Kosovo and the Democratic Party

Peter Beinart has a pretty smart column in the new issue of the new (and much improved) TIME magazine about the future of Democratic Party foreign policy. (I offer this praise despite the unfortunate Prince reference that closes the piece). Beinart dials back the clock to 1999 and the non-UN sanctioned fight a US-UK NATO-led [...]

About That Curious Line

Over the course of its short, too often dormant existence, small-d has not been shy about criticizing the editorial position of The Nation. (Caveat: more accurately, I have not been shy about lambasting the editorial position of The Nation – while always taking care to note the very significant exceptions. As a professional courtesy, I [...]

The Non-Intervention Alternative

William Pfaff, the long time international relations scribe and current columnist for the International Herald Tribune, has an essay in the most recent number of The New York Review that is sure to stimulate a great deal of chatter (in those tiny – primarily insignificant – precincts where such chatter can be stimulated. Like small-d).
Pfaff [...]

The Stain of Iraq

My partner in thought-crime brushed up against a very important thought a few days ago. While the debacle that is Iraq is a daily reminder of the grievous cost of intervention we must consider this cost in light of the alternative of non-intervention. Congo is a perfect case in point. It may seem an [...]

Diplomacy as an Excuse for Inaction

Kudos to The New Republic for keeping on the Darfur issue. If only words mattered more. In the editorial gracing the forthcoming issue, TNR hammers home a point that is not so much new as it is undeniably true.
Money quote: The question now before the West, and Americans in particular, is simple: When will we [...]

The Sin of Cynicism

Humanitarian intervention has never really had much of a constituency in the global marketplace of ideas. In the colonized world, the very term was so long abused as a cover for imperial exploits that it has long since been drained of any real meaning. Only in certain corners of West – namely the left and [...]

A Cry for Who to Intervene?

Here in Washington, DC there was a march this past weekend on the White House. It was modest in scope, a few hundred at most, calling on the Bush administration to “Stop the genocide! Break the deadlock! Protect the people.” The gathering was organized by Africa Action, who planned the rally to coincide with [...]

Sweets and Tear Gas

From Sudan, an intriguing study in contrasts. On the one hand, we have a manufactured anti-US and UN protest at the prospect of international intervention to stop the Sudanese government’s campaign of massacre in Darfur. (It should be noted though that, however orchestrated, the government can still produce a sizable and no doubt genuinely enraged [...]

Saying All The Right Things…

The New York Times reports this morning that President Bush has dispatched his assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Jendayi E. Frazer, to visit Khartoum in an effort to convince the government to allow the deployment of a UN force in Darfur. Seeing as this visit comes on the heels of countless such efforts [...]

Pretty Please

Stumbling steps toward a UN Security Council Resolution on an international peacekeeping force for Darfur. Credit where credit is due – the Bush administration seems to be at least trying to keep the issue alive, not that they’ve done anywhere near enough or done anything to reverse their policies of protecting alleged war criminals and [...]