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Resolved: The United States should help intervene to stop genocide in Sudan

PRO

by Jason Rathod '06

Sixty years ago, the United States and the other Allied powers defeated Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, officially ending its genocidal tyranny in Europe. Months later, President Franklin Roosevelt brought the world together in San Francisco to draft the charter founding the United Nations. The document boldly proclaimed the purpose of the U.N. to "maintain international peace and security," and to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."

This month the U.S. became chairman of the U.N. Security Council. Again, the world is looking to us for leadership while genocide devastates a region of the globe. It's time for us to live up to our traditions, values and promises and bring the world together to stop genocide in Sudan.

In Sudan's genocide, which has spanned over two years, the state-sponsored Janjaweed militia has targeted and brutally killed as many as 200,000 people, primarily from the Western Sudanese tribes Fur, Zaghawa, Massalit, Jebel and Aranga. The Janjaweed has destroyed hundreds of entire villages, displacing two million Sudanese. Women and girls continue to be enslaved and raped on a daily basis.

Currently, African Union peacekeepers are attempting to maintain peace and order. Their force has proven that success is within reach, but with only 7,000 troops they lack the capacity to make a lasting contribution. The U.N. special envoy in Sudan declared last month that an international peacekeeping force of 20,000 would be capable of halting the violence.

All of the international institutions we build, human rights treaties we sign and anti-tyrannical rhetoric we profess mean nothing if the U.S. and the world continue to avert their eyes from genocide in Sudan. Above all, the U.S. has a moral imperative to facilitate an international intervention by sponsoring Security Council support for a U.N. peacekeeping force of 20,000.

Intervening would not only be the right the thing to do, but also a pragmatic and farsighted step in our foreign policy. The days when power politics and cruelly calculated self-interest dictated "smart" foreign policy are over. In an interdependent world, we must connect the dots among complex issues, seeing, for example, how a failed state like Sudan could transform into a safe haven for international terrorists comparable to Afghanistan or Somalia. It is easy to imagine extremists and terrorists exploiting the festering hopelessness and indignity of Sudan's population in the aftermath of genocide.

In addition, America cannot predict the state of Africa or the world 10 years from now. If we ignore this humanitarian crisis, it may very well haunt us in the long run. It is noteworthy that in the past, skeptics questioned our interest in investing and intervening in Central European states or South Korea. Today, those states are great success stories and some of our strongest allies.

In recent months, Sudan's Janjaweed army has internationalized its genocide, extending its targeted raids, rapes and murders to hated tribes in neighboring Chad. There is no end in sight to the waves of killings as each grave is a silent testament to the world's indifference. America knows what it will take to end the violence ? now, we just need the will to get it done.

CON

Dan Prignitz '06

This week's Rosenfield symposium on genocide raises a perennially reoccurring dilemma of American foreign policy in the post Cold War era: should we intervene to stop extreme human rights violations that occur within sovereign states?

The most pressing case is the potential genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. There an Arab militia with implicit government support has ravaged the local population, killing tens of thousands and forcing two million to flee their homes. Currently, the African Union force in the region is too weak to intervene against the militia. Some think that a larger force of well-equipped military forces-perhaps under the U.N. mantle-could stave off a potential genocide in the region. Many would argue that, with the possibility for success, it is both a moral necessity and it is in its national interest for the U.S. to prevent further mass bloodshed in Darfur through force.

First, the argument for the moral correctness of a massive peacekeeping mission is basically sound: if we agree to the inherent value of human life, and many human lives are in danger, it is just to act with violence to protect those individuals against those wishing them harm. However, assuming that moral action is defined by the values of individuals and groups who act, to claim that U.S. intervention in Darfur is a moral necessity is an impractical view of morality. Such a claim assumes that the preservation of a human life in Darfur is of greater value to Americans than other possible conflicting values-such as national strength through maintaining fiscal discipline in government. While many agree with this assumed principle, others do not, and many are ambivalent as evidenced by our confused reactions to humanitarian crises in other countries. All this tells us is that we are under no moral imperative to intervene to prevent mass murder.

Second, to claim that intervention in Sudan is compatible with national interests requires near-superhuman rhetorical agility. A long-term U.S. peacekeeping commitment would be financially costly and a potential political embarrassment for the government similar to that of the fiasco in Somalia. Moreover, a large U.S. military presence even within a U.N. led force in the predominantly Muslim country would reek of imperialism, causing further hostility in the Muslim world toward U.S. interests. Direct U.S. intervention would hinder the fight against international terrorism more than assisting in it by creating more terrorists. Further, we have little economic interest in intervening in Sudan as most of its trade is with China and the Middle East, and its oil exports to the U.S. are nominal.

The best solution would be for the U.N. or the African Union to muster together a larger peacekeeping force with minimal U.S. presence. This would shift most of the costs to other nations and lessen the resentment bred by a U.S. presence in Sudan. Any American intervention beyond this level would be counterproductive to our interests.

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