A Modest Proposal

There at the back of the Sunday NYT's most every week is another 12 column inch stake through my heart courtesy of Nicholas Kristof. Only ten years after Rwanda the world has once again turned its back on people who don't look enough like us to warrant our protection and lack the oil to capture our interest. I guess, if you can't scream in English don't bother screaming at all.

Although the President has decided that the word "genocide" does apply to the hundreds of thousands of people who have died in Sudan and continue to die everyday, it is not a genocide we need to do
something about. Only some crimes against humanity require justice evidently.

But, do we need the President to stop it? Can't we hire someone else to do it? Why can't we raise money to hire a private military corporation to stop the killing? UN Peacekeepers are only allowed to keep peace, they can't create it -- and there is no peace to keep right now in Darfur. Villages are being cleansed everyday -- women raped and children murdered. Why can't these villages be given the money to hire their own private police forces to protect their citizens from the Janjaweed Militia. Companies like Blackwater and Triple Canopy are hired by the USG and a host of private companies all over the world to defend their executives and assets in dangerous parts of the world. If a cell phone executive in Baghdad gets his own security force, why not the children of Darfur? If capitalism gets its own army, why can't human dignity or hope get a battalion? Furthermore, if a private military corporation would take this assignment on pro bono, it would be great for their brand. And isn't that what we're all about? Building brands.

Is this legal? Probably not. Is it legal for PMC's to kill people in Afghanistan or Iraq in the name of better cell phone reception? I'm sure there are still a few laws still left from when the world was sane that prevent private citizens from hiring an army. If so, then I say we start a business in Darfur and hire our own force to protect our investment and our customers. I'm sure they need a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Darfur staffed by 25 former Air Force Rangers and a Blackhawk Helicopter parked out back. I know it sounds wrong, but not nearly as wrong as what Mr. Kristof has been writing about. Not nearly as wrong as silence. What kind of world is it if you can hire an army to go and force your point of view on people half a world away?

One where you need a checkbook.