December 30, 2005

Pacifism Kills, part 42

Christopher Hitchins is scathing in this piece on Darfur. The genocide is effectively over---because most of the blacks are dead.

But hey, we did all the things that the "realists" and pacifists and appeasers and "moderates" wanted! Negotiations, sanctions, diplomacy, multi-lateralism, the UN...and of course, very important: "allow the inspectors more time."

It would have been perfectly feasible for us to intervene...but probably not politically possible, due to the savage and unscrupulous partisan attacks that hinder everything the administration does. Hitch writes:

...Any critique of realism has to begin with a sober assessment of the horrors of peace. Everybody now wishes, or at least says they wish, that we had not made ourselves complicit spectators in Rwanda. But what if it had been decided to take action? Only one member state of the U.N. Security Council would have had the capacity to act with speed to deploy pre-emptive force (and that would have been very necessary, given the weight of the French state, and the French veto, on the side of the genocidaires). It is a certainty that at some stage, American troops would have had to open fire on the "Hutu Power" mobs and militias, actually killing people and very probably getting killed in return. Body bags would have been involved. It is not an absolute certainty that all detained members of those militias would have been treated with unfailing tenderness. It is probable that some of the military contractors would have overcharged, and that some locals would have engaged in profiteering and even in tribal politics....

"The horrors of peace." That puts it perfectly. The leftist/pacifist crowd has enabled yet another genocide. Another Rawanda. They get to carve another notch on their pistols. Funny how it's always somebody else who does the suffering and dying so peaceniks get to feel morally superior and get to have clean consciences untouched by the evils of war.

The Bush and Blair administrations were clearly interested, and if encouraged would probably have intervened. I think Bush should have just gone ahead and done it. If he had made the case forcefully to the American people, they would have supported him. And he should have kicked the Democrat-murderers and pacifist-murderers in the teeth, and told them to do their worst.

(Thanks to Mary Madigan, who has lots more worth reading.)

Posted by John Weidner at December 30, 2005 9:18 PM
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