... how long till we discover it's Iraq again? Every place in the world will be Iraq to us.
People who don't want America to ever fight counterinsurgencies, because such fights are cruel and long and tend to kill a lot of innocents, have to realize that. There will be no more "good wars" for a long time.
The Islamists have known at least since Mogadishu that this is how you fight against us. Mingle with the civilians, use every dirty trick in the book, make the U.S. look weak in the eyes of your people and like war criminals in the Western press. And wait.
And they will be there to meet us, wherever we go. Wherever U.S. troops touch "Islamic" soil, they will come to meet us. Osama already is talking about a jihad in Darfur.
It doesn't matter how you feel about Iraq. We have to learn to fight this type of war. Because wherever we go, it waits for us.
In the coldest possible calculation, Iraq is a school for that, for our young platoon leaders and pilots. It's not why I wanted us to be there, but we're there, and, I trust, the military is learning. As for the rest of us, the lesson probably hasn't sunk in yet.
The Mongols seemed to be very good at fighting these wars.
We're deffinitely learning, don't worry about that.
It's ironic that both our greatest moral advantage and our biggest weakness is our desire to avoid civilian casualties. It's our constant attempts to minimize civilian casualties which has lead to the increase in attacks on civilians by militants, and their regular use of civilians as decoys and shields. That's one of the biggest decisions we have to make. Do we say screw the civilians, we'll do whatever it takes to kill those who oppose us? Or do we continue to avoid civilian casualties, thereby encouraging our enemies to hide amongst them, and target them in increasing numbers? Neither option seems very attractive.
US and all Western armed forces should stay out of Darfur conflict. There are already too many potential demands for our attention, forces and resources over the next decade. This is a good project for nations who do not have the forces or the stomach for the main fight against terrorists and terror states. They should use their militaries to lead, supply and co-ordinate largely thirld world forces into an effective deterrent to and protection from ethnic cleansing and civilian atrocities. Every effort must be made to not let Bin Laden and crew turn a bad situation into something apocalyptic - uniting of predominantly arab and Muslim forces in the north against predominantly black, Christian and Animist forces in the south, which could drag on for decades, adding to the incredible misery which already exists in Africa on almost every side.
In the coldest possible calculation, Iraq is a school for that, for our young platoon leaders and pilots. It's not why I wanted us to be there, but we're there, and, I trust, the military is learning. As for the rest of us, the lesson probably hasn't sunk in yet.
What lesson is this, exactly? How to fight a counter-insurgency war? We learned that in the Philippines in 1900. How to conduct an insurgency? We learned that in 1776. And re-learned it in the Philippines after 1942. Our military knows how to deal with invasion and occupation -- ask General Shinseki, just like Congress asked him in 2002. You may not like the answer, of course.
As for "the rest of us," we're the same surly, selfish, stubborn citizens we've been since 1776. Any leader marginally sentient has to have been aware that you don't take the American people into a half-assed war with mumbled promises of easy victory. We are unsuited to it; we are not British and don't want their Empire. And this should have been plain as day to our leaders in 2003, when they lied about the reasons we were invading Iraq.
Look: you tell Americans that the war will pay for itself, you gin up a media circus replete with "Mission Accomplished" on the aircraft carrier's deck, and then the bloodshed drags on year after year? You're going to see domestic support for the "war" start to sag. Is this a surprise to anyone? Anyone literate?
The strategy of waging war is not much different from winning a sports championship. Ideally, you fight in the circumstances to which you strengths, resources, training and equipment are most suited. The battlefield is rarely ideal. The enemy also realizes that he cannot win if he fights where conditions are most favorable to you and not to himself. So, he adapts his game plan accordingly. We know our enemy is generally not stupid enough to fight in large formations in the open. They know what happens then when their forces are open to our surveillance and air power. So, after the first stupidities are over with, there is no choice but to develop the capabilities to fight in conditions more favorable to the enemy than ourselves. We have and are adapting equipment, tactics, methods, training and technology to make operating pretty tough for the enemy on their own turf. We will win, if we maintain our faith in ourselves. To cut and run is not an option. Too much is at stake.
Iran has announced that they're interested in transferring nuclear technology to the Sudanese government.
http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15263
Wonder what that will be like. Egypt and Chad against a nuclear equipped, genocidally proven Sudan.
Trev, the United States and other major Western countries will not intervene in Darfur, at least not in significant numbers. Instead, those who will bear the brunt of the attacks by Islamists, assuming that they heed Osama's call and do attack, will be the African Union and United Nations missions already there.
The African Union mission has 7700 troops, and is made up of soldiers from Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal and a few others. In approximately six months time, these soldiers will be re-hatted as UN peacekeepers and will presumably fall under the command of the UN mission in Sudan, UNMIS.
By this time UNMIS will be fully operational with 10 000 or so peacekeepers, mostly from Bangladesh, China, Kenya, Egypt, Pakistan, India and Zambia. So the overall mission strength will expand to 17 700 peacekeepers.
However, these peackeepers are lightly-armed, and most of them do not have sufficient counter-insurgency training, nevermind the right equipment. Perhaps more importantly, they are also far too few in number to fight an insurgency in a country which is over 5 times larger than Iraq. It is going to be tough.
Stickler, you assume that the tactics of insurgency have not evolved over the past 50 years, let alone the past 100. That's incorrect, the art of insurgency has been advanced by numerous forces in the past century, beginning with the Boers from the end of 1900 to 1902, and extending to the tactics of Mao and the Viet Cong who adopted the former's tactics and customised them. A modern insurgency is not identical to the type the US fought in the Phillipines, so it stands to reason that the exact same tactics the US used in the Phillipines won't necessarily work.
The most important thing you're forgetting though, is the far greater free flowing of information today than at any time in the past century. The international news media is the new factor that is upsetting all equations about how to fight an insurgency and win. The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere have clearly figured that out long before most of the rest of us have, and they've been able to use the media to good effect. In contrast, the US military, despite experimenting with embedding reporters and a host of other initiatives, is no closer to figuring out how to win the information war.
In sum, Callimachus is absolutely correct when he says that America will have to conduct counter-insurgency warfare from now on, in every theatre it becomes active in, whether it likes it or not. We've seen this trend coming for a while, long before the war in Iraq; it's known as 4th Generation Warfare (4GW).
We're entering an era in which states are losing power to nebulous intra- and inter-state groups, and in which states no longer have a clear military advantage over such groups. Wars of 4GW will, necessarily, encompass all fields of human interaction, including military, social, political, and informational. They cannot be won otherwise.
I really don't care whether one supported the initial decision to go into Iraq or not (I didn't, but for unrelated reasons), but to suggest that the US withdraw now is the height of irresponsibility. The US must continue to learn fast, and come up with new equipment and tactics to overcome the Iraqi insurgency, or else its ability to fight the inevitable insurgencies of the future will be severely harmed. If it is to lose in Iraq, and be withdrawn by shortsighted men and women in Congress, then the US will enter the next phase of the War on Terror at a distinct disadvantage that it may take years, or even decades, to recover from.
The Iraq War is in many ways the prototype war for 4GW warfare. The United States simply MUST win it, if it is to succeed in later fourth-generation battles.
Some Steyn seems apt:
RE: the situation in Sudan... There are private security firms who'd be willing to protect the locals there.
Given that Blackwater merc's'd love to get the Sudan gig, if only somebody'd be willing to pay for it, perhaps a private approach could bypass the snarls of both national and internationalist interests, if only enough (self assembling) private citizens were interested in stopping a genocide on general principles - I'd happily cough up $20 to shut down a janjaweed rape camp with extreme prejudice.
So perhaps the end of a genocide's only a few thousand bake sales, or an email to the Gates Foundation (etc., etc.) away...
Trev -- African nations are on the side of the Genocidaires. They support (OAU, OIC, Arab League, etc) Sudan and it's efforts of genocide in the south against Christian animists and in the West against African Muslims.
If you want to stop Genocide ONLY the US has the capacity to do so. No other nation has the ability to project force or the will to do so (this includes South Africa).
Everything else is Pol Pot/Srebinica/Rwanda BS. The failed platitudes of Liberals unwilling to face reality. Stopping genocide means killing the killers in an ugly business. But far easier to wave a piece of paper proclaiming peace in our time.
The forces inside Sudan are ineffective, just like at Srebenica. AU or UN, it doesn't matter. Equally corrupt, incompetent, and meaningless. You'll stop genocide by removing the regime and killing a goodly portion of the Janjaweed militias.
Considering a passenger on a plane or an office worker can be blown to bits or burned to death for the crime of being a Westerner; it's only a matter of time before limits are simply tossed aside and the West and the US gets down to the ugly business of killing lots of people who threaten us. I figure the first nuke attack on the US will simply lead to a lot of killing on the Tokyo firebombing scale.
Ugly but lack of political will now leads to greater killing later.
Given that Blackwater merc's'd love to get the Sudan gig, if only somebody'd be willing to pay for it, perhaps a private approach could bypass the snarls of both national and internationalist interests, if only enough (self assembling) private citizens were interested in stopping a genocide on general principles - I'd happily cough up $20 to shut down a janjaweed rape camp with extreme prejudice.
For a long time, it has seemed to me that this is the only solution. Although our government has done more than most to help out, they still call the Sudan govt. an ally in the war against terrorism. It's very unlikely that they'll invade. The Arab league and the Chinese have actively campaigned for the genocide to continue.
As Callimachus said, we have to learn to fight this type of war. Islamists would like to be able to attack the US and Israel the way they're attacking the Iraqis and the Sudanese. When they can, they will.
An odd post, right from the title.
So We Ride to the Rescue in Darfur, and ...
Urging NATO to provide the African Union with logistics, communications, etc., is rather less than riding to the rescue.
Every place in the world will be Iraq to us.
Presumably there will be some places you refrain from invading.
People who don't want America to ever fight counterinsurgencies, because such fights are cruel and long and tend to kill a lot of innocents, have to realize that.
Counterinsurgency is what the janjaweed are doing with Sudanese government backing. Western intervention would not be counterinsurgency, but an attempt to protect the civilian population from counterinsurgents. Defending the refugee camps would not be particularly cruel as military operations go, nor especially liable to kill innocents.
The Islamists have known at least since Mogadishu that this is how you fight against us. Mingle with the civilians, use every dirty trick in the book, make the U.S. look weak in the eyes of your people and like war criminals in the Western press. And wait.
The Islamist government of Sudan isn't trying to lure you over there, that's the last thing they want. To prevent which they're making nice with you with intelligence assistance, so much so that you've reciprocated by successfully pressing to weaken an already weak sanctions proposal. The Islamists in al Qaeda might like to lure you over there, but (a) they haven't actually done anything about it, and (b) if they had, you'd have to say they'd been utterly unsuccessful.
It doesn't matter how you feel about Iraq. We have to learn to fight this type of war.
Maybe so, but Darfur is not a case in point, it's a case where you've found it inexpedient to do anything much at all.
"For a long time, it has seemed to me that this is the only solution."
There is a problem here.
It's illegal. A US citizen can't go around hiring mercenaries to fight on foreign soil.
There is however an even bigger problem here.
Privatizing the war between the West and the Islamists will likely have some unexpected and troubling results. I too wouldn't mind spending $20 to shut down a rape camp in the Sudan, if it were as simple as that. We need to stop for a second and consider what that would mean.
For a long time this has been a really really troubling cause for the Christian community. We've been in the Sudan since before the genocide begun. Throughout the genocide, the missionary community has been approaching the problem of Sudan conventionally - passing out bibles, medicine, food, and household goods, preaching, teaching, and converting people to the faith of Christ. It's to be expected that some Christians be martyred. That's part of the process.
But what happens when the whole people you are trying to reach is exterminated? What happens when the persecution is wholly external, from a group you cannot reach and which show no signs of remorse for what it is doing? What happens when your churches are literally bombed by government forces? What happens when your mission field becomes a war zone? What happens when most of the men of your congregation join a militia to keep from being slaughtered, thier wives raped, and thier children murdered or sold into slavery? What do you tell them? How do you help them?
My feelings is that if you privatize this war, the first large private supporters are likely to be certain Protestant denominations. The temptation would be very great. Bin Ladin frequently refers to the West as 'crusaders'. A privatized war in the Sudan would very likely attract real Crusaders for the first time in what, 400 years or so?
For that matter, no group in the Sudan has suffered more persecution than the Catholics. Catholics in the south have been ritually flogged and crucified. I've often wondered what it would take to generate another 'crusader pope'. Pope John Paul II clearly wasn't of the temperment, which I'm not claiming wasn't a good thing. But at some point I can easily see the Vatican getting fed up with its flock getting slaughtered by an old adversary.
Consider this excerpt from a missionary in the Sudan:
"Nor are we inventing or exaggerating the extent of the suffering of Christians in Southern Sudan. Just on my last two mission trips to Sudan, I’ve had the privilege of preaching in the Fraser Cathedral, the birthplace of Christianity in Southern Sudan, which was first destroyed by the government of Sudan ground forces in 1965. Completely destroyed. It was later rebuilt by 1983, but when the NIF government forces swept into Lui, the congregation had to again flee into the bush, and the church building was vandalised. In 1997, the church was restored. In the last year, the church has come under aerial bombardment eight times. Forty-seven bombs being dropped around it. On 29 December 2000, it was again bombed; one bomb blew a huge hole into the West wall of the church building, flinging parts of the corrugated iron roof high up into the sky. Most of the West wall is pockmarked with holes from hundreds of pieces of shrapnel. All of the glass windows on all sides of the church were blown out. Most of the doors were splintered. Almost every wooden beam on the roof of the church has cracked. This beautifully built, brick church building was no mud hut as your article demeaningly refers to the churches in Southern Sudan. This was the third time that this church building will have to be rebuilt because of government assaults.
I also preached in the church at Kotobi, which had been destroyed by helicopter gunships back in 1996 and rebuilt since. This church has been bombed several times on Sunday mornings in the last year.
I also preached at the church in Jambo, where we were bombed during the Sunday morning service on 5 November – the church was subsequently bombed on Christmas Day, during the morning service, and on January 7th, during Sunday morning service, and several times subsequently as well."
I'm in part astounded that after some 2 million Christians were killed in the Sudan and (depending on how you count them) some 4-5 million made refugees, that only now that its Moslem on Moslem violence in the Darfur region (and violence of a lesser scale) does anyone seem to care what is going on in the Sudan. It's great that George Clooney now thinks something needs to be done in the Sudan (the irony is killing), but where was George Clooney back in the '90's?
For the record, I don't support the idea of a crusade in the Sudan. I do believe however that it wouldn't be hard to get one going if you really tried. I do believe that the concept of a crusade is very tempting, especially in the face of indifference from the rulers of this world. I don't for a second deny that I wouldn't at all mind if the US showed up in the Sudan "bearing the sword" against the evil doers thier. In fact, I would be proud of my country if it did so (and prouder still if it had done it years ago in time to matter). But privatizing the war, or making the Church become part of the politics of the world, would not be a good thing for either the church or the world. Do you really want to see the cross and the cresent on the battlefield again? Do you really think that a good solution to the problem, one likely to promote peace in either the short or the long term?
I agree with Mr McDougal. We're NOT talking about going in to change the regime, or to make Sudan into a democracy. We dont need to patrol the streets of Khartoum. We do need to protect the Darfuris. This is more like Kosovo, or the no fly zone over Iraqi Kurdistan. Air power and logistics would be key. More troops than the AU has on the ground now, would be good, but they DONT have to be 1st world quality troops.
BTW, I will be at the Save Darfur rally in DC on Sunday. There are similar rallies all over the US and Canada, hope you will all make an effort to be there.
Celebrim,
For the record, I don't support the idea of a crusade in the Sudan. I do believe however that it wouldn't be hard to get one going if you really tried...A privatized war in the Sudan would very likely attract real Crusaders for the first time in what, 400 years or so?
War is messy, and different people will fight (or support the fight) for different reasons. That said, I don't believe that bringing in professional mercs to provide peace and security need necessarily take on Christian militant overtones - As an Empiricist with deep sympathies towards Deists of all stripes (poor dears!), I'm about the last person who'd advocate this, and I have both Jewish and Sufi relatives who'd support this action for entirely non-crusaderist reasons. Obviously, some people who support a muscular response to the situation in Sudan will do so out of religious sectarian motives, but many, I'd expect, would simply do it out of a basic moral abhorrence of democide. The Sudanese govt. is a particularly loathsome bunch, and it might be arguable that tribalist anarchy would represent a marked improvement over their current government - they've been pretty uniformly atrocious in killing their Animist, Christian, and well as non-Arab Muslim citizens when it was in their interests.
While the middle eastern media will put a self-serving conspiratorial spin ("It's the Jews!" "It's the Crusaders!" etc.), on anything we do at all in the interests of their unaccountable (and therefore illegitimate) governments, that hardly needs to dissuade us from supporting an essentially Humanitarian intervention. Which I guess is just a long winded way of saying that your points are valid, but that I think the costs of inaction are higher than the risks of action (ie., using professional mercs as peacekeepers).
There is a problem here. It's illegal. A US citizen can't go around hiring mercenaries to fight on foreign soil.
Fair enough. That said, the consequences of illegal private support of non-state military actors can be pretty nebulous (how many Irish-Americans were prosecuted for supporting the IRA during the troubles?).
Mary,
As Callimachus said, we have to learn to fight this type of war.
I agree. Militant Islamists have no compunction against hiring mercs (in Afghanistan and elsewhere) or subsidising terror in a host of deniable ways, when it suits their purposes. Perhaps we need to get better at subsidising an effective peace (and don't even get me started on the failings of the UN!). Further, given that war was formally declared on us in by Al-Qaedists a decade or so ago, that most people don't know what 4th generation warfare is, and that some of our citizens don't believe we're currently at war at all, or understand (or have a consensus regarding) the nature of the enemy (Terror? Terrorists? Islam? Islamists?)... we've got a lot of work cut out for us.
GeneThug: "Obviously, some people who support a muscular response to the situation in Sudan will do so out of religious sectarian motives, but many, I'd expect, would simply do it out of a basic moral abhorrence of democide."
What makes you think that religious motives and basic moral abhorrence of democide would be here in contrast?
In fact, its the basic moral abhorrence of democide which would provide the catalyst. It wouldn't start out as a sectarian conflict, but it would almost certainly end up that way.
I believe that the Christian community would be just as upset no matter what group had suffered the persecution seen in the Sudan. In the Darfur region, it's not Christians being murdered. Most of the Christians are already dead or have fled to Ethiopia. The Sudan went from being 20% Christian to less than 5% today. Yet the fact that it is no longer Christians being murdered does not dampen my zeal for seeing the carnage stopped. It's just that since it started with Christians the genocide in the Sudan was the sort of thing that would come up in Sunday school as an example of modern persecution back when no one in the mainstream wanted to talk about it.
But you aren't asking people merely to be upset and send thier dollars over to buy food or to go as peaceful missionaries. You are asking for that concern to be transformed into support of violent private action. Who would you imagine would have the authority and respectability to so transform the opinions and belief of a large number of Americans if not the government?
"...I have both Jewish and Sufi relatives who'd support this action for entirely non-crusaderist reasons."
I have Christian friends that would support this action for entirely non-crusaderist reasons. That's beside the point. I'm talking about the organic growth of a conflict.
We aren't talking about the secular institution of the state sending armies or even mercenaries over thier. We are talking about a very personalized war, supported by individuals, fought by individuals.
Just how many Jews and Sufi's do you think thier are in America, and in the West in general? You are talking about small minorities of the public, not enough to muster up for this cause no matter how motivated they are behind it. Someone would have to be paying for this, and putting a force in the field of at least division strength and sustaining it. Such a force won't be funded by Sufi's. Or even Empiricists and Deists. Sorry.
It wouldn't largely be fought by Empiricists, Deists, Jews, and Sufi's either. If the American Christian community became radicalized enough to start paying for bullets instead of bread, you can be sure that they'd be willing to fight as well. In fact, that's probably true of any community. But I don't think you'd find enough Deists to form your own regiment.
"Which I guess is just a long winded way of saying that your points are valid, but that I think the costs of inaction are higher than the risks of action (ie., using professional mercs as peacekeepers)."
Peacekeepers? The gloves would be off. Forget peace keeping. The Sudanese government doesn't kill off peace keepers in mass because it fears the world responce. It would have no similar compunctions against killing off a foreign mercenary force. I think you are under serious delusions about the nature of the conflict that would result should you privately fund an army and send it over to the Sudan.
Celebrim,
What makes you think that religious motives and basic moral abhorrence of democide would be here in contrast?
I'm not arguing that at all. Moral abhorrence doesn't necessarily demand religious motives (cf. Kantian ethics, et. al.), but they're hardly in conflict in this instance. Perhaps I should have written more clearly, but why would you even raise this as a point?
It wouldn't start out as a sectarian conflict, but it would almost certainly end up that way.
This is the point we're arguing, I think. I disagree with this assertion. Can you provide an example of spontaneous American crusaderism to support your contention? Americans have fought in lots of places without sectarianism turning up. Why do you think that is? I think your concern is far from inevitable. What is unique about Sudan that you think will draw out militant Christianism from the American psyche?
To put it a slightly different way, just because the majority of Americans are Christians doesn't make the Christianisation of a conflict inevitable (cf. Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, II...). In all of these cases, in spite of the secular nature of our government, the vast majority of soldiers, policy makers and supporters are/were Christian (and the majority of our opponents weren't), yet few would credibly describe these wars as wars by/of/for Christianism. You might argue our secular Government made all the difference, but I doubt this matters all that much on the graound, and that if any of these wars had been co-opted by a spontaneous upwelling of Christian fervor, I doubt some of our elected officials would've done more than try to get ahead of the curve. Another instructive example might be the mercenaries who are currently providing peace and security in various troublespots, or, say, the American individuals who fought in the Spanish civil war. Not a lot of reports of rampant crusaderism there, eh?
Just how many Jews and Sufi's do you think there are in America, and in the West in general?
I don't think you should be so dismissive of the power of the individual. How many m/billionaires would it take to fund this? How many committed self organizing individuals does it take to found an effective private fundraising organization? If no government will stop an atrocity, it will fall to individuals with a compelling underlying motivation to stop genocides on general principles (and yes, that may involve a disproportionate number of Jewish individuals, for what I hope would be blindingly obvious historical reasons). As the old Mead saying goes, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Still, you're entitled to your opinion.
Peacekeepers? The gloves would be off. Forget peace keeping.
You're leaping on a single word choice and building an entirely specious strawman to attack. Kudos. I'll concede that Peacekeeping as a term has been twisted to mean its antonym (largely through UN incompetence), as has both Liberal (Socialist neoLuddites?) and Conservative (Big Government Social Activists?), but I'd be surprised if you'd have a problem with imagining that the term Peacekeeping might be applied to mean, say, effectively providing security within a region (particularly since I explicitly mentioned that the possible collapse of the Darfur regime as a consequence, might be an improvement over the status quo). I have no particular illusions about the horrors of war or what effective peacekeeping in Sudan will entail - I just think that these horrors pale in comparison to yet another genocide. Do you disagree?
Sure, there may be unintended negative consequences to conflict - there always are, just as there may be unintended positive consequences (us evil western crusaders et. al. didn't support/fight Gulf II to liberate the Kurds from murderous oppression, but I'm glad we did).
Confusion or misrepresentation of my points aside, this really isn't a very complicated disagreement. I just don't think your concern (of spontaneous American Christian sectarianism emerging out of privatising a rescue of the Sudanese from their government) is in any way inevitable, or that that concern outweighs the cost of allowing yet another genocide.
"This is the point we're arguing, I think. I disagree with this assertion. Can you provide an example of spontaneous American crusaderism to support your contention?"
Can you provide an example of Americans engaging in mercenary activities on a truly large scale? Privately financing a war in a large foreign country? I can think of examples of a handful of Americans volunteering to join various wars around the world - the Spainish Civil war, China pre-WWII, some others would probably come to mind if I thought about. I can't think of an example of this happening on a particularly large scale. The Spainish American war for instance involved roughly a brigade sized force of American volunteers - less than 3000 total. They were largely irrelevant and suffered extremely high casualties. Incidently, American volunteers were largely members of the Communist party. It's not much of a stretch to call the Communists call to arms for volunteers from around the world something very much like a crusade.
For a successful operation in the Sudan, you're talking about fielding a division scale unit, maybe more. Obviously, you are going to for cost purposes field as much of that as possible from the local population, but initially you're going to be dealing with a low skill, low morale population, and you are going to be fighting tanks, helicopter gunships and aircraft.
Bay of Pigs ring any bells?
"To put it a slightly different way, just because the majority of Americans are Christians doesn't make the Christianisation of a conflict inevitable (cf. Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, II...). In all of these cases, in spite of the secular nature of our government, the vast majority of soldiers, policy makers and supporters are/were Christian (and the majority of our opponents weren't), yet few would credibly describe these wars as wars by/of/for Christianism."
In all of these cases you have a war instituted and fought under the auspices of a secular government. In none of these cases were you entering into a conflict that could be predefined as a sectarian religious conflict. You go into the Sudan, you are going into the middle of a religious war (one fundamentally driven by economic concerns but a religious war nonetheless) that Al Queda is already promoting as the next big jihadist cause (having lost everywhere else). You are going to be putting up your money very likely against the money of Wahhabi backers in Saudia Arabia, as well as the whole government of the Sudan and jihadist from around the world who see what you are doing as a crusade whether you like it or not.
Are you telling me that you think this situation analogous to WWI or WWII? I'm having a really hard time imagining how you think this hypothetical would not be unique.
"I don't think you should be so dismissive of the power of the individual."
Because this is war we are talking about. Not a Hollywood movie.
"How many m/billionaires would it take to fund this?"
Start up costs on a project like this could easily be $300 million dollars, with an operating budget of $40 million a month - more depending on how hot things get. (If you think that is high, compare with the costs the US incurred funding the Contras or the Afghan Muhajideen. Heck, Pakistan paid out more money than that supporting Kashmiri rebels and and the Taliban. I'm probably not being conservative enough.) And that's if you are trying to do this on the cheap, funding an effective insurgency instead of sending in, as you put it, 'peacekeepers'. The more Americans you get involved, the higher you should expect your operating costs to be. And given the poor state of the rebel groups, you are going to have to expect to put alot of Western boots on the ground to be a credible force. Someone mentioned Blackwater. I can't imagine what Blackwater would price this out as, even if they agreed to do it - which they wouldn't because it would endanger thier legal contracts. Executive Outcome would have been a better model, but I believe they are officially defunct. You are going to be taking on a whole country here that has religious backing in Saudia Arabia and economic backing from China, and probably you are going to be doing it with serious blacklash from much of the world for 'destablizing the region'.
"yes, that may involve a disproportionate number of Jewish individuals, for what I hope would be blindingly obvious historical reasons"
Yes, I'm sure it would. However, that doesn't change my basic calculus.
>>Start up costs on a project like this could easily be $300 million dollars, with an operating budget of $40 million a month - more depending on how hot things get.
So total cost for a mission of say, 5 years would be in the neighborhood of 3 billion dollars. A Certain Old Marine I Know Well could liquidate his corporations for maybe 1 billion, but it would take time and would absolutely tap him out permanently. However, he has Friends™, and at least half a dozen of them have similar resources. The money exists.
The real problem is the will to use it. Before said Old Marine would be interested in organizing such a project, he would have several key questions:
1. Would the money be better spent on other projects, like advancing biotechnology or energy research? Norman Borlaug saved a lot of lives with a fraction of the money.
2. The financiers' experience in this sort of thing is limited. Investing in projects one doesn't understand is risky and dangerous.
3. How to properly organize such a venture to avoid corruption and disaster? A sound plan would need to be developed before serious resources would be committed.
The reality of the situation is that private intervention is the only serious option at this point, because nobody else is going to do anything about this problem. The US military for better or worse is "a little busy right now." The European states won't do anything. The UN is worse than useless. The African nations aren't exactly taking up the slack. Either we mobilize the resources for direct action of some kind, or we conclude that solving the problem is impractical and stop whining about it.
#15 from GeneThug - your link for "democide" appears to be broken.
#13 from celebrim: "A privatized war in the Sudan would very likely attract real Crusaders for the first time in what, 400 years or so?"
I don't think so.
Housley, N. 2002, The crusaders, Tempus, Goucestershire.
This is explicitly a reply to Osama Bin Laden's description of "the new Jewish and Christian Crusader campaign that is being led by the chief Crusader Bush under the banner of the Cross."
In reply, Norman Housley (a real historian, not a propagandist) builds up a picture of the psychology of the Crusaders based on their own writings. They were very different people from us, based in a different society and a different time.
In any case, it would not be possible for the Church to alter its repudiation of the crusaders after Pope John Paul II's Jubilee request for forgiveness for the wickedness of some sons and daughters of the Church, who without doubt were meant to include and were understood as including Crusaders. The Crusaders took the Cross to ensure their salvation. (Or the better ones did, and the Church pressed that as the ideal.) Once you have apologised for the wicked deeds of (among others, including real villains) your faithful servants, who were obeying you at the time they did what you now condemn, you cannot turn around and offer Crusading vows and deeds as penitential acts of certain worth.
That sword is broken, and for better or worse the flame of the West will not be reforged.
#10 from Jim Rockford: "Trev -- African nations are on the side of the Genocidaires. They support (OAU, OIC, Arab League, etc) Sudan and it's efforts of genocide in the south against Christian animists and in the West against African Muslims."
They wish to reserve the right, which Robert Mugame is exercising, to do similar things to their own people whenever it suits them.
At minimal or not cost to themselves, they can make any intervention to save the lives of those they do not wish saved unbearably costly to us, and it is to be expected that the would do so, beginning with condemning any intervention on moral grounds as racist, colonialist and so on. That would give our internal opposition a big enough rhetorical stick to guarantee that any intervention would soon be aborted, inevitably producing a disaster.
All subsequent killing and other atrocities would be blamed on us, even though it would be done by the Janjaweed, and our potential ability to intervene in cases and places where we might have a chance would be destroyed.
Moreover Islam stands in solidarity with the killing and atrocities, for moral reasons. That's their religion, that's their culture.
Money, moral support and diplomatic and volunteers will flow into the jihad, more and more as it becomes obvious that we will be forced (even for purely domestic reasons) to retreat. Everyone will want a piece of our defeat.
I do not believe we can change that opposition, or win in the face of it. Therefore the jihad of the Janjaweed will go on to further success. We do not have the power to stop it.
If I thought that we could save Animist and Christian Africans from Muslim and Arab ethnic aggression (while fighting in the long war, which we can't get out of because Islam has targeted us for subjugation or reduction), then I would advocate that we do so.
But I think this is a hopeless loser. The malignity and the demographic, economic and diplomatic resources of Islam, the inhumanity, indifference to one's own kind and the and anti-Western prejudice of African governing culture, and our own cultural weaknesses mean that it isn't even close. We can't get lucky. We would just lose big, for sure, and pay immense costs ever after.
David Blue:
"In any case, it would not be possible for the Church to alter its repudiation of the crusaders after Pope John Paul II's Jubilee request for forgiveness for the wickedness of some sons and daughters of the Church, who without doubt were meant to include and were understood as including Crusaders. The Crusaders took the Cross to ensure their salvation. (Or the better ones did, and the Church pressed that as the ideal.) Once you have apologised for the wicked deeds of (among others, including real villains) your faithful servants, who were obeying you at the time they did what you now condemn, you cannot turn around and offer Crusading vows and deeds as penitential acts of certain worth."
You act as if the Pope speaks for the Church, or as if the Catholics had a historical monopoly on militancy. You aware that the demographics of the Church look somewhat different than they did in the 11th century, right? Heck, these Pope's have had a hard time keeping even thier own flocks accepting of his authority, and thier pronouncements have not necessarily been admired even within the Catholic church. Although no one is looking to him for leadership, Mel Gibson is probably had more influence on the Christian community in America than the Pope has.
Whether the pope praises the Crusaders or condemns them has much less bearing on this discussion than it did in the 11th century, and I don't really think that it changes much of anyone's mind. Quite arguably, the pope's apology was a case of the Pope going along with the church rather than the church going along with the pope. Beyond that, if its possible for the Church to turn around a repudiate the crusaders, then its possible for the next pope or the one after that to turn around and go the other way as sentiments change.
"That sword is broken, and for better or worse the flame of the West will not be reforged."
Major props for that phrase alone. That you can offer it, and that it resonates, somewhat speaks against your thesis I think. I'm well aware just how different of a man I am from Raymond of Toulouse, to say nothing of how different Raymond is from the average inhabitant of France today. I do not expect history to repeat itself. But I also think you vastly underestimate the power of a man with a banner and a cause, as your own allusion should inform you.
Keep in mind also that I was not saying that a sudden rebirth of crusading spirit was likely. I don't believe it to be likely in the slightest. But, assuming you ask me to accept that large numbers of westerners would be willing to privately support one side of a war in the Sudan, then beginning from that point I think it almost inevitable that this sudden birth of martial zeal for the sake of a humanitarian cause would become understood as a crusade - if indeed it was not the case that the only way to cause such a sudden widespread birth of private martial zeal to appear was not to appeal to the mythic narrative of the crusade. Housley would I think agree with me.
celebrim,
I think we're going to continue to talk past each other on this.
To recap:
I'm not particularly afraid of the specter of wild eyed American Christianism emerging from the private funding of security firms to prevent a Black Arab Muslim on Black Muslim genocide in Darfur. Further, I'm pretty sure that networked individuals can effectively oppose genocide in the absence of specifically Christian values by directly funding private security firms to do the job. You apparently disagree, based on demographics, poor historical analogies, bald assertion, a few straw men and the non-legality of the proposal. Fair enough.
Can you provide an example of Americans engaging in mercenary activities on a truly large scale?
Darwin's Beard, just read the link!
Blackwater's ceo has offered to take the gig, if his organization can get paid.
Are you telling me that you think this situation analogous to WWI or WWII? I'm having a really hard time imagining how you think this hypothetical would not be unique.
Look. You're obviously a bright person, but my respect for your sophistry is plummeting. Please back away sloowly from the strawman crackpipe, and point to the statement where I suggested that this situation is analogous to WWI or WWII. Failing that, please address my actual points, or invent another imaginary friend to argue with. Should you choose to re/read my previous post, you may find that I specifically chose examples of American Christians fighting in non-Christian lands, to highlight the paucity of previous historical examples of the emergent American Crusaderism you seem to have your knickers in a twist about.
I'd like to think we can both agree that this situation is unique, which limits the value of historical analogies. Neither Communist American civilians (Spanish Civil War) nor CIA trained Cuban civilians (Bay of Pigs) nor even the local South Sudanese fighters are being proposed to address the Sudanese situation (though I'd imagine that after over 20 years of conflict, the survivors are pretty seasoned at this point). If you have any additional concerns about logistics, please feel free to re/read the original link I posted, in which private security firms have offered to secure the peace in Sudan for a price. Mercs. Professional soldiers. Blackwater's ceo think it's doable for $1-200 million US a year, and I will defer to his professional assessment. Again, we're talking past each other.
Still, I'm pleased that you've moved on to discussing logistics and efficacy, rather than specious (example-free) worries about emergent Christian American Crusaderism. Progress!
TJ
So total cost for a mission of say, 5 years would be in the neighborhood of 3 billion dollars.
Another (admittedly slightly more optimistic) cost projection would be to take the Blackwater ceo's estimate of ~10% of the UN peacekeeping costs at face value. As the UN's currently estimating spending $1 billion/year to fail to protect the South Sudanese, celebrim's projection might be a bit high (not by an order of magnitude, though, and there's nothing wrong with conservative cost estimates).
In any event, whether the US taxpayer pays for Blackwater Mercs or incompetent UN pederasts (who'll likely show up the day after the last dirt farmer is raped to death to paw over what's left) or US troops (once Sudan becomes an overtly (rather than diplomatically deniable) failed nation state and base of ops for militant Islamists), they're still going to eventually foot the bill, one way or the other. Alas, (knowing your libertarian sensibilities) I'm currently guessing that the most cost effective approach would be to lobby the US congress to fund Blackwater using taxpayer money. Ah, corruption...
The reality of the situation is that private intervention is the only serious option at this point, because nobody else is going to do anything about this problem. ...Either we mobilize the resources for direct action of some kind, or we conclude that solving the problem is impractical and stop whining about it.
Word. Still, if enough Old Marines, a few dot com zillionaires, the Never Again crowd, a handful of extremely wealth (non-Arab) Muslims (etc.) were sufficiently motivated, this would be well within the realm of the possible.
"I think we're going to continue to talk past each other on this."
I guess so.
For example...
"Still, I'm pleased that you've moved on to discussing logistics and efficacy, rather than specious (example-free) worries about emergent Christian American Crusaderism. Progress!"
What part of...
"Keep in mind also that I was not saying that a sudden rebirth of crusading spirit was likely. I don't believe it to be likely in the slightest."
...do you not understand? All I'm saying, that if you ask me to accept that American support for a private military adventure in the Sudan will suddenly appear - which I really don't; that if such a bizarre thing actually happens it will morph into a 'Crusade'. For example, you don't see lots of Americans rushing out in support of the Blackwater plan now, do you?
"Can you provide an example of Americans engaging in mercenary activities on a truly large scale?
Darwin's Beard, just read the link!"
I'm getting really tired of you accusing me of making straw men arguments when you move so easily into non sequiturs.
Let's look at your quoted passage to see how relevant it is to Americans engaging in mercenary activities on a truly large scale:
"In the mid and late '90s, the South African firm Executive Outcomes and British firm Sandline International offered direct combat support to the governments of Angola and Sierra Leone."
a) Are South Africans and British americans?
b) Under the hypothetical plan, which recognized secular government would the mercenaries be providing direct combat support to.
"In Angola, 500 ex-special forces officers working for Executive Outcomes conducted sophisticated airstrikes and commando operations to help the Angolan military retake its diamond mines and oil fields from the rebel group UNITA."
c) In your opinion does a battalion sized operation constitute large scale military action?
d) Under the hypothetical plan, who would Blackwater be supporting, the government of Sudan or the rebels?
Does your responce then actually have anything to do with privatized military operations, or American support for such operations?
"...point to the statement where I suggested that this situation is analogous to WWI or WWII."
In responce to my claim that privatized warfare was different than warfare conducted under the auspices of secular government, you responded:
"To put it a slightly different way, just because the majority of Americans are Christians doesn't make the Christianisation of a conflict inevitable (cf. Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, II...)."
I'm well aware of that fact, but it has nothing to do with my argument that a privatized conflict is different than a public one. I think you badly underestimate the extent to which the nationalization of the conflict and the language of nationalization buffers against the conflict being lead by a single religous, ethnic, or ideological figure or group. Nationalism - especially the sort of nationalism which is in the US divorced from membership in a particular religious, ethnic, or ideological group - is a significant barrier to sectarian conflict. Now you are talking about removing that barrier and entering into a conflict which is already a religious and ethnic conflict and you are assuming that a sense of religious community won't motivate the entrance into the conflict and won't flourish on the ground even if it doesn't?
"Should you choose to re/read my previous post, you may find that I specifically chose examples of American Christians fighting in non-Christian lands, to highlight the paucity of previous historical examples of the emergent American Crusaderism you seem to have your knickers in a twist about."
Again, in all the cases you cited, those American Christians were fighting for 'America'. So none of them are actually relevant. The one case that is relevant is the case of Americans fighting in moderate numbers in the Spainish civil war in what was billed by Communist leaders of the day as the first step in the global spread of communism. They weren't over there fighting for America, so naturally the conflict wasn't percieved as 'America vs. America's enemies'.
"Neither Communist American civilians (Spanish Civil War) nor CIA trained Cuban civilians (Bay of Pigs) ...are being proposed to address the Sudanese situation."
!#@$% it, I didn't say that they were. I brought those examples up to point out to you that small mercenary forces don't generally do all that well when facing the full power of a nation - even a third world nation. Sighting examples of EO's ability to provide highly skilled assistance to a nation's armed forces against a rebel group doesn't refute this claim.
"If you have any additional concerns about logistics, please feel free to re/read the original link I posted, in which private security firms have offered to secure the peace in Sudan for a price. Mercs. Professional soldiers. Blackwater's ceo think it's doable for $1-200 million US a year, and I will defer to his professional assessment."
I think that his estimate is low. However, even if it isn't, it within my estimate by about a factor of two or three, so I for one consider my guess to be pretty darn good considering I'm not a professional. One of the reasons I think his estimate is low is that I've worked with lots of contractors before, and they also low ball thier bids especially when they think there is a good chance that they will be able to get supplementary money latter. Blackwater is under no particular pressure to give a realistic assessment. In fact, it is not in thier economic interests to do so, as a conservative estimate reduces the chances that they get the job.
One of the reasons I think the Blackwater estimate is low is he seems to be envisioning a relatively small force securing refugee camps from further attack. That hardly solves the problem of continuing democide. It would just move it. The Sudanese government would happily force everyone into some god forsaken refugee camps near the border and let them starve. He specifically mentions that he is not projecting any offensive operations. Not only is that not what I'm envisioning, I believe that the Blackwater scenario is ludicrous in the face of the realities in the Sudan.
For those that don't realize this, the Sudan is roughly the size of all of the continious US west of the continental divide - and is roughly as rugged and brutal of terrain. Five-hundred or so Blackwater security personel would disappear into even a fraction of that territory like a drop in the ocean. Not only that, but the Blackwater CEO seems to be assuming that Darfur is the only region which will need securing, and further that the Sudanese government would not directly target them. I don't assume those things. It's my opinion that the current truce in eastern Sudan will not hold past the next US election cycle unless the Sudan percieves that US foreign policy remains 'hawkish' and likely to support military intervention with slight provocation. And unless Blackwater is percieved in the Sudan as being under UN and US protection - and that the US is willing and able to act to protect them - I believe that the Sudanese government would percieve any private group operating in thier territory as a threat which could be successfully elimenated.
There are only two practical uses I could see putting small numbers of Blackwater personel to and neither of them involve gaurding refugee camps. The first is conducting offensive operations on behalf of a larger peacekeeping force. The second is in an advisory and training role for local 'rebel' groups. But neither alone pays for a solution.
"Word. Still, if enough Old Marines, a few dot com zillionaires, the Never Again crowd, a handful of extremely wealth (non-Arab) Muslims (etc.) were sufficiently motivated..."
I'm still waiting for any evidence of motivation. If you can provide me evidence of motivation, and you can provide me evidence that you can avoid the conflict becoming effectively crusaders versus jihadists, and you can show me a plan which looks like it addresses the realities of the conflict in the Sudan and isn't just a business proposition, then I might get on board such a project.
David,
For the democide link, try here or just g--gle "democide" and pick the link containing 'powerkills'. It's well worth reading, in my opinion. Particularly the section on 20th century democide.
celebrim,
What part of..."Keep in mind also that I was not saying that a sudden rebirth of crusading spirit was likely. I don't believe it to be likely in the slightest."...do you not understand?
A thousand pardons - it seems your reply to David (#21) was posted while I was crafting a reply (#22) to your previous post (#18). Whew! Glad to hear you renounced that emergent crusaderism thesis from post #13:
A privatized war in the Sudan would very likely attract real Crusaders for the first time in what, 400 years or so?
It was loopy. Of course, unless you mean that you weren't saying it was "likely", so much as
you said it was "very likely", in which I'm simply at a loss as to how to respond. Or are there two celebrims here, posting at cross purposes?
I think you badly underestimate the extent to which the nationalization of the conflict and the language of nationalization buffers against the conflict being lead by a single religous, ethnic, or ideological figure or group.
That's entirely possible, but as there are many private organizations that function well despite a heterogeneity of religious/ethnic/ideological members, based on shared goals (like, say, profit), that's a risk I can live with.
I brought those examples up to point out to you that small mercenary forces don't generally do all that well when facing the full power of a nation
Now there's a reasonable argument! My take on it is this.
Our goals slightly differ, hence our assumptions are a bit different. I'm advocating preventing the genocide in Darfur, you're (if I may be a bit presumptuous) suggesting that direct conflict with the Sudanese government is inevitable, hence any force sent to the region must necessarily have the capabiity to defeat the Sudanese Government.
In the case of Darfur, the government is using terror by proxy on the farmers - the Janjaweed are, to my knowledge, mostly fighting with AK's on horseback and camelback. Bearing in mind that IANAAG (I am not an armchair general), stopping cavalry raiders with modern attack helicopters seems doable. The ceo of Blackwater certainly thinks so (though again, I give him more credibility than you do).
The far more ambitious project of direct toppling/nation building in Sudan is far outside of the capabilities of mercs, and that without some sort of US/UN backing this might rapidly degenerate into that sort of conflict (ie. the Sudanese Govt. vs. Chad, Blackwater, the SPLA/M...). On this we agree (though we may differ in our assessment of the Sudanese Govt's capability to wage prolonged concurrent multifront direct conflicts without collapsing). I wonder how much buying US Gov't support for this project would cost?
If you can provide me evidence of motivation, and you can provide me evidence that you can avoid the conflict becoming effectively crusaders versus jihadists, and you can show me a plan which looks like it addresses the realities of the conflict in the Sudan and isn't just a business proposition, then I might get on board such a project.
Well, thanks for setting the bar low! I'll see what I can dig up on motivation and plans, but..wait a minute... didn't you just say that you didn't think the sudden rebirth of crusading spirit was likely just now? Like, just a post or so ago in #23? And you want me to provide evidence that your thesis, which you don't believe, won't occur? Whoah. That's just weird.
Given international treaties on mercenaries and UN policy toward them, the chances of using mercenary forces for "peace keeping" is exactly zero.
"A thousand pardons - it seems your reply to David (#21) was posted while I was crafting a reply (#22) to your previous post (#18). Whew! Glad to hear you renounced that emergent crusaderism thesis from post #13:"
Look, this is very simple.
A = "significant American public support for hiring mercenaries to intervene in the Sudan"
B = "After introduction of American mercenaries to Sudan, emerging language and narrative of a 'Crusade'"
The conversation goes like this:
You: 'A' would be good.
Me: I don't see 'A' as likely, but A likely implies 'B' and 'B' is not good.
You: I don't see that. 'A' is likely, but I don't see how you get 'B'. 'C' has never implied 'B' before.
Me: No, 'C' is not 'A' and we aren't talking about 'C'. 'A' is not likely. 'A' has never happened before. But if 'A' happens it is likely that 'B' will also happen.
You: No! 'B' is not very likely at all.
Me: Right, that is what I said. Because 'A' is not very likely at all, and we only get to 'B' through 'A'. If 'A' doesn't appear than I can't see 'B' appearing, but if 'A' does appear then it seems likely to imply 'B'.
Got that now?
"I'm advocating preventing the genocide in Darfur..."
I'm advocating preventing genocide in the Sudan by employing the long term solution of making the non-Arab inhabitants capable of defending themselves, with the end goal of having them split off and gain thier independence. I believe that this is the only way to prevent the continuation of the genocide in the Darfur region and elsewhere in Sudan. In particular, there is no way that the Sudanese Arabs are going to turn over control of any oil bearing region to non-Arabs. So while technically the Kartuom government may have agreed to let the black Sudanese consider the question of thier independence, there is no way they will abid by that agreement unless we give the black Sudanese some bigger teeth.
"..you're (if I may be a bit presumptuous) suggesting that direct conflict with the Sudanese government is inevitable, hence any force sent to the region must necessarily have the capabiity to defeat the Sudanese Government."
Yes. And the reason that direct conflict with the Sudanese government is inevitable is that the Sudanese having been working on this project for 20 years and they aren't going to stop now when they are so close to a final victory. The underlying causes of the conflict have not been removed.
"In the case of Darfur, the government is using terror by proxy on the farmers - the Janjaweed are, to my knowledge, mostly fighting with AK's on horseback and camelback."
Unlike the Christians in the east who were relatively prosperous and ultimately at least armed (though not well armed), the black moslem population in the darfur region lacks the capacity to resist government attacks and lacks much in the way of hills to hide in. In an effort to avoid international pressure, the Sudanese government has avoid obvious shows of power such as using thier attack helicopters and planes to bomb villages in the Darfur region. That level of force isn't needed, and as Rwanda showed you can have a prefectly good genocide with just machettes. Using the janjaweed is not only more cost effective in these circumstances, but it gives them some plausible deniability.
By comparison to what came before, the Darfur campaign is a relatively low intensity combat. In the south-east Sudan, things got to the point of trench warfare before fear of outside intenvention and mounting casualties got the government to back off. If we'd armed the black Sudanese any time back in the '90's, we could have easily saved a million lives.
"Bearing in mind that IANAAG (I am not an armchair general), stopping cavalry raiders with modern attack helicopters seems doable. The ceo of Blackwater certainly thinks so (though again, I give him more credibility than you do)."
No, he doesn't. He thinks he can engage in point defence of refugee camps and provide security services to NGO's. He certainly can but that would only provide a marginal aid to the people of the Darfur region. He specifically denies that he would engage in offensive operations. But unless he engages in offensive operations, he won't be able to do anything to stop the ethnic cleansing continuing in the vast Darfur country side. Eventually, the government would simply push everyone that they can't kill into a refugee camp and we'd have the problem of permenent refugees dependent on the UN for support. And Darfur is too big to patrol with the size force you'd use to guard a refugee camp, and even if you did engage in that sort of patrol eventually you'd come up against the Sudanese regular army and you'd have to defeat it in open battle. That's doable, in fact not that hard, but not doable with a small security force.
"The far more ambitious project of direct toppling/nation building in Sudan is far outside of the capabilities of mercs..."
Agreed, but that's not what I'm advocating. I'm advocating using a small mercenary force to train the native resistance, and provide a strike force for engaging in offensive operations (because offensive operations require greater logistic support and skill than defensive ones). In other words, the only way for the Blackwater guys to stop the genocide is to go out and hunt the janjaweed and engage them in battle. Since the jangaweed operate in units of about 200 fighters, this involves either company sized forces or armored vehicles of some sort if you want to avoid high casualties.
In addition, any sort of visible presence in the Darfur region would bring in global jihadists from around the world. Saudia Arabia for example is very committed to support the Sudanese. What you'd get into then is situation in which the Kartoum government would provide unofficial support and shelter for foreign fighters who would infiltrate the Darfur region to perform attacks and then head back over the line in the sand. So eventually, you have to consider attacking bases in North Sudan, and again, this brings you in direct conflict with the Sudanese government and they'd make all sorts of agreived noises about the 'Western crusade' and 'imperialism'.
"I wonder how much buying US Gov't support for this project would cost?"
Alot. A better question is "How much would buying Chinese support for this project actually cost?"
It's the Chinese that hold the political high ground in this equation, not the US. The Chinese are the power that benefits the most from the current setup. Not only do they get to sell weapons to the Sudanese, but they get a cozy relationship with Sudan to slack thier growing oil thirst and thier less experienced oil companies don't have to compete for access with the bulk of Western corporations. The US doesn't want to get involved in overthrowing the Sudanese government for alot of reasons, but one of them is the fact that China would certainly see it as the US trying to choke China's access to Africa. At the least, they'd block resolutions in the security council (they've been doing that for a while). At the worst, they'd start funneling weapons to the Sudan below cost to thwart what they'd see as US imperial ambitions.
And while you are trying to get the Chinese on board, better be prepared to get the Malays on board as well. Petronas also has interests in the region. I don't know about the French, but I don't expect them to do anything but make aggrieved noises in any event.
This deserves some discussion. If the Saudis are funnelling cash/weapons to the Sudanese government then there's a major problem. The implication is that the Saudi rulers are either stupid/ignorant or even worse Scum™ than we already knew. Maybe somebody should stick a camera in Prince Bandar's face and ask him about this.
#21 from celebrim: "You act as if the Pope speaks for the Church, or as if the Catholics had a historical monopoly on militancy."
I'm aware that the Catholics had no historical monopoly on militancy. For a start, they were and are pikers compared to the Muslims.
However, when it came to sanctioning crusades, the Papacy was the first and the usual source of authority. The first major crusade not initiated by the Papacy was the sixth. The statements of popes are a sensible first place to look for authoritative doctrine on crusading.
#21 from celebrim: "You aware that the demographics of the Church look somewhat different than they did in the 11th century, right?"
My answer to this was implied in: "They were very different people from us, based in a different society and a different time."
Why did you think you had to ask whether I was aware that the demographics of the Church were different in the 11th and 21st Centuries?
#21 from celebrim: "Whether the pope praises the Crusaders or condemns them has much less bearing on this discussion than it did in the 11th century, and I don't really think that it changes much of anyone's mind."
Again, it is true that whether the pope praises or condemns the crusaders is less relevant now than it was in the 11th Century, long before anybody thought that anyone other than the pope could initiate a crusade.
#21 from celebrim: "Quite arguably, the pope's apology was a case of the Pope going along with the church rather than the church going along with the pope."
"Quite arguably" is a weak assertion.
#21 from celebrim: "Beyond that, if its possible for the Church to turn around a repudiate the crusaders, then its possible for the next pope or the one after that to turn around and go the other way as sentiments change."
My answer to this was implied in: "Once you have apologised for the wicked deeds of (among others, including real villains) your faithful servants, who were obeying you at the time they did what you now condemn, you cannot turn around and offer Crusading vows and deeds as penitential acts of certain worth."
The key phrase here is "penitential acts of certain worth."
Any pope before Pope John Paul II could have said something like this to men contemplating crusading vows: In return for what you will be giving up, including your lives, you will gain this for sure: what you have done will always stand you your credit. Neither you nor your deeds nor your sacrifices will ever be repudiated by the Church. In taking these vows and acting on them, you choose glory and not shame, for ever.
No pope after John Paul II can plausibly say anything like that. The most he can offer is the sort of cynical mock glory that the late Soviet Union could: Sometimes we applaud, sometimes we condemn, and for the good of the Party (or the Church) occasionally we even rehabilitate. For the moment, it suits the Party (or the Church) to tell you that what your martyrdoms will purchase you is glory. Though a later pope might reverse that, remember that a still later pope might reverse him."
To many people, the difference between these two positions may seem small. Isn't religion, and especially isn't the Catholic Church, always about the cynical exploitation of the gullible?
But to the sort of man likely to take crusaders' vows, if they were on offer and presented convincingly, the difference between these two positions is immense. One might be worth giving up your fortune, your health, your happiness in this world, and even your life for. (Here insert South Park lyrics (link)*) The other isn't.
"That sword is broken, and for better or worse the flame of the West will not be reforged."
#21 from celebrim: "Major props for that phrase alone. That you can offer it, and that it resonates, somewhat speaks against your thesis I think. I'm well aware just how different of a man I am from Raymond of Toulouse, to say nothing of how different Raymond is from the average inhabitant of France today. I do not expect history to repeat itself. But I also think you vastly underestimate the power of a man with a banner and a cause, as your own allusion should inform you."
Thanks for the kind words.
I think I have a reasonable idea what a man (or even a peasant girl from Domremy) with a banner and a cause can do.
#21 from celebrim: "Keep in mind also that I was not saying that a sudden rebirth of crusading spirit was likely. I don't believe it to be likely in the slightest. But, assuming you ask me to accept that large numbers of westerners would be willing to privately support one side of a war in the Sudan, then beginning from that point I think it almost inevitable that this sudden birth of martial zeal for the sake of a humanitarian cause would become understood as a crusade - if indeed it was not the case that the only way to cause such a sudden widespread birth of private martial zeal to appear was not to appeal to the mythic narrative of the crusade. Housley would I think agree with me."
Why not read him yourself? I recommend The Crusaders wholeheartedly.
"But, assuming you ask me to accept that large numbers of westerners would be willing to privately support one side of a war in the Sudan..."
I don't ask you to accept that at all. This is not happening.
I am just trying to get clear, in general, whether the West has this religious and cultural resource ready to draw on if the need should be severe enough. And I don't think we have that in our arsenal. At some point, you need not only the myth but religious and cultural institutions capable of giving organisation and effective concrete agency to those who want to act because of its inspiration. Islam has that. For good or ill, we don't.
Performed by Gregory, The School Children, Sheila Broflovski, the US Soldiers, Satan, Terrance and Phillip, Kyle, Stan, and Cartman
God has smiled apon you, this day..
The fate of a nation in your hands..
And Blessed be the Children, we..
Who'll fight with all our Bravery..
'till only the righteous stand.
You'll see the distant flames, they bellow in the night
You'll fight in all our names, for what we know is right
And when you all get shot, and cannot carry on
Though you die, La Resistance lives on.
You may get stabbed in the head, with a dagger or a sword
You may be burned to death, or skinned alive, or worse!
But when they torture you, you will not feel the need to run
For though you die, La Resistance lives on.
(etc.)
I don't know if I expressed this plainly enough. If you are a prospective crusader, concerned about the fate of your soul and in need of something that will get you "time off for good behaviour," is crusading sure to count to your credit? If it's something the pope might apologise for, obviously not.