Two Sides to a War

I'm fairly certain I don't grasp the full complexity of the situation, but it continually strikes me that enthusiasts for military intervention in Darfur, insofar as they're not just poseurs eager to use the corpses of thousands as fodder for cheap UN-bashing (see also), are oddly in denial about the fact that there's an actual war happening with multiple sides. A feasible intervention against the government, it seems to me, would have to be an intervention on behalf of the rebels and their political agenda. This is a course of action that nobody actually wants to explicitly endorse. Perhaps that's wrong. Perhaps Darfuri independence is a cause we should get behind. I'm skeptical that re-drawing all the lines on the map is the solution to Africa's problems -- seems more like a Pandora's Box to me -- but maybe someone can make that case. This other idea that an intervention could somehow proceed without us taking sides seems a bit daft.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2006/10/two-sides-to-a-war/40460/