Rally for Action on Darfur

Protests have taken place around the world to demand intervention to end the fighting in Sudan's Darfur region.

Organisers of the Global Day for Darfur said events were taking place in 35 capitals to mark the fourth anniversary of the conflict.

Protests included a rally in Downing Street in London, as well as a march on Rome's Coliseum and a demonstration in the German capital Berlin.

Some 200,000 people have died since the conflict began, according to the UN.

Celebrities backing the campaign, such as George Clooney and Mick Jagger, have signed a statement accusing the international community of apathy.

It's not apathy. It's willful and calculated scheming by China and others to block any action that would bring UN peacekeepers to the region because of China's insatiable need for energy. Sudan refuses to permit peacekeepers to operate throughout the affected region and has had a hand in the genocide by backing the janjaweed in their ethnic cleansing of the region.

And there's yet another difficult question to ask - what should the US do about Darfur? Should the US intervene? And if you say yes, then what about the ethnic cleansing in Iraq that resulted in hundreds of thousands killed at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his thugs? Such is the difficult slippery slope of selectively demanding action by the US to deal with massive and overwhelming human rights abuses.

Frankly, I have no problem with the US intervening in Darfur because that region, like Iraq and many other places around the world simply become an incubator for terrorists and thugs to run rampant and cause mayhem and violence. Trying to impose some kind of governance is preferable to the alternative - anarchy fueling terrorism and those who would be open to terrorism because they lack any alternatives.