And Then What...?

I see that the protesters are at it again.

Do something in Darfur!

Here's my question, Do what? Send in troops? Not on a bet. You geniuses believe that the best way to "stop the war" in Iraq is to "Bring the troops home". Yeah. Do that. Bring'em home. That will end the war.

Not.

All that will do is allow all the various factions (Sunni, Shia, al-Qaeda, whomever) to have a simple crack at each other. The war will not only not end, it will get worse.

So, instead, we should pull them out and send them into Darfur? Huh-unh. How many times have we sent in troops in amongst an Islamic factional feud, a pan-Arab feud, or a pan-African feud and actually had a lasting peace? Anyone? Anyone?

Give yourself a cookie if you said, "Zero!" That's right. A big, fat goose egg for ya. Let's tally up the scoresheet, shall we?

• Beirut, Lebanon - 1957 - 1958
• Afghanistan - 1980s
  
• Beirut, Lebanon - 1983
• Somalia - 1992
  
• The Balkans - 1990s
• Afghanistan - 2001
• Iraq - 2003

Note that, of all of these fights, we can only take credit for starting one (Iraq, 2003). All of the others were the people of the region themselves picking up arms and starting the slaughter. We came in afterwards and tried to help. We wound up getting our troops killed instead. Mind you, these people have been killing each other for centuries without any help from us.

Ending a war is similar to making psychological therapy work; it will only happen if the patient (combatants) want it to happen. The Arabs and Muslims (many times one and the same) seem to have a gene that says, "I must fight, kill and die!" Hence, we can try to "negotiate, compromise, rationalize" with them all we want. And it won't do a damn bit of good.

The best thing to do: Cut'em off. I mean completely. Forget simple embargoes. I mean totally, absolutely, ruthlessly. Don't send our troops into a region. Surround the region. Nothing goes in. Nothing comes out. Our troops have a much easier time of telling who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The good guys are the guys already outside the war zone. The bad guys are anyone inside the war zone. No one leaves, no one goes in. Same for anything animal, vegetable, or mineral. Negotiations for a permanent peace begin once everyone has used up all of his ammo, food, and/or people. When whoever is left shows up at the border waving white flags, then and only then will we discuss things.

Until then, do anything in Darfur? Not a chance.