Colin Powell came out and said that the Sudanese government is committing genocide in the Darfur region, leaving us with the question of what to do about it. The Sudanese, of course, reject the idea of international peacekeepers. They want to continue the genocide unmolested. Various countries on the UN Security Council are not on board because getting oil from the Sudan is more important to them than saving the lives of some people in Africa. The US isn’t going to get too heavily involved because we’re too busy turning Iraq into a beacon of liberty and democracy that will give Sudan something to aspire to. My recommendation would be to start training and arming the Darfur refugees, and let the Sudanese government know that we’re doing it. The international community isn’t going to do anything for these people, and with some guns and training they will at least have a fighting chance against the Janjaweed. That may sound like an unorthodox recommendation coming from a liberal such as myself, but given the lack of better options, enabling these people to defend themselves seems like a better alternative than many others. It’s hard not to think back on Rwanda when you look at what’s going on in the Sudan today, and the thing that finally did enable the Tutsis to end their persecution at the hands of the Hutu majority was their willingness and ability to wage a military campaign against them.