The Best Way to Clear Up This Mess Is Not More Military Intervention, but a Return to the Peace Table.By Gwynne Dyer
[UN Tool]
On one issue, at least, George Bush and George Clooney are in perfect accord. What is happening in Darfur is genocide and something must be done.
But it isn't genocide and nothing will be done.
The end of September deadline for putting a 20,000-strong force of United Nations troops into Darfur, including large numbers of soldiers drawn from NATO countries, was always a fantasy. The deadline has passed without any softening of the Sudanese government's total rejection of the plan and no Western troops are heading for Sudan anytime soon.
Instead, the existing force of 7,000 troops from African Union countries that tries to protect the refugee camps, under-equipped and poorly supplied though it is, will stay at least until the end of the year.
This is the best available outcome and may even save tens of thousands of lives, especially if the Western countries now give the African Union force the money, fuel, night-flying helicopters and other resources it needs to do the job.
It will continue to be grim in Darfur, but at least the West has avoided a military intervention in Africa that would have made the Somalia debacle in 1992-93 look like a success story.