“What About Darfur? The case against intervention”. AntiWare.com. May 1, 2006. – “From a realistic point of view, there is nothing U.S. military intervention can accomplish in Sudan except to make things far worse. Sudan would soon become Iraq II, with an influx of jihadists and a nationalistic reaction against what would become, after a short time, a de facto occupation very similar to what the Iraqis have to endure. The rebel groups, aided by Sudan’s neighbors, such as Ethiopia and Eritrea, would metastasize, more weapons would pour into the region, and the probable result would be a humanitarian disaster on a much larger scale. Intervention, in short, would lead to the exact opposite of its intended result – a principle that, as a libertarian, I hold is true in economics as well as foreign policy.”
But you don’t have to be a libertarian to see the folly of interventionism in the case of Darfur, or Iraq. In the latter, it is the presence of the U.S. occupation force that empowers the rising anti-U.S. insurgency: the same principle would operate in Sudan. There is no reason to believe that we would be welcomed with open arms by the Sudanese any more than we were by the Iraqis. An initial euphoria – some of it staged – would soon be supplanted by a growing resentment, and the influx of jihadists would destabilize the entire region, requiring increased U.S. and ‘allied’ forces.
‘Saving’ Darfur would mean opening up another theater in what the neocons refer to as “World War IV.” Spreading outward from Iraq, this global conflict will pit the U.S. against a wide variety of enemies, both freelance and state-sponsored, swelling the ranks of terrorist outfits and inviting further attacks on U.S. soil. This could be construed as a “humanitarian” intervention only in the Bizarro World inhabited by our leaders, including those hailing from the entertainment industry.”
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