The Colossus

The question du jour on the Washington Post's "Postglobal" blog is:

The UN recently authorized a peacekeeping force to Darfur but the Sudanese government, led by President Omar al-Bashir, is not allowing it in. The Arab League and others are bolstering the Sudanese regime, forming a regional political bloc which refuses to admit the UN force.

Should regional solidarity be allowed to trump human rights needs? What could be done to pull away support from the Sudanese regime and enable UN troops to enter?

My answer?

Short of a full scale military invasion headed by the United States, there is nothing that can be done to allow the U.N. peacekeepers to enter. UN peacekeeping has only worked when both sides want there to be a peaceful solution to a problem, and agree to observe lines of demarcation put in place by lightly armed troops in blue helmets. If one side is not interested in peace, but wants to continue to prosecute a war, there is no role for the peacekeepers to play.

The only thing that remains is to make the officials of the Sudanese government outcasts. Freeze the assets abroad of every government minister above the rank of mail carrier, and arrest them should they set foot outside the Sudan.

Unfortunately for the residents of Darfur, the institution that cares about them has no means, ability, will, or mandate to wage a humanitarian war on their behalf. The nation states who have the ability to wage such a war have no compelling national interests that would lead them to commit troops.

Posted by The Colossus at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Washington Post's Postglobal blog has been sending out invitations to bloggers to comment on questions they propose. I'm not a big blogger, by any means, but I somehow got onto their email list, so they've sent me the question of the day.

LEAD: Pope Benedict XVI said he was "deeply sorry" for the reaction in some countries to his recent speech in which he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor saying the prophet Muhammad brought "only evil and inhuman" things to the world.

QUESTION: From where you write, was the apology enough? What should Christians and Muslims be talking about now?

My response:

First of all, anyone who gives the full text of what Benedict said a fair reading can see, with their own eyes, that the quote from Manuel II Paleologus in which Islam brought "only evil and human things" to the world was not the main point of the discussion. Benedict was trying to introduce a perfectly valid and reasonable proposition into the discussion between Islam and the West, which is the question of whether it is permissible to use force to compel a person to convert to one's religion. I think that it is telling that the main point of Benedict's argument is being overlooked to focus on Benedict's poor introduction to the argument, and I wonder whether that this is an excuse to avoid the question entirely. While Benedict would have been wiser not to quote Paleologus's "brusque" introduction, becasue it detracts from what is otherwise a compelling argument, I don't think the question ought to be ignored because a few people choose to take offense at that introduction. What ought Muslims and Christians be discussing? Whether it is permissible to convert a person to one's religion by force. Benedict clearly rejects that notion for the Christian world. Would a prominent Muslim cleric care to step forward to do the same for the Muslim world?

Posted by The Colossus at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)