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Darfur
oneeyedjack909
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Registered User regular
I found this article to be interesting. Sorry it's in the format that it is.
Beware the Grayman
Seems this fellow is going into Darfur without official funding or permission and organizing the local population of Christians to fight off the Islamic militias that are killing them off. He brings minimal personnel with him and organizes the locals into sniper teams to go on patrol to harass the militias and assassinate high priority targets in the hierarchy of the militias.
He's a private military contractor with special forces and training experience but for obvious reasons remains anonymous and goes by 'Mike'. It is unknown how he funds this and how he gets in country but it is clear that his actions are having an effect.
So what are the moral and legal implications here.
On one hand, by definition he is a war criminal. He is training organizing and directly assisting 'rebel' forces in Africa to kill people.
On the other hand, he is fighting an unjust military group who is committing atrocities on a daily basis while no one does anything about it. He obviously possesses the knowhow and ability to do this sort of thing and is not necessarily threatening the sovereignty of a nation but giving an oppressed people the means to throw of those who would kill them.
So what do you guys think?
Beware the Grayman
Seems this fellow is going into Darfur without official funding or permission and organizing the local population of Christians to fight off the Islamic militias that are killing them off. He brings minimal personnel with him and organizes the locals into sniper teams to go on patrol to harass the militias and assassinate high priority targets in the hierarchy of the militias.
He's a private military contractor with special forces and training experience but for obvious reasons remains anonymous and goes by 'Mike'. It is unknown how he funds this and how he gets in country but it is clear that his actions are having an effect.
So what are the moral and legal implications here.
On one hand, by definition he is a war criminal. He is training organizing and directly assisting 'rebel' forces in Africa to kill people.
On the other hand, he is fighting an unjust military group who is committing atrocities on a daily basis while no one does anything about it. He obviously possesses the knowhow and ability to do this sort of thing and is not necessarily threatening the sovereignty of a nation but giving an oppressed people the means to throw of those who would kill them.
So what do you guys think?
"A mans first duty is to his conscience and honor"- Mark Twain
"Those who are willing to give up essential liberties for a little safety diserve neither liberty nor safety"-Benjamin Franklin
"Those who are willing to give up essential liberties for a little safety diserve neither liberty nor safety"-Benjamin Franklin
oneeyedjack909 on
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Teaching and helping these people defend themselves effectively isn't really something a government can officially "do" but there is room for A-team rejects like this guy.
"Those who are willing to give up essential liberties for a little safety diserve neither liberty nor safety"-Benjamin Franklin
And yet, they are doing fuck-all. So, real world practicality comes to call.
Bereft what people should be doing and are not, is what this guy is doing a good thing?
I would argue that it is.
Fast-forward a bit. Imagine the greater conflict in Sudan is settled. Now, you've got a need for setting up a new government and power structure, and there's going to be a lot of people and groups that will want a slice of that pie. Having them all armed will not contribute to making sure that process of democratization runs smoothly. At all.
Also, while the Darfur situation is tragic, I often wish people would pay attention to the Great Lakes region as well. Uganda has just this week announced a re-launching of a full military campaign against Joesph Kony's LRA in the north. Which is bad because peace talks failed, but awesome because if the Ugandans and Congolese fuck Kony's shit up, we may see the end of military child abduction in Northern Uganda. Finally.
What should be considered in the training of a militia are all of the consequences, not just the immediate ones. The idea of harassing the other militias with sniper fire seems like a good idea, but when considered in context of what a militia might do to retaliate, I doubt it is a good idea.
This is a very brutal war. "Mike" won't be able to bring enough munitions in for his guerrilla troops to do much more than harass (I assume). Many innocent civilians could die as a result.
The biggest pitfall in this plan might be training a specific group, ie Zaghawa. That, most certainly, will only serve to increase tensions.
Does anyone have any more information on what this "Mike" is doing?
While this is somewhat true, I wonder if you would offer a solution to the major problem: how does the conflict get resolved?
Yes, but the UN has been completely hamstrung by politics, and it is obvious that nothing will happen until this genocide ends of its own accord and we are all told to feel bad for not doing anything about it.
Well, this guy is doing something about it.
The UN doesn't really have much recourse in this situation. Without the Sudanese government asking for help, they are forced to respect sovereignty and do nothing.
I thought Kony was dead?
And I understand that good things happen in Africa, it's just that, from a western point of view, bad things happen there more than anywhere else (and yes, I know it's the fault of Old Europe, Russia, and America, no need to go there)
Maybe I missed it, but what war crime is he committing? I'm willing to believe I missed something but didn't see anything on that site that indicated an actual war crime being committed.
Also, how do we know this guy isn't just a mall ninja with a better marketing department?
While that's nowhere near what needs to be done to the Sudanese government, that's an example of what popular international consensus can do. We need to get higher-ups to start calling this a genocide. If it wasn't for the failure of humanitarian intervention in Somalia, things would be getting done already.
And Kony's still alive, kickin', and abducting children to fight in his army because rational adults realize he is fuck-crazy and don't sign up.
Are you advocating war? Or are you advocating 40 years of political pressure? Because 40 years is a long time to let a campaign of genocide go on.
I'm advocating coordinated military action to put down the militias followed by intelligent state-building and democratization.
By whom?
If at all possible, could you put more detail into this? The terms are very vague, with "coordinated military action" and "intelligent state-building" being the biggest offenders.
Do you want to kill the militia leaders? Put a peacekeeping force in place? What will the mandate be?
not to say your answer is incorrect at all, I'm just wondering where you're coming from.
The claims of rebel groups need to be addressed to figure out if there's any validity, like the situation with the calls for a Palestinian state. Once the rebel groups are sufficiently dealt with in a military situation and lack the capacity to conduct further military operations themselves, they'll be more likely to come to the bargaining table.
SPLA rebels have little to do with Darfur, and nobody's fighting Al Qaeda in Southern Sudan. Government-armed militias from northern herding tribes are fighting militas from traditional southern tribes. And southerners aren't a Christian minority; animist outnumber Christians 5 to 1, but for some reason people have to refer to the South as Christian, because I guess it's easier for American evangelists to care that way.
And the live-saving-militias line in the end is just priceless, but it wouldn't stand a cursory inspection on anyone who cared to read for minutes from any reputable human rights organization on what those militias do.
edit: they're probably mistaking arabs for muslims and the non arab tribes for christians, though an article with such a poor understanding of the conflict probably has many other facts wrong also.
Indeed, people like painting this variously as a religious and ethnic thing, when really it's a cultural/political issue.
As for what this guy actually does the article is really damn vague, so honestly I couldn't tell you if it's good or bad.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
Unless ECOMOG pulls a rabbit out of their hat and Sudan simply allows them into the country there is no way they would be able to accomplish anything. The armies who contribute to ECOMOG aren't noted for their massive military spending and I'd have to look it up but are they able to provide anything more then 20,000 troops? I seem to recall them having under 15,000 available for all projects. Sudan on the other hand has a much larger and better equiped force. They aren't going to fight their way in and they aren't going to be invited.
The U.N. and N.A.T.O. can get away with that. No one wants to pick a fight with someone who can bring much, much more firepower to bear. ECOWAS doesn't have that luxury.
There. Much better than Christian persecution bullshit and movie fantasies about good militias.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
An excellent point, but I'm just saying I'd like to see ECOMOG or another African entity involved in some capacity, not necessarily as the full counter-rebel force.
Edit: And one more effective than the AU troops. They just don't seem to care. At least a regional group like ECOMOG/ECOWAS has a stake in regional stability.
"I know this one guy, he's so hardcore I can't tell you his real name. He fights Al-Qaeda alone in the jungle and he makes his own knives one by one by hand, then sells them on his website." Right. "OH YEA DUDES and the knives all have 'Death to Al-Qaeda' etched on them!!" Why isn't there a *wanking motion* emoticon?
http://lexiconmegatherium.tumblr.com/
I'd like to see Africans dealing with the problems on their continent. But ECOMOG isn't very good at being peacekeepers. Too much of Africa is at the tools to build the tools stage of government. And while the ECOWAS countries are pretty stable, they suffer from being dirt poor and lacking a solid, experianced professional army. And they aren't going to get the learning they need in time to make a difference in Darfur.
My great hope is that ECOWAS will promote regional economic growth. With economic growth will come education. With education comes the best hope for a stable democracy. But that's a long way away. And it's Africa.
Edit:
It did scream mall ninja to me.
See, I think your steps are missing something. Regional growth around the Sudan would be damned nice, but I don't think it will do anything to promote stability inside of Sudan. If anything, we'd be seeing plenty more refugee movement as precedented by the South Africa -> Botswana movement during apartheid and the Zimbabwe -> South Africa movement of today.
For Sudan, political stability needs to come before economic growth can even be considered. I need to do much more research on the situation to start theorizing about how to really achieve that stability, though. My attention has been focused on Zimbabwe for the past few months.
Bless you!
Giving decent people weapons and training them can give them the capability of ending the killing by stopping the murderers. As for getting the U.N. involved, the U.N. sat on its hands in Rwanda during the genocide there. Innocent people were butchered and the U.N. just kept sitting on its hands. Also, let's not forget the Oil for Food Scandal that went on in the U.N. If you ask me, the U.N. cannot be trusted anymore. It has proven to me to be a failure.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I wasn't referring to Economic growth in Sudan but ECOWAS itself. I would love very much for them to be able to be a valid peacekeeping force for Africa but they need a better economic base and the better governments that will come out of that. That's the point in which they can start to become a really effective force for stability in Africa.
As for Sudan...it's going to simply require someone to be able to get lots of troops into the area. And at the moment...no one can.
Yes, it's been replaced with movie fantasies about Obama bringin' down the hammer on evil-doers. The Economist is a fun paper but not the most substantive pieces of journalism.
It's definitely a political thing, catalyzed by environmental problems and just happening to split down ethnic/religious lines because oh, hey, the two main lifestyles (farmers and shepherds) happened to just be of one ethnicity or another.
No idea for a solution myself at the moment besides somehow getting a working government or something providing services and attempting to calm the violence, but I don't see that happening.
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Besides that, it seem more like he's just trying to give the local Christians an advantage over their Muslim neighbors.
The company I worked for walked out of the Sudan quite some time back because nobody cared. We were doing pretty much exactly what he is, just not based on religious group. Not really such a bad thing to help people defend themselves.