Where the Cups are Cracked and Hooked Above the Sink/They Make Me Think

Apologies to the roommates last night, but I cannot willingly subject myself to watching the third film in the Matrix series. Wake me up when Keanu Reeves starts taunting the Grim Reaper again, and I will be happy.

One of the really troubling news stories that I have been following this semester has been the turmoil in the Darfur Region of Sudan. The words "never again" were uttered repeatedly after the horrific genocide in Rwanda ten years ago between the Hutus and the Tutsis, but it seems that we, the world community, are letting it happen again. Despite world leaders, such as Colin Powell, calling the events genocide, the global diplomatic sector has not mobilized a response. I understand that the topic of foreign intervention is an incredibly heated one right now, but ten years ago the world reeled in horror as revelations of mass killing and rape filtered out of Africa, and those same terrible words are reaching our ears once again.

Right now, it is difficult to assert that the United States has the political capital to place itself in the role of Darfur peacemaker, but what about the United Nations? What about the European Union? One of the reasons that the EU has not been mobilized is the stringent standards that must be applied in order for the EU peacekeeping forces to be deployed. Actions of the Common Foreign and Security Policy force have to receive unanimous support from the member nations. This seems to allow the possibility of debate on a subject, but when all the nations cannot agree on the specific course of action, that failure cannot be pinned on one nation, but on the inability of the whole to reach a unanimous decision.

It seemed that the world community drew a line in the sand after the Rwandan genocide, but the strong winds of world opinion and affairs seem to be blowing that line into obscurity.