Jesse Jackson: Iraq's feast is Darfur's famine

• Originally published in the Chicago Sun Times on August 31, 2004 [here ]

Copyright © The Sun-Times Company

BY JESSE JACKSON  


When Colin Powell nominated himself to preside at the Olympics, the Greeks demonstrated in protest spontaneously. Their leaders opposed any demonstration, worried that Greece would be embarrassed at the Olympics. But the outrage at America's war in Iraq is so great that the molten hot demonstrations led Powell to cancel his trip, pleading other obligations.

When Republicans gathered in New York for their convention, demonstrators numbering about 500,000 filled up Seventh Avenue for two miles. Democrats opposed the demonstrations, worried they would benefit President Bush. This extraordinary rally was a spontaneous expression of the depth of opposition to Bush's policies, particularly the war in Iraq.

In the Sudan, from which I just returned, America's presence is needed and sought. The worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world is deepening. I visited refugee camps built on sand. More than 50,000 people from one village had trekked more than 100 miles to get there. Their entire community had been burnt and razed by the militia forces that the government condones. The conditions are indescribable. Disease and hunger are spreading.

The African Union has offered to send troops, but desperately needs U.S. logistical assistance and transport assistance. The United Nations has helped to force talks, but these could be made real if Powell were to shuttle between Darfur and Khartoum rather than between Washington and Athens.

Across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, America has never suffered such hostility. The invasion of Iraq is widely seen as a play for oil, or a war on Islam. The occupation, opposed now by 97 percent of Iraqis in polls, isolates America. Even among our allies, like Jordan or Egypt or Pakistan, an overwhelming percentage of the population opposes us.

But U.S. support for the intervention of the U.N. and the African Union to stop the genocide in Darfur would be widely applauded. Direct troop intervention would be a mistake, and treated with suspicion, since the Sudan also has potential oil. But if the United States would offer to transport the forces assembled by the AU and joined European allies to provide more food, shelter and real assistance for the displaced, it would be hailed for its efforts across the world.

Here is one measure of the terrible costs of Iraq. U.S. casualties continue to mount, now numbering several thousand killed and wounded. U.S. costs, borne virtually alone, continue to soar -- more than $150 billion and counting at $1 billion a week. The military continues to be taxed to its limits. The attention of Pentagon leaders and the foreign policy apparatus is fixed on the mess in Iraq.

As a result, the human catastrophe in the Sudan goes with too little attention. The military says it can't spare the transport needed for the African Union. The president wouldn't want to make another request for money for a foreign policy initiative. The national security apparatus would largely prefer to let the U.N. handle the crisis and hope it goes away.

Iraq was Bush's wrong choice: the wrong war at the wrong time for the wrong reasons, fought with the wrong plan (or no plan at all). And the direct consequences are already apparent: the United States more isolated and less admired; Osama bin Laden gaining in popularity across the Muslim world.

The indirect consequences are equally damning. We're mired in an occupation that fuels anger across the globe, and are too strapped in troops, resources and leadership to act in a humanitarian mission that could earn us credit across the globe. We're stuck where we aren't wanted, and unable to go to where we're desperately needed.

Bush seems simply oblivious to all this. We're killing terrorists in Iraq, he claims, never acknowledging that we are creating many more fanatical enemies than we are slaying. And the victims aren't simply the U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. The victims include the beleaguered children of Darfur whose lives might be saved were the United States free to do good and not shackled to the self-destructive debacle in Iraq.