Genocide in Darfur

I have been remiss in taking note of the Sudanese regime's barbarous campaign against the residents of the western Darfur region. I'm pleased that the Bush Administration has made a relatively high priority of this issue. Unfortunately, I'm skeptical whether the Europeans and the UN can be counted on to do anything. My fear is that only another "coalition of the willing", with the US this time playing a supporting role, will be enough to prevent the murder of hundreds of thousands of people. No doubt the same Europeans who allowed a quarter of a million bodies to pile up on their doorstep in the Balkans, and who were content to leave 25 million Iraqis to the barbarous tyranny of Saddam Hussein, will again cry about "American unilateralism". Too bad.

For information on Darfur, a good place to start is an article by Nina Shea for National Review Online. She makes the vital point that the genocide is a direct result of the Khartoum regime's radical Islamist agenda. As horrible as it is, Darfur is just a foreshadowing of the human cost that would ensue should the jihadist movement gain control over the Greater Middle East.

In the July 1 Washington Post, Jefferson Morley provides a link-filled roundup
of world opinion on the events in Darfur.

Finally, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has a translation of a fascinating editorial from the Arab press on the Arab world's overall indifference to the genocide in Darfur:


"They are not the victims of Israeli or American aggression; therefore, they are not an issue for concern. This is how an approach of indifference towards others outside the circle of conflict with foreigners, and of permitting their murder, is spread as you read and write about the Darfur crisis and consider it an artificial issue, or one unworthy of world protest.

"Is the life of 1,000 people in western Sudan less valuable, or is a single killed Palestinian or Iraqi of greater importance, merely because the enemy is Israeli or American? According to estimates by U.N. delegations inspecting what is happening in the [Darfur] region, 300,000 Sudanese are in danger of liquidation because of the ongoing war there.


Sadly, it's not only the Arab world where such attitudes are prevalent.