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Originally Posted by hoyacoug
It is a complex issue which you are intentionally oversimplifying to make a point. Curing AIDS and replacing regimes are not the same thing and cannot fairly be compared.
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Actually, I'm oversimplying for the same reasons a mother bird chews up the worm before she gives it to her chicks. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Actually, what I was doing was moving to a larger point than the one that you started with, not trying to comparing curing AIDS to regime change directly only. Nevertheless, I think that to the extent we do anything in the realm of foreign intervention it is fair to examine the over-arching reasons we do so, making comparison on that basis fair. I can't really compare curing AIDS in the US to intervening in Iraq for example, but I think I could compare the Iraq war to any affirmative steps we take to aid Africa and ask whether or not the reasons Iraq may be a bad idea also might be reasons aid to Africa is a bad idea. Primarily my point was that putting troops on the ground in Darfur is problematic for many of the same reasons that Iraw is problematic. The Janjaweed are muslim arabs. I think that is apples to apples and realize it was beyond the scope of your initial comments.
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Originally Posted by hoyacoug
As for comparing the Sudan to Iraq, those are also two different issues. If the end result is to maximize human rights in the area, engaging in Sudan is clear, to me. It doesn't require toppling a government, replacing it with a puppet government, and won't destabilize the region, thereby emperiling more people. In fact, it could bring more stability to the region.
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Hard to argue your first point because I can't accept the premise that our goal is ever to maximize human rights if what you mean by engage is put troops on the ground. For reasons that many on the left have articulated well, if that is really the goal then there is a universe of places where we could potentially act and we should be asking which places and why. The point is that regardless of our reasons for going, we will be facing an armed militia who will not be happy to see us. While of course it is true that they could never being to challenge us on a conventional field of battle, they will surely be smart enough to know that they can wage a gueriila war such as being waged in Bagdad and outlast us. When the casualties start mounting there is it not fair to ask, as we are asking in Iraq, why a Sudanese life is worth an American life?
Your points about toppling a government are not germaine to what we are talking about. In Iraq we sucessfully toppled the government, it is the aftermath that is a disaster. In the Sudan, the disaster already exists. So it is apples to apples to ask how we will be recieved in a power vaccum where there is currently a sectarian civil war ongoing and what, if anything, we will or can do to alter the vacuum. If we don't try to set up a "puppet government" then all we are doing is forestalling the resumption of hostilities that will inevitably follow when we leave. Why would you believe that we can affect any permanent solution in Darfur, and if you do not, why would you willing to expend your taxes and the lives of other there? Maybe you don't.
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Originally Posted by hoyacoug
In Afghanistan, we were attacked, and our need to preserve our own security demanded a response.
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I'm not sure what you mean by this. When did Afghanistan attack us?
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Originally Posted by hoyacoug
In Iraq, our security did not demand an invasion, and later Bush (and many others, like yourself if I recall correctly), then tried to make it sound like a humanitarian issue. No question Sadaam was brutal, but you also have to calculate the costs to Iraqis of removing Sadaam. As we have discussed before, I think the clear outcome was instability in the region which is now heading towards full blown civil war (and millions of deaths, along with more contempt for the US). There are a lot of factors at play in each decision.
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First, many, including me, believed that our security did demand an invasion because there was a dictator who possessed WMD, was hostile to the United States, had shown him self over a very long period of time to be impervious to influence by other means, and who was paying Palistinians to carry out suicide attacks. The though process was that it was only a very small leap to image that one who would pay a terrorist to blow himself up might also employ a terrorist to deliver a WMD to a US city. Post 9-11, we began to understand that we could not let a threat like that gather and wait for it to come to fruition before responding because the result would be so terrible. This is the sole reason we invaded Iraq, notwithstanding the mention of other collateral benefits, such as human rights benefits.
Upon finding no WMD, the focus of the argument changed (for me and others) to the idea that we had now "broken and bought" Iraq, so to speak, and that it would be both be wrong and against our interests to abandon it so as to leave it worse, both for Iraqis and for us, than when we found it. What I, and apparently those who should have known better, underestimated was our ability to stabilize a state that had only been prevented from having civil war by Saddam's (a Sunni) ability to subjucate and oppress the Shia majority. I underestimated the thirst on each side to re-fight that war. I had assumed that they would welcome an opportunity for republican government. So far I was wrong. I don't think that outcome was ever "clear" as you say and is only so in hind sight, but yes we have already discussed that.
I think that if you want to analyse any of this from a purely humanitarian perspective, then I would actually agree that we could impose ourselves in Darfur and as long as we are there the humanitarian interests of the non-Baggara peoples will be advanced. Mean while, US troops will probably die and Janjaweed will probably die and, no doubt, the White House will be picked by people carrying signs saying "The Janjaweed never Attacked Us!" and Cindy Sheehan will appear to explain who W and his oil buddies are enriched by all of this. I'm not really exaggerating much. Since we are calculating costs, as you suggest, I think it is fair to wonder why one US Solider ought to die in the Sudan when we have no interest there at all.