they got into trouble they could call on the USAF or USN to provide air support.

 

[Kirkhill]

Tomahawk 6- do you reckon that a Blackwater Brigade could do much more than secure a refugee camp for a short period?  What would it take to create a secure enough environment to let those people go back to their previous lives in their villages?

 

[tomahawk6]

What you seem to suggest is regime change and frankly we cant go to war with every cruel regime just because they abuse their citizen's. If we did what you propose then Drafur would become a state that would require a perm military presence to safeguard. I dont see the upside for the uS, Canada or anyone else. Of course the people of Darfur are free to take up arms and try to change their situation, which is what they are doing.

 

[paracowboy]

Canada to Darfur?

can't be done.

If you look back through many of my posts, I was pushing for us to go in and kill janjaweed, provide security for Aid agencies, and remove the current Khartoum gov't. That was before my new job, and I got an in-depth look at how badly under-strength, and under-equipped, and over-tasked we are in the Arrrrmy.

I want to go. I want to go more than anything. I want to visit righteous wrath upon the killers and rapists running amok. And I want me a monkey. (Are there monkeys in the Sudan?) But, it just can't be done without a huge commitment from better equipped nations to asist. (And to get us there in the first place.)

We don't have the transport, the logistics, or the bayonets. Any troops we could scrape together would be putting a band-aid on a cancer patient.

The very best I can see is to send DART, beefed up with spare medical types (if any can be found, which isn't likely, from what I'm told on the medic side of the house), and a company of bayonets from 3 PPCLI to provide security. The docs get to do their thing, the bleeding hearts get to imagine the CF is all fuzzy and cuddly (leaving us alone to do our thing - smoke and mirrors, baby!), the current government gets to say "Look! We're doing something.", and the company or so from 3 PPCLI that's providing security get to shoot janjaweed. Something for everyone!

Of course, DART only goes for 60 days. Meanwhile we scramble and fail to fill positions for a more prolonged mission, can't transport the pers or materiel we do find, and end up showing the Canadian public just what kind of pitiful shape the military is in, thanks to their continued support of a band of criminals in Parliament during the '90s.

Some folks get helped, the medical types get real-world practice, the troops from 3 PPCLI get trigger time, some janjaweed get dead, and the current Canadian government gets to say "Told ya so!"

Of course, we end up using the lives and deaths of thousands of people to prove a point. And that is reprehensible.

Better by far to just admit the truth. We've been largely de-fanged, and they haven't grown back yet.

Yet.

 

[Kirkhill]

Sorry for giving the wrong impression Tomahawk6.

I wasn't proposing regime change, although that may be the only answer to solving all the world's ills eventually.   That, as you point out, is not a realistic solution.  My question was more on the lines of what real value would even a Brigade serve?  I can see it securing a perimeter around a restricted area as a safe haven - but that would have to be held indefinitely and ultimately we end up creating a Gaza/Cyprus situation - interminable and irreconcilable.  I can also see it working with a generally permissive population to help them stand up a working army and police force but those projects seem to be going fairly slowly in Haiti/Afghanistan/Iraq and seem to be requiring a considerably larger force.

Creating a safe haven is important, but it seems that once the haven has been created it never goes away, the problems remain and more crises pop up elsewhere requiring more safe havens requiring still more forces.

As Ruxted says: something must be done and somebody really ought to do it.  But what?

In the absence of the second coming I understand the need to keep pegging forward, dealing with one problem at a time, but that means a constant clamour of "Why them, why not us?" from those that need to be saved.

Cheers, pessimistically.

 

[Kirkhill]

paracowboy, I can understand your frustration and agree that the forces need to be rebuilt.  My point though is that there is no force capable of resolving these issues (nor will humanitarians solve the problems).

If the US were not involved in Iraq I think that Darfur would still be a stretch for them.  And if the got involved there how about the rest of Central Africa, or West Africa, or Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, the Steppes, the Caucasus, Sahara, Himalayas....  These issues have to be resolved one at a time and/or by the people involved.  If they want to wait for the West to help them it seems to me it is going to take a while before we get to the bottom of our "honey-do" jar so we can get to them.

This is not an argument for doing nothing.  This is an argument agreeing with the "long war" concept.  But this is not necessarily a war against a government or a person.  It is more akin to the war against slavery - and that has been going on for centuries.

 

[paracowboy]

My point though is that there is no force capable of resolving these issues (nor will humanitarians solve the problems).

yeah, mine too. We can't do it. Plain and simple.

Maybe someday. Not yet.

 

[tomahawk6]

If we gave the green light to the PMC's I don't doubt that they could field 10,000 troops. The UN would give the mission contract to PMC X who would then act as the prime contractor and contract with PMC's to supply battalions under the direction of PMC X. I think PMC's are well suited to humanitarian type missions. If the decision was made to go into Zim, then that would be a job for a multinational force.

 

[a_majoor]

The Blogging Tories have picked up the editorial. BZ Ruxted Editor!

http://www.bloggingtories.ca/ 12 May 06

Darfur: What can and should Canada do?
An excellent analysis in an Army.ca editorial. The conclusion: ... The Ruxted Group agrees with an Army.ca member who said, recently, ”… the primary utility of armed forces is to give the government of the day options. To do that...

 

[MarkOttawa]

Two columns in the Toronto Star, May 13:

1) The sensible: "Darfur would be a mess, just like Afghanistan: Chances of success for our troops slim" by Thomas Walkom.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1147470610837&call_pageid=970599119419

2) The silly: "For Harper, it's either Darfur or Afghanistan: But does it have to be one or the other?" by Jim Travers.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1147470610832&call_pageid=970599119419

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Long in the tooth]

It always seems to me that the folks moaning that "we must do something about Darfur!" never make the connection that it requires viable military force and ours must be rebuilt.  Most seem to live in some fantasy land where if we lament enough miracles will happen.

They're high on principles as long as someone else is pragmatic.

 

[George Wallace]

It's the McDonald's Generation.  They all figure that they just go into Mc's and get a Big Mac and leave.  Where the hamburger came from in the first place is of no concern of theirs.

 

[aesop081]

It's the McDonald's Generation.  They all figure that they just go into Mc's and get a Big Mac and leave.  Where the hamburger came from in the first place is of no concern of theirs.

Kinda like my kids and money  ;D

 

[TMM]

It's the McDonald's Generation.  They all figure that they just go into Mc's and get a Big Mac and leave.  Where the hamburger came from in the first place is of no concern of theirs.

And let's not forget what that impulse Big Mac turns into and where it ends up...

 

[Kirkhill]

I find this bizarre.  I am in agreement with Thomas Walkom.

As to Travers ..... he asks ..."is the military that weak.." that they can't do anything in Darfur?

Short answer. Yes.  And he needs to go ask his "prescient" buddy Paul why.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Kirkhill: I still want Travers et al. to explain:

1) How they are going to get Khartoum to agree to a UN force;
2) If Khartoum does not agree, how they are going to get China and Russia to forego using their vetos at the UNSC if someone proposes a Chapter VII "peacemaking" force (what MP Keith Martin and Sen Dallaire want Canada to promote);
3) How they are going to get countries with the assets (US, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, maybe Netherlands) to agree to provide the forces for an invasion of Sudan without UNSC authorization (a scenario that in other locales seems rather repellent to the Travers types); and
4) If Khartoum agrees to a UN Chapter VI "peacekeeping" force--something Khartoum might perhaps do--that would solve anything.  See: Bosnia, Croatia.

The intervention advocates simply refuse to think with any clarity.  They just spew platitudes based on emotion, while also trying to score political points.

A final thought: The US under Pres. Bush is the only major country that has been consistently pushing for effective action in Darfur.  If Canada were somehow in a position to offer forces in support of an American-supported intervention could it not be said (as Travers does of our mission in Afstan) that "Canadians are in Darfur to please Uncle Sam"?  Especially when the first Canadians are killed?

But I do not think Travers and his ilk have the brains--or intellectual honesty--to analyze anything realistically or to draw reasonable conclusions.

Mark
Ottawa