Darfur

[Andarvi]

But regardless of how people feel about Iraq, whether they are for or against it, we still invaded and went to war under a pretense of freeing the people from an unjust ruler, thus spreading freedom. We have set a precedent for ourselves now, the world didn't give us this title, we gave it to ourselves, and as a result fingers deserve to be pointed at those who made the decision to go to war in Iraq while ignoring Darfur entirely.

[Olo401]

Nobody has yet to say why Darfur is any different from Iraq.

Okay, here's the difference.

Darfur is a situation where several tribal factions in a single country are trying to kill each other off in order to take power (essentially a civil war).

Iraq is a situation where a dictator, that our country's leaders put into place, was killing his own people almost indiscriminately; and then someone else in a completely different part of the world who isn't formally associated with a country attacked us, and in response we then invaded our dictator buddy's country and claimed he collaborated in the attack on us in order to have a scapegoat.

[Demosthenes11]

Okay, here's the difference.

Darfur is a situation where several tribal factions in a single country are trying to kill each other off in order to take power (essentially a civil war).

Iraq is a situation where a dictator, that our country's leaders put into place, was killing his own people almost indiscriminately; and then someone else in a completely different part of the world who isn't formally associated with a country attacked us, and in response we then invaded our dictator buddy's country and claimed he collaborated in the attack on us in order to have a scapegoat.

The bold is completely irrelevant to the discussion. Try to look at something in a nonbiased view for once.

Basically you are saying that because Darfur is a civil war, we need to help out? Who should we support? If the person we support ends up being a brutal dictator, is it right to step in again?

Andarvi - bingo, and I think america deserves the answers of whether we should expect them to always think and act this way or if it was a woopsie

[Churchill]

Really? A soft spot for africa? More like the world doesnt really give a shit about the dark continent. Please give me an example how the world has a soft spot for Africa.

And yeah, Saddam was a bastard, but lets not go into Iraq crying we are fighting for freedom and all that bullshit because Sudan absolutely needs intervention way more so and isn't getting it at all. If anyone think that its location in Africa and lack of oil ties to the US are not factors they are lying to themselves.

President Bush has cared more about Africa probably than anyone else in US History, President wise. Unless you want to argue white guilt, nefarious undertones, etc. Regardless they get the same kind of money as Israel does.

[Churchill]

But regardless of how people feel about Iraq, whether they are for or against it, we still invaded and went to war under a pretense of freeing the people from an unjust ruler, thus spreading freedom. We have set a precedent for ourselves now, the world didn't give us this title, we gave it to ourselves, and as a result fingers deserve to be pointed at those who made the decision to go to war in Iraq while ignoring Darfur entirely.

But Darfur is a different situation. The allies of Darfur are more dangerous than the allies of Iraq.

Does anyone feel that we should have came to Darfur and not Iraq? I think by the moral obligation standpoint, then choosing Iraq was wiser. The world could act and roll over the guys in Darfur, Iraq was bound to be a harder process.

[Andarvi]

President Bush has cared more about Africa probably than anyone else in US History, President wise. Unless you want to argue white guilt, nefarious undertones, etc. Regardless they get the same kind of money as Israel does.

The fact we now give an entire continent of 47 countries the same amount of money we give to one country doesn't sound like we should be crediting Bush, or any presidents before him, with going over the top or anything. Africa is ravished by famine and epidemics and we give them the same amount as isreal? I see a problem with this.

[Demosthenes11]

Israel can show where the money is going (though I don't think they do...)

Africa is not a place you can just throw money at and expect things (rampant corruption, who do you give money to, etc). AIDS numbers are also grossly exaggerated, as the practice for a lot of areas is to list all sicknesses (including pregnancy lol) as AIDS so their area gets a lot more money. Not saying AIDS isn't an epidemic there, but yea

[Andarvi]

Money doesn't need to equate to cash, in fact given in the form of aid it would be far more useful. Malaria kills millions of Africans each year yet it easily curable with treatment, so send over more treatment. Send over more mosquito nets. Send over condoms and people to teach those in high AIDS risk areas about the importance of their use. Send over more food and supplies to areas affected by famine. Build wells in towns that the people can use for years to get water.

There are many ways that we as a country could do more without just handing over cash to potentially corrupt governments.

[Churchill]

Malaria isn't curable my friend, it is preventable. Once you get it you're pretty much fucked.

[Elvis]

The people in Darfur are murdering tens of thousands of people.
Saddam murdered over a million people.

Nobody cared because he was muslim? Kurds are less important than non-muslim blacks? What exactly is the qualification in the mind of the public for things to be so bad we need to help out.

You're measuring the atrocities and the madmen involved as if that's the criteria for any sort of intervention on our part.

We've turned a blind eye to and supported men like Saddam in the past when it served our interests. In fact we supported Saddam at one point!

We deemed Kosovo a "humanitarian effort" and described the deaths in that conflict as genocidal/evil/etc. Meanwhile, people are still debating in the US whether Darfur is a genocide (less now than before).

I'm not making a case for either, but the Kosovo conflict - as we now know - was really justified in the eyes of our government because of Serbia's refusal to subordinate itself to US-run Neo-Liberal economic reforms.

It's not about moral outrage. There is no such thing. We pick and choose our battles based on what we have to gain/etc. It's realpolitik and it's always been that way.

[BadKarma]

I honestly couldnt give less of a shit about Darfur or Africa in general

*BAWWWWWWWWWWWWW STARVING KIDS AND ORPHANS, Waahhhhhhh Racial Wars,BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW*
News: We have that here too take care of our own before we get butthurt over some people who will most likely die by age 25 anyway.


Edit: Oh and on the note of sending troops there, why waste the lives or young men and women again. It was done in Iraq and Afghanistan for oil. And more than likely in a few years in Venezuela or Iran, I see no point to involving our troops in anything if it is not self defense. I.E World War II

[Demosthenes11]

Money doesn't need to equate to cash, in fact given in the form of aid it would be far more useful. Malaria kills millions of Africans each year yet it easily curable with treatment, so send over more treatment. Send over more mosquito nets. Send over condoms and people to teach those in high AIDS risk areas about the importance of their use. Send over more food and supplies to areas affected by famine. Build wells in towns that the people can use for years to get water.

There are many ways that we as a country could do more without just handing over cash to potentially corrupt governments.

malaria is...very difficult at best to deal with. Until there is a vaccine for malaria, there really isn't much we can do to prevent it. Mosquito nets are a very minimal help, though it is a nice step. We already have thousands of people in africa with contraceptives attempting to teach about AIDS and how it is spread, and obviously supporting the use of condoms. The problem is, nobody likes big bad whitey coming in and telling them what is against their culture. The effectiveness of an outsider teaching another culture is very small; it needs to be a change that happens within their own culture, though again our teaching does help some. There's a certain parasite you can get in southeast asia only by eye-to-eye contact with a certain species of frog...over 50k people in that area have that parasite. In their culture, you treat bad eyes with that contact...in african culture, you treat AIDS by having sex with a virgin...It really has to be a change in the culture more than anything.

We send food/supplies and build wells for a lot of african areas. God I wish I could remember the figures but we really do spend a fuckton of money on africa and is surprisingly up there with how much we spend on our own citizens.

[archibaldcrane]

Nobody has yet to say why Darfur is any different from Iraq.

Because most of Saddam's atrocities occurred in the 1980's, when he was our ally. If you want to argue that we should have intervened then, that's valid. However, after he invaded Kuwait, we did do something - we clamped down on his balls, eliminated weapons of mass destruction from his country, established no-fly zones to protect the previously slaughtered Kurds in the north, and basically neutered most of Saddam's mass-kill capabilities.

Arguing, after all that, that "we should do something, it's just like Darfur" is stupid. Darfur is happening now, Iraq "happened" pre-1993. After that it was just a neutered evil dictator, not a place of mass-killing.

[Charla]

Malaria isn't curable my friend, it is preventable. Once you get it you're pretty much fucked.

Not quite. It's really both, but the one is a lot easier than the other as I understand.

[Demosthenes11]

I'd say many of the citizens of Iraq would disagree, specifically the Kurds. A lot of Saddam's casualties did happen in the iran-iraq war in the 80s, but he was truly a harsh dictator to his own citizens the entire time he was in power. It's also true that Saddam influenced a lot of the surroundings in the middle east.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong ( I think I am) but the outcome of Darfur really wouldn't change anything around it influence wise

[Andarvi]

Malaria isn't curable my friend, it is preventable. Once you get it you're pretty much fucked.

Perhaps my statement was a bit misleading. If you have full blown malaria that goes untreated there is no vaccine or cure that will save you. However, if detected early enough, you can be treated with preventative medication that prevents infection. I know this for a fact because my cousin was in the Peace Corps for two years in Africa, in the last few months of his stay he got malaria, was treated early and immediately as soon as symptoms arose, and after several weeks in the hospital was cured. He was not infected.

The problem is that he was in the hospital for a long time there, had treatment pretty much around the clock. That shit is expensive and would be tough to provide on a scale where it would make a huge difference.

[archibaldcrane]

I'd say many of the citizens of Iraq would disagree, specifically the Kurds. A lot of Saddam's casualties did happen in the iran-iraq war in the 80s, but he was truly a harsh dictator to his own citizens the entire time he was in power.

No matter how you slice it, post 1992 Iraq doesn't even touch - not with a 20-foot pole - current Darfur. I understand that you want to make this analogy work for your benefit, and if you're talking 1980's Iraq sure, but the pre-invasion Iraq comparison is extremely poor.

[Churchill]

Malaria can be prevented, however the treatment once you get it is extremely expensive and taken daily/weekly.

[Tyche]

Meanwhile, people are still debating in the US whether Darfur is a genocide (less now than before).

I have a problem with this ideology. It's the same ideology that resulted in the killing of over a million people in 3 months. The U.N. and the U.S. goes "Hmm...well, we said we would never allow a genocide to happen again after WWII, but, what is a genocide?" So now what happens, we sit around and wait til over a million die THEN call it genocide? Stopping it before it becomes into that isn't an option? Oh wait, we have no interest in Darfur, the U.S. and U.N. couldn't care less about the slaughtering of hundreds of thousands of people even though they are on record and have policies preventing such atrocities from ever happening again.

[archibaldcrane]

I don't know how people try to define genocide, but Janjaweed murder/rape squads are persecuting African tribes via nothing short of elimination. This isn't a military operation, women and children are fair targets, and mass rape is a policy, not an exception.

Shit is brutal, and if Colin Powell calls it genocide, I'm going to just go ahead and agree with him.