A Political Rant from Me?
Even though I am a person who is politically more conservative than liberal, and I believe that nations should function as independent bodies, but still have open communications and compromise with each other, I cannot help but feel that the current atrocities occurring over the world should have compelled America, or some other nation to act. My rant here is about the Sudan. Currently in the Sudan, the Darfur conflict is an immense problem. In the western part of the Sudan, the Janjaweed, a militia group, have been committing crimes against humanity such as genocide. It has been reported that anywhere from 70,000 to 700,000. However, the world is not well informed of this conflict; it is not on the news every day. We have a daily update of the goings on in Iraq and Iran, but we do not have updates form the Sudan. This is not to say that we should stop paying attention to Iraq, not by any means. However, when there is a GENOCIDE occurring in 2006, something must be done. Finally, American has sent some peacekeeping officials over to negotiate, and I am not saying that the United States has remained idle during this massacre. However, because there isn’t any oil in the Sudan, and (I hate to say it) the Sudanese are not white, America has not acted as powerfully as it probably should have. However, I am not one to say that a mother should have to send her child off to the Sudan to be killed. Yet something must be done. GENOCIDE!
This raises the question: should the US have to police the world? The answer is no. However, the United States has asserted itself as the policeman of the world, a role that with the United Nations, unfortunately, having no real power when dealing with militant persons the strongest nation in the world must take a stand. This has been for some time America. Yet in this role the good must be taken with the bad. So the strongest nation, police force of the world must be ready to fight for human rights, even when there is no need for economic gain. I am not really criticizing America, and I do support America, and America HAS STEPPED IN TO HELP. However, there have been atrocities done prior to this, and the war in the Sudan has been raging for years. I fear that the miscue in Somalia has made America afraid to go back to Africa and fight for human rights. Yet I believe that America will do something. Maybe I am too much of a naïve idealist and I do not understand politics and I should stick to philosophy and history, but I care about politics and I felt like writing something.
Note I claim to be and have been called politically conservative, socially liberal, and economically capitalist. Note my atheism, and I fear that my history teacher may be rubbing off on me in a negative manner, evinced by this post.
This raises the question: should the US have to police the world? The answer is no. However, the United States has asserted itself as the policeman of the world, a role that with the United Nations, unfortunately, having no real power when dealing with militant persons the strongest nation in the world must take a stand. This has been for some time America. Yet in this role the good must be taken with the bad. So the strongest nation, police force of the world must be ready to fight for human rights, even when there is no need for economic gain. I am not really criticizing America, and I do support America, and America HAS STEPPED IN TO HELP. However, there have been atrocities done prior to this, and the war in the Sudan has been raging for years. I fear that the miscue in Somalia has made America afraid to go back to Africa and fight for human rights. Yet I believe that America will do something. Maybe I am too much of a naïve idealist and I do not understand politics and I should stick to philosophy and history, but I care about politics and I felt like writing something.
Note I claim to be and have been called politically conservative, socially liberal, and economically capitalist. Note my atheism, and I fear that my history teacher may be rubbing off on me in a negative manner, evinced by this post.
posted by Brian Hillman at 5:35 PM
3 Comments:
Brosius, I admire your political post and agree with you on most of this, but I'm afraid you may be a bit too optimistic in your belief that help has come in the form of a few American peacekeepers. A bill was recently passed urging further investigation of the situation, but peacekeepers have done little in the past. African Union peacekeepers were so ineffective that they couldn't even protect themselves, let alone the actual victims. Furthermore, be careful with your refrains of genocide. While you are most likely correct, many organizations, including the UN and Amnesty International, have been reluctant in labeling it genocide, as genocide is an actual legal term.
I'm not sure that a conscientious U.S. government putting a halt to slaughter of hundreds of thousands with machetes would exactly be policing the globe, either. But you are correct, we must make a distintion as to what is worth intervention and what is not, as a country and as individual citizens to the world.
To the previous anonymous post-
Yes, I agree with you almost 100 percent. It is true; they have not officially labeled it genocide. However, all evidence that has been presented such as death tolls and method of killing points toward genocide. I know I am not completely practical, which is part of the reason why I would never make a good politician. Yet thank you for commenting. For the record I tend to reject anonymous posts, and I appreciate one leaving his name; yet if the comment will further the intellectual debate, or something lucid is said, positively or negatively, as long as it is done respectfully, the comment shall be posted.
World bodies and countries rarely take action against genocide. There are political and economic barriers (lack of will, lack of military capability, lack of authority, etc) to such actions and it is unlikely that any significant action with take place in Sudan. We often feel that action should be taken, because its the right thing, because its humane, and what have you, but most of the time it doesn't work out rationally. Its difficult for the US to take action in Sudan right now because of the Iraqi situtation, and it would be difficult to justify politically because of the Katrina debacle. Americans do not have the wearwithall to fight another war or sustain another nation building effort in some dusty Arab-Muslim country. The military isnt big enough and the population too insular nowadays. If the US hadnt destroyed its military during the late 80s and 1990s, the situation might be somewhat difference, but alas, they are as they are.
People and nations have their own interests to persue, and usually those interests do not include preserving remote African ethnic groups like the Fur. States are strong but they are still very weak. I made peace with this early on. Intervention in Sudan would mean that the US or whatever power (most likely it would be an other Western country if not the US) would be expected to intervene in other cases of genocide or civil unrest in Africa. No country sincerely wants to take this burden on (and most cannot). Most countries have made the decision that stopping genocides in Africa is not "worth it" and many (China, France, Libya, Egypt, and some other states) have decided that it is more advantageous for them to continue or to maintain the status quo that enables these tragedies to occur in the first place. So while there is certianly a feeling of moral outrage at what is going on in Sudan, my tear ducts are dry. States and interantional bodies are not going to end genocides (These are natural occurances in human history, they have existed as long as mob or group mentalities have), no matter how angry some people may get. States maintain the monopoly of violence in their territories (as Weber tells us), and it is not surprising to me that they encourage these horrible occurances as the problem in Sudan today. Complaints over this issue have come to irritate me recently, mainly because of their futility and emotional nature. Rationally, there are not many solutions to ending genocide other than for the participants to be wiped out or for them to discontinue their actions on their own terms. It is easy to be mad and want ones government to stop a genocide; it is another thing entirely for a government to actually stop a genocide. That may sound callous or cold hearted, and it is not that I do not care, but that is life.
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