SUVs To Blame For Darfur Genocide

Ban Ki-Moon knows whose killing the Christians in Dafur. Well, let me rephrase that: He knows what's killing the Christians.

It's climate change. Specifically, anthropomorphic climate change -- the kind we humans cause with all that nasty quality-of-life industrialization we insist on.

Writing in Saturday's WaPo, BanKi postulates his theory of the bugaboo behind the genocide in Darfur:

Almost invariably, we discuss Darfur in a convenient military and political shorthand -- an ethnic conflict pitting Arab militias against black rebels and farmers. Look to its roots, though, and you discover a more complex dynamic. Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.

Two decades ago, the rains in southern Sudan began to fail. According to U.N. statistics, average precipitation has declined some 40 percent since the early 1980s. Scientists at first considered this to be an unfortunate quirk of nature. But subsequent investigation found that it coincided with a rise in temperatures of the Indian Ocean, disrupting seasonal monsoons. This suggests that the drying of sub-Saharan Africa derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming.

It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought. Until then, Arab nomadic herders had lived amicably with settled farmers.

To give his little theory roots, he points to some other conflicts, including Somalia, Ivory Coast and Burkino Faso. Let's look at the religious breakdown of these three countries for a moment, shall we?

• Burkino Faso: 50% Muslim, 40% animist, 10% Christian
• Ivory Coast: Muslim 35-40%, indigenous 25-40%, Christian 20-30% (2001)
• Somalia: 100% Islam (or wisely in hiding)
  

We all know that the conflict in Somalia may have climatological influences, but it's basically a societal collapse brought about by Islamist warlords. The other two nations' population mix indicates what's going on there.

BanKi's theory is so bizarre even Al Gore might question it. Well, he'd probably buy it, but thinking people won't, because if indeed it's global warming we're talking about here, then we'd see warming impacts triggering warfare and genocide globally.

There was a five-year drought in Australia, but did the white farmers kill each other or Aborigines over it? No.

And that heat wave in France a few years back that killed all the oldsters -- do you recall reading anything about bloodshed being triggered by it? Of course not.

In the polar regions, where the ice is thinning and some native tribes are suffering through having fewer animals to hunt, have there reports about Inuit vs. Canuck violence. Not that I've seen.

It's interesting that BanKi points to 20 years ago as the start of global warming, as if 1987 could be pinpointed in the slow crawl of Earth time as when human carryings-on started to impact the planet's climate.

More interesting is his refusal to consider that 20 years ago was also marked the start of the most recent in a recurring historical phenomenon of periodic waves of radical Islamism. Which do you suppose is having a more profound impact on human life at this point in time?

I thought I'd had my fill of U.N. weirdness, but I was wrong. BanKi hadn't gotten to his solution yet.

Ultimately, however, any real solution to Darfur's troubles involves sustained economic development. Precisely what shape that might take is unclear. But we must begin thinking about it. New technologies can help, such as genetically modified grains that thrive in arid soils or new irrigation and water storage techniques. There must be money for new roads and communications infrastructure, not to mention health, education, sanitation and social reconstruction programs.

In an odd logic pretzel, BanKi gives the right solution, but it's counter to his statement of the problem. If anthropomorphic global warming is the problem, then industrialization cannot be the solution. The solution must be to crush industrialization and allow old rain patterns to return.

But BanKi's not that crazy, so he proposes to solve anthropomorphic global warming's impact on Darfur by creating more anthropomorphic global warming. It'll work, but he's going to have to fire his speechwriters first.

Darfur: The Near-Perfect Leftist Cause

At the bottom of Mark Steyn's column today was this announcement he found somewhere in his Internet trolling:

"On Sunday, April 29, Salt Lake Saves Darfur invites the greater Salt Lake community of compassion to join with us as we honor the fallen and suffering Darfuris in a day of films, discussion and dance with a Sudanese dance troupe."

Here's a bit more, from a Deseret News op/ed by a SLSD (Save LSD? No, Salt Lake Saves Darfur.):

Salt Lake Saves Darfur, the local organization of the international Save Darfur Coalition, in observance of the Global Days for Darfur, April 21-29, is sponsoring a series of events to bring the plight of these suffering people to the vision and the hearts of the great people of Salt Lake and Utah. On Saturday, we will be sponsoring, in partnership with the Westminster College chapter of STAND, a lecture by noted Africa and Sudan expert John Prendergast titled "Stopping the Genocide in Darfur." This lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 7 p.m. in the Gore Auditorium on Westminster College's beautiful campus in Salt Lake, and will also be broadcast for those unable to attend.

On Sunday, April 29, Salt Lake Saves Darfur invites the greater Salt Lake community of compassion to join with us as we honor the fallen and suffering Darfuris in a day of films, discussion and dance with a Sudanese dance troupe, Kakwa Union USA, at Salt Lake's magnificent Main Library and Plaza, from 1-5 p.m. This event is also free and open to all. We will discuss ways to get our government to insist on the immediate placement of adequate United Nations peacekeepers to "stop the killing now," get our government to pay its fair share of the costs for this international peacekeeping effort and insist that our government and institutions divest themselves of any entity deriving profit from the inhumane Al-Bashir regime and the slaughter of the innocent people of Darfur.

I'm sure these people are well-intentioned, but their leftist approach is a tragicomedy. Darfur's tragedy; our comedy. They 're going to teach and appreciate and talk and talk and talk. Yet for all of this, they are utterly without a clue. They're only true action is buried in another of their endless discusions:

We will discuss ways to get our government to insist on the immediate placement of adequate United Nations peacekeepers to "stop the killing now," [and] get our government to pay its fair share of the costs for this international peacekeeping effort ...

Do these people not read the news? Everyone wants U.N. peacekeepers in Dafur, including "our government" ... except for one bunch: the Islamists in Khartoum, who block every effort to stop the killing. The Save Dafur group should be saying to stop relying on the U.N., which already has added Dafur to Rwanda on its list of African genocides it did not stop, but they love the idea of the U.N. so much they can't reject the reality.

And I can't for the life of me understand why the Save Dafur crowd wants us to reduce the amount of our contribution to the U.N. efforts, but there it is: "... get our government to pay its fair share of the costs ..."

Over at SaveDafur.org, the looniest mothership since the Heaven's Gate cult suited up for the coming of the Comet Hale-Bopp. Here's their call to action:

Push for the deployment of a strong UN peacekeeping force.

Increase humanitarian aid and ensure access for aid delivery.

Establish a no-fly zone.

With the exception of the no-fly zone, which will do nothing to stop the killers who arrive by Toyota pickup and camel, they have absolutely nothing new to offer, and no way of offering it, other than the U.N. Humanitarian aid is good, great actually, but its effect will be temporary if people continue dying. It won't make much difference if their stomachs are full or empty when the Janjaweed arrive.

All this points to one conclusion: The Save Dafur crowd should be pushing for military action by the U.S. in Dafur. They know it's the only think that will save the Christians -- funny, they never mention this is a Muslim-run genocide of Christians -- is an invasion to take out Umar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir and his thugs in Khartoum, as we took out Saddam Hussein and his thugs in Baghdad.

But they can't bring themselves to call for such an action because recognizing the need for Iraq, and thus aligning with Bush, is more evil to them than the genocide in Sudan.

While Dafur is a universal cause, the SaveDafur.org approach has become a near-perfect leftist cause, right up there with global warming. There's no risk to them that they'll actually have to do anything beyond the symbolic. There will be no draft to stop either crisis, and most important, it appears that there will be no solution to either any time soon.

That means they can go on watching Sudanese dance troops, discussing options, and most important of all, feeling holier than the GOP, for the indefinite future.

Steyn said what this all reminds him of, and he's absolutely right on. I remember seeing the bumper sticker 40 years ago, and the noble struggle (no sacrifice required) goes on today:


It's a shame Tibet is under China's' thumb, and it's an abomination that al-Bashir remains free to kill Christians in Dafur. But neither country is the least bit strategic so they suffer on, far outside the spotlight, while the world, conservative and liberal alike, are appalled ... and unable to muster the will to take the fight to Khartoum.

p.s.: One thing I like very much on the Save Dafur Web site is its call for divesture of investments in companies that do business in Sudan. I hope they will reciprocate, and share my enthusiasm for Divest Terror, which does the same for all terror-supporting states.