The Spectator: Think before you bomb

[reorg]

Think before you bomb

Daniel Wolf believes it unlikely that armed intervention can bring justice to Sudan

If there is a crisis in a remote place, and governments, newspapers and aid agencies start to agitate for ‘action’, you naturally begin to suspect that much of the information you are being fed is false. When Tony Blair starts talking about intervention, your suspicion turns into virtual certainty. This is not necessarily because journalists, officials, agencies and Blair are ignorant of the facts (although ignorance is invariably a contributing factor); it’s because the tragedy and the publicity exist in different universes. On the one hand, there is how things are — the grim, confusing, recalcitrant reality of events; on the other hand, there’s how the tragedy is presented, how it is packaged and sold, as a news story, as a political cause, as a fund-raising opportunity. Before long, the publicity takes on a life of its own, following a predictable cycle of distortion leading, very often, to excitement, impatience and, finally, error.

The latest crisis is in Darfur, western Sudan, where some 30,000 civilians are said to have died, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. Blair wants to help these people, by using troops if necessary, and he is backed by the Tories. Almost any article you read about Darfur will tell you that the conflict there is between ‘Arabs’ and ‘Africans’, and that the ‘Arabs’ are the guilty party. According to Human Rights Watch, ‘The Sudanese government and the Arab Janjaweed militias it arms and supports have committed numerous attacks on the civilian populations of the African Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups.’ This is a convenient version of events in the world after 9/11: it plays well in the US where, for many, the word ‘Arab’ is a codeword for ‘terrorist’. The House of Representatives has unanimously adopted a resolution urging the Bush administration to call what is happening in Darfur ‘by its rightful name: “genocide”.’ The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum concurs: its ‘Committee on Conscience’ has issued a ‘Genocide Warning’ for Darfur.

(...)

... Nothing is easier than to see a problem and pretend that we only have to send in troops to solve it. The chaos in Afghanistan and Iraq should have cured us of this illusion. If troops are used in Sudan merely to ferry around relief supplies, then the intervention will be symbolic: relief agencies, supported by civilian contractors, can do it more effectively. If they are deployed for combat, however, there is a distinct possibility that they will become participants in a conflict they cannot resolve, as happened in Somalia. Moreover, there is a serious risk, according to some experts, that armed intervention could precipitate a political crisis in Khartoum, leading to turmoil and possibly a coup.

The use of troops is so often a sop to our conscience, a comfort blanket, telling us we have done all we can. But it’s the people of Sudan who will pay the price. Using troops, with fingers crossed that no one gets hurt, nothing unexpected happens, is never serious. The real test of our convictions is always how many casualties are we prepared to take — and inflict — in pursuing our aims. Are we in it for the ‘long haul’, to adopt a Blairism? In Sudan, certainly, we won’t be: we will be there for a guilt-free photo opportunity.

Daniel Wolf was series producer of the Channel 4 programmes on emergency aid in Africa, The Hunger Business.


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[Capt_Nemo]

1. Brilliant!

One of the best articles I red yet on "military humanitarism".
Exposes the "cruise missile left" for the morons they are!