Dan,
Of course, much of the suffering in a place like Africa arises out of issues like war and governmental tyranny - things that we could in fact address if we gave a shit, but we don't.
The world has voiced its concerns over atrocities such as Darfar, and that is all that can be done, but people want more. People demand immediate action to appease their emotional outrage, but western militaries were destined specifically for self-defense purposes only, and not for policing the world, so to send foreign troops into a war torn area is going against their original purpose.
However, if NATO wants to attempt to recruit multiple volunteer countries to send a small number of troops each into Darfar to try to prevent bloodshed then that is more acceptable, as it puts fewer burdens on one particular country, and therefore fewer burdens on one particular group of tax payers.
NATO generally doesn't work over the long-term though because governments tend to pull their troops out prematurely, as at a particular point, the costs outweigh the benefits. and the gains made on the ground, and so many times NATO missions end prematurely, as we are seeing in Afghanistan, as many countries are losing their resolve for the mission itself.
Shahrazad,
Wow, you are a social Darwinist.
Foreign aid generally doesn’t work over the long term anyway, and it lacks an understanding of the causes of poverty. Dan is right, war and government tyranny are causes of poverty, but many times desolate environmental conditions that do not support life create the desperation that give rise to war and government tyranny. Environments that do not support life should not be propped up to continue supporting life, that is the real cruelty. Moreover, if you send western food into an overpopulated slum town, only a fraction are fed, and not consistently. Where is the justice in that? It is just a token of fake compassion rooted in a false comprehension of causality.
Basically - If you could see very clearly that a castle was build on a foundation of sand very close to the ocean shore, Would you continue building new levels, and blocking the oceans path with dams and stones? Or would you cease all effort and simply allow nature’s inevitable force to break through and quickly pulverize the castle out of existence?
Because many times, our ‘moral actions’ and ‘good intentions’ actually perpetuate humanities suffering by merely sustaining an ugly situation with a thin film of sugar coating, generally referred to as foreign aid.
