Decius wrote:
As I surfed the poliblogosphere one meme that seemed to be common on right and left blogs was Darfur. Both political groups are covering the issue and seemed concerned at the lack of MSM coverage or attention from the Administration. Ironically, Bush called the Darfur situation genocide today, apparently after not mentioning the issue for 3 months.

Powell referred to the Darfur situation as a genocide back in September. Congress made a similar statement in July. Its clearly the position of our State Dept. Its not at all clear what anyone intends to do about it though.

Doing any type of military deployment in that area would be on the level of our deployment in Iraq in terms of the unease it would place on Saudi Arabia. Even though there is a sea in the way, it would put troops within 2,000 miles of Mecca. I think this would be significant in the eyes of the "arab street", as at that point there would be very few directions you could look in while walking around in a circle and not have US military presence within short term strike range. Not that there is actually any desire for a strike on Mecca or anything even remotely similar, but logic seems to run thin among even many moderates...