Monk

President Bush seems genuinely troubled by the slaughter in Darfur and has periodically suggested to Condoleezza Rice: Why can’t we just send troops in and take care of it? Each time, Ms. Rice patiently explains: You can’t invade a third Muslim country, especially one with oil. And so Mr. Bush backs off and does nothing.

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We should warn Sudan that if it provokes a war with the South, attacks camps for displaced people or invades a neighboring country, we will destroy its air force. As Roger Winter, a longtime Sudan expert, puts it: “They act when they are credibly threatened. They don’t react when we throw snow at them.”

-- Nicholas D. Kristof for The New York Times

Yeah, I'm sure the world community would be aghast to see Bush intervene to stop a genocide. Cripes, give me a break!

The genocide in Sudan may be spreading

More from the religion of peace.

I imagine we'd be hearing a lot of more if this were Jews attacking Arabs instead of Arabs attacking non-Arabs. Where is the outrage at the UN?

When the Israelis strike back after being bombed by the Palestinians and Arabs, it is the worst crime against humanity in the world. Arabs committing genocide merits scarcely more than a shrug; they even debate whether the mass slaughter is technically really a genocide.

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The Beijing Olympics this summer were supposed to be China’s coming-out party, celebrating the end of nearly two centuries of weakness, poverty and humiliation.

Instead, China’s leaders are tarnishing their own Olympiad by abetting genocide in Darfur and in effect undermining the U.N. military deployment there. The result is a growing international campaign to brand these “The Genocide Olympics.”

-- Nicholas D. Kristof for The New York Times

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NYALA, Sudan, Aug. 28 — Some of the same Arab tribes accused of massacring civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan are now unleashing their considerable firepower against one another in a battle over the spoils of war that is killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands.

... Darfur’s violence has often been characterized as government-backed Arab tribes slaughtering non-Arab tribes, but this new Arab-versus-Arab dimension seems to be a sign of the evolving complexity of the crisis. What started out four years ago in western Sudan as a rebellion and brutal counterinsurgency has cracked wide open into a fluid, chaotic, confusing free-for-all with dozens of armed groups, a spike in banditry and chronic attacks on aid workers.

-- Jeffrey Gettleman for The New York Times

I cannot help but feel that there is a certain poetic justice in this Arab-against-Arab violence. Since they seem to be so given to violence and war to solve their problems, and seeing how the West is morally disinclined to unleash its violent power in full to squelch their violence, our best bet would seem to be their turning on each other. One also sees some potential for this in the Middle East between Sunnis and Shia.

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