Follow the Oil

Darfur not only hugely distracts from Iraq, it enables administration warmongers to quietly incite a confrontation with China over oil and, more generally, to build up the ad-hoc team of 'humanitarian interventionists' who can give full-throated support from the sidelines to all manner of yet to be determined future adventures. 'Humanitarian intervention' being the thin end of the wedge for military conquest. Not to harp on my recent post regarding Darfur but there are at least two essays out there definitely worth perusing, one by Mahmood Mamdani, "The Politics of Naming" and the other by Brendan O'Neill, "Darfur: Pornography for the Chattering Classes." Elsewhere, Brendan makes a very apt connection between Bosnia and more recent interventions, one well worth considering in extended detail, but which I will not attempt here.