Rude reminders

Attended a panel presentation last night about the genocide in Darfur. It was organized by geography graduate students and it was striking. The conversations ended with a bit of a stalemate. There seemed to be almost universal desire for military intervention--one member of the audience stated "This is simply not acceptable, we should put however many troops on the ground that would make it stop." One of the panelists responded by saying something to the effect of "And then what?" His ticked off a number of underlying moral issues that cause genocide and then a string of other countries where conditions are similar to Sudan (and yes, a great number of people are dying).

There was a palpable moment of thought as people processed the idea that military action might not do any good in any of these situations. The moment passed quickly though.

The quote of the evening came from this same panelist: "We spend too much time professing the ideology of human rights law."