Never say never

I don’t mind the meeting being held at 7 p.m. today in the business school under the banner “Stand against genocide in Darfur.” By all means, be there or be square. What I do mind is the squeaky tone these types affect, as well as the squeamish policies they endorse, at a moment of life-or-death gravity for others, if not for themselves.\nOur humanitarians often counsel us to “redeploy” American forces from Iraq to the Darfur region of Sudan. What is their fundamental argument about the unworthiness of Iraq? I will do what I can to paraphrase it without doing too much damage to its nuances, such as they are. It is argued that an illegal and unjust war was waged on Iraq. Without authorization from the United Nations, that damned cowboy of a president broke what was left of the sovereignty of that palatial Baathist state. Finally, Iraq posed no existential threat to the United States; thus, it was a “war of choice.”\nVery well, then, cowboy diplomacy has been lassoed. The territorial integrity of Sudan, despite its regime’s gross breach of international law, has been dutifully respected. Nor has a “Coalition of the Willing” taken shape to “elect” war “on” the “Sudanese people.”\nThe results have been predictable: The unmolested campaign of racist murder has turned Darfur into one vast killing field. But hey, there have also been no Halliburton oil grabs. No Abu Ghraibs. No “quagmires.” No price tags or flag-draped coffins. And here I realize that I am treating these complicit spectators too generously. \nI yield to no one in my desire to end the mass killing in Darfur, which is why I am unnerved by flippant denunciations without a corresponding call for troops to do something about it. Let’s try to be serious, shall we? As the weak and innocent in Darfur curse the absence of American firepower, it is clear that those advocates of ending the genocide while refusing to will the means are trading in the cheapest possible currency.\nIf I haven’t convinced you yet that violence is the answer, I doubt I ever will. But those of us who have supported the rescue of Iraq have always put up with great calumny for being bloody warmongers. All along, we held fast to the notion that we had nothing for which to be ashamed. Now, it is only those who have counseled doing nothing who ought to be ashamed. Humanitarianism means precisely nothing if it does not carry with it a desire to thrash those who make humanitarianism necessary.\nThe next time you encounter some human-rights outfit advocating that we “Save Darfur” – maybe even tonight – try asking why the genocide that once raged there with impunity is nearly over, and you will receive a solemn answer, or none at all. That’s because at this late date, after force has been left to the forces of menace for so long, there are scant people left to kill. I trust it makes the weak-kneed pacifists in the “anti-genocide” movement very happy.