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The Sudan Situation...
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
So, the news was reporting on protests going on in London demanding the British government take direct action and intervene in the Sudan's civil war between the Government and the Rebels. The Rebels fighting the Government as their cause is that the Government is oppressing the Black population in favour of the Arabic population.
Well, i am not that up to speed on the sitution apart from what i have seen on the news and read on news webpages. But it got me wondering what everyone else thought? Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes are supposedly being carried out... so, Should direct action be taken to stop the fighting there?
Well, i am not that up to speed on the sitution apart from what i have seen on the news and read on news webpages. But it got me wondering what everyone else thought? Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes are supposedly being carried out... so, Should direct action be taken to stop the fighting there?
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Yes but it's not in the interests of any nation to do such a thing so more than likely nothing will be done.
Really? I doubt that. The point is its not even on the agenda. Maybe if it was we'd see whether or not there was public support for such a venture.
Even if there were "mass protests" in London saying we should pull out, the British Establishment has already shown that such displays are irrelevant to government policy. If between one and two million people - the largest protest of its kind the country has even seen - had no bearing on the Iraq War, why should it make a difference in this case?
Personally I think an African Union peacekeeping force should be in there ASAP. Having said that, theres so many fuck ups going on in Africa at present I admit that this does seem optimistic.
Maybe if our troops were not overstretched in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we hadn't utterly destroyed our international credibility in the latter catastrophe, we'd be able to legitimately intevene there and prevent further suffering and killing.
I don't condone war and I think Iraq was a complete disgrace, but what is going on in Darfur is absolutely appauling. A guy came to my uni from the Aegis trust to talk about Darfur and I don't think any other human rights situation has shocked me as much. I do think that something needs to be done in Sudan and those refugees especially need protecting as they're so vulnerable to the Jangaweed patrolling the borders of their camps and waiting for women and girls to leave for water so they can rape them.
I actually think that we need military intervention in this case (which is rare for me as I am usually staunchly anti-war), we shold pull out of Iraq because you can't expect the people to accept British and American soldiers as 'peace keepers'. Send them out to Sudan and get that shit sorted.
My comment is slightly tongue in cheek.
That said I also notice the people who cry for intervention aren't the poor bastards on the ground. i'm slightly cynical about why British soldiers should die so others can get a nice warm glow.
That's not to say that the UN shouldn't intervene and if it does that the UK shouldn't put troops in, but I'd feel a lot better if some of the arm chair interventionists could be out there.
I actually considered joing the army a year or so back, but the realization that I would very unlikely be fighting working to resolve humanitarian crisis and genuine defence of my country and instead fighting for profits and oil security put me off.
while others fire their guns in the air hopping from one foot to the other shouting "yee-haw!".
I've always said I was ambivalent about going in.
But once we're in its in our interests to win rather than cut and run. I don't think we should go into Sudan, but if we do we have to stay and finish the job...
Ditto for World War 2
Iraq and Afghanistan were the exceptions because of the American government. We just played follow the leader. Lets not forget though that the Taleban was an oppresive regime, but are things any better there now than they were before? Saddam Hussein killed and tortured thousands, now he's not in power the world is not poorer except for the fact that nobody can kee the country in control.
- An AU force - ha ha ha! You might as well send in the Sally Army
- A UN force - no, because China would block any action
- A UK/US force - no, because they would be seen as Christian aggressors and we'd make the whole thing worse
The only viable way forward is to try and put pressure on China, so they can put sanctions on Sudan, but sadly thats not going to happen any time soon.
Putting pressure on China won't work of course, we haven't got any leverage over them in fact quite the opposite these days....
Britain can't do anything due to commitments elsewhere and even if we did not have those commitments we would/could not do anything without the US involved.
Even then it would be very difficult to intervene successfully, Sudan is a massive country, Darfur is deeply landlocked etc
Iraq was never such case. But there is a case for intervention in Sudan if the UN continues to fail to take remedial action.
The problem of course is that most nations don't have the resources to attempt such thing. A couple of nations could, but one of them is busy trying to 'help' lands that have a valuable viscous liquid beneath their soil, while the other has never been very interested in peacekeeping in the first place.
At the root of it all lies the nauseating and completely unjustified Right to Veto that the big 5 nations in the UN enjoy. A lot of blood has been spilled because of this, and will continue to do so for as long as the five spoilt brats of the world have this unfair advantage over the others and have the power to stop any peace initiative or intervention that doesn't suit them.
yes that's exactly what we're doing :rolleyes: humanitarian intervention to stop a massacre is a bit different from starting illegal wars that result in one, your analogy is crap at best.
I don't think Britain can do much incidentally as we are too bogged down, however that doesn't stop france/germany/UN etc from lifting a finger does it? all that hyperbole they came out with after rwanda to imply they didn't know what was happening at the time or they would have done something, well that was clearly bollocks.
I assume that when people talk about 'putting a stop' to the situation in Darfur they mean military action, bombing of Sudan, destruction of the Sudanese military, ground forces to annihilate the militias threatening the refugee camps, and regime change.
Does that sound so different to Iraq to you?
Even if that "humanitarian intervention" means taking sides in a shooting war?