GOD DAMN IT!

So after over four years of senseless, chaotic violence on an unimaginable scale, the UN has finally, finally decided to do something about the wholescale slaughter taking place in Darfur. They're putting together a peace-keeping force to try to put an end to the horrible situation that's seen an estimated 400, 000 people die since 2003 (that's around 200 people a day!).

The UN's asked Australia to supply troops to the effort, and despite years of posturing we've done over how something has to happen, WE'RE NOT HELPING AT ALL.

And you know why? Because of the endless quagmire we're stuck in in Iraq. They're not even making any pretenses about it. Alexander Downer has simply said we don't have the troops because they're deployed in Iraq (and of course Afghanistan, East Timor, etc) and because we don't want to risk hurting relations with the US, we won't be withdrawing our forces to redirect them to Sudan.

GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!

Here we are, finally in a position to do something to help people who are being outright slaughtered en masse, where families are getting torn apart and gang rape is being routinely used as a weapon of war, and despite everything we've said over the years we're not going to do ANYTHING because we're too stupidly anchored to Dubya's Modern Vietnam, a war that was declared "won" FOUR YEARS AGO!

The last I heard, all the Australian troops are doing in Iraq is safeguarding Japanese engineers in an area where there's no fighting occuring. If that's still the case, I don't think it'd be too much of a problem if we took at least a few and put them in a place where they could actually do some freakin' good.

Yet another decision by the Howard government that demonstrates exactly how they feel about people who either aren't white or don't have a backyard full of oil.

PRICKS!!!

Okay. So with that gut reaction out of my system, I think it's worth noting that an Australian doctor who's served with Doctors Without Borders has expressed reservations about applying a military solution to the problem, and the amount of lives it would cost in the crossfire. That said, given the insular militia structure that the Janjaweed works in (as well as the other groups battling it out in Darfur) I doubt the collateral damage would be anywhere nearly as significant as that in Iraq, where all the fighting has been taking place in built-up civilian areas.

But the second you start talking about "collateral damage" is the second you start developing the "gonna make an omelette, gotta break some eggs" mentality that some have so flippantly and scarily applied to situations like Iraq throughout history.

The other thing to note is that we are in places like East Timor, helping out there. But I can't help but feel that, after years of simply standing by and watching as Sudan ate itself alive we finally have the chance to do something about it (you know, in an internationally legal way, unlike Dubya's unadmited civil war) and we're not going to do anything, because we've already painted ourselves into a corner with Iraq, a place where we've, by all arguments, done more harm than good.

What bullshit.