Kumbayah Always Works (Right)

ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ hears many on the left clamoring for the U.S. to intervene in Sudan to end the genocide in the Darfur region. Most of these folks are screaming to high heaven protesting the action in Afghanistan to end the state sponsorship of the 9/11 perpetrators and the Iraq action to topple the Baathist government's failure to comply with the cease fire agreement of February 1991, both of which can be defended as legitimate pursuits of national interests. Ralph Peters has an interesting take on the Darfur situation where the U.S. would be hard put to cite having a national interest.

The killing will never stop until we stop pretending that every dictator or junta seizing power is entitled to claim sovereignty over the millions who never had a voice in choosing their government. After the oppression of women, the sovereignty con is the world's greatest human-rights abuse. And for all of its damnable incompetence, the Bush administration understood that one great truth.

Darfur deserves more than self-satisfied words. As does Iraq. And Afghanistan. And Zimbabwe. And Burma/Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and so many other "sovereign states."

But if we're ever going to stop the killing, we first have to stop the lying. Especially the lie we tell ourselves about the universal desire for peace: Try telling that one to the Janjaweed militaman raping your wife, burning your house, taking your children into slavery - and cutting your throat.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese government laughs at all of us. Khartoum is so confident that the world doesn't give a damn about black Africans that it's recently moved to destabilize neighboring Chad.

The hypocrisy of the intelligentsia, here and in Europe, stinks to the throne of God. No campus seminar ever provoked a cease-fire, and no demonstration ever halted a massacre. Those who are unwilling to fight injustice will ultimately face injustice and a fight.

Where are the European moralists in this tragic saga?

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ