LibriumArcana.Games

WASHINGTON (AP) - Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Democratic presidential candidate, called Wednesday for the use of military force to end the suffering in Darfur.

``I would use American force now,'' Biden said at a hearing before his committee. ``I think it's not only time not to take force off the table. I think it's time to put force on the table and use it.''

In advocating use of military force, Biden said senior U.S. military officials in Europe told him that 2,500 U.S. troops could ``radically change the situation on the ground now.''

``Let's stop the bleeding,'' Biden said. ``I think it's a moral imperative.''

Under U.N.-backed agreements approved last fall, a hybrid force of 22,000 African Union and U.N. peacekeepers are to be deployed in Darfur to protect and provide relief for 2.5 million Darfurians who have been forced from their homes and are now confined to camps.

``We must set a hard deadline for Khartoum to accept a hybrid U.N.-AU force,'' Biden said.

The Bush administration has always rejected use of military force in Darfur, partly because of a possible outcry, particularly in Muslim countries about hostile U.S. action in yet another Islamic country on the heels of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Andrew Natsios, the special U.S. envoy to Sudan, said the U.S. has agreed to a request by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for a two- to four-week delay in imposing unilateral sanctions against Sudan so negotiations can take place on whether Sudan will accept deployment of international peacekeepers for Darfur.

Natsios said the U.S. is contemplating sanctions against 29 Sudanese companies. He said they are the type of sanctions that have been imposed with some success against Iran and North Korea.

If the sanctions are applied on the Sudanese companies, he said, they could lead to the paralysis of some of their operations.

``It will have an affect on the economy,'' Natsios said in testimony to the committee.

Biden, of Delaware, and other senators expressed impatience with the lack of progress on Darfur four years after civil strife broke out between Arab and black tribes in the western Sudanese region.

Sudan's government has agreed to the initial stages of the proposed deployment. But President Omar al-Bashir has rejected full deployment, concerned that Sudanese sovereignty will be violated and the troops will arrest Sudanese officials suspected of authorizing war crimes.

Well Canada's got nothing to send unless we want to start waving the one year manditory break that every soldier is supposed to get between tours.

African Union troops? Well you get what you pay for, I don't expect them to have any meaningful effect at all.

frigidmagi wrote:
No offense meant but I suspect that you would have to withdraw from Afghanistan as well. Either that or start expanding the Canadian military to a larger size then it seems the population is willing to support.

From what I've heard... AU troops make UN Peacekeepers look good. Yes that's pretty damn bad. Plus these 2500 would be US troops fighting Arabic muslims, it would be damn stupid of us to think it wouldn't attract jihad fighters looking to score easy kills (Al-Q leaders admit to over 12,000 causalities in Iraq not counting suidice bombers, that means they've paid at least 4 for 1 to kill service members) on the US. Any ally that joined this forlorn hope would have to take that into account.

frigidmagi wrote:And you've been cutting your forces down since the invasion.

frigidmagi wrote:You got a source for thousands there man?

Army fails 'traumatised' soldiers
Soldiers are going absent without leave (AWOL) because the army cannot cope with those suffering combat stress, the BBC has learned.

A Panorama investigation has discovered that frontline trauma is one of the main reasons soldiers turn deserter.

Academic Steven Walker, from the University of Essex, says army support services are over-stretched and a culture change is needed in army attitudes to soldiers with mental health problems.

One soldier who is permanently on the run told the BBC anything was preferable to serving in Iraq.



According to some analysts, there are an estimated 2,700 incidents a year of soldiers going AWOL either temporarily or permanently.

An estimated 1,100 are currently on the run, some since 2001.

The Ministry of Defence said this figure was now about 2,300 a year, compared with 2,700 in 2004.

Mr Walker, who has interviewed ex-soldiers, said soldiers left traumatised by service in Iraq were not deterred from going AWOL.

"The nature of the conflict is stressful - soldiers work inside civilian populations where they don't really know who the enemy is.

"The young soldiers I interviewed had traumatic experiences in Iraq and developed emotional and mental health problems that weren't acknowledged or dealt with properly and that prompted them to go AWOL," he said.




One of the 1,100 soldiers on the run tracked down by Panorama said the change in his state of mind alarmed his friends on his return from Iraq.

"My friends were like you're in a mess man," he told the BBC. He admits that avoiding the authorities and military police is making him paranoid, but added, "As bad as my life is constantly on the run, I wouldn't be able to accept going back to Iraq or Afganistan."

Richie Livingston, from Glasgow, went AWOL after a childhood friend and fellow soldier was killed in Iraq.

He tried a drugs overdose and was later found carving his friend's name into his own chest with a scalpel.

Mental health

Richie told an army psychiatrist who said he was fit to return to duty.

He then went AWOL again.

"I felt they did not pay attention to what was going on and they thought I was basically putting it on," he said.

But not everyone is convinced that mental health issues drive soldiers to go AWOL.

'Immature soldiers'

Amayas Godfrey, former captain and intelligence officer with two tours of duty in Iraq, had first hand experience of runaway soldiers.

"In my experience why the majority of soldiers went absent without leave was down to the fact that they were young, inexperienced and sometimes immature and they didn't know how to face their problems.

"They didn't know they could go to their commander and say 'I'm really worried about my wife or the situation with my parents.'

"Usually they react badly and say 'It is all too much and I'm not going to come back.'"

Speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, Col John Donnelly said the number of soldiers going AWOL was reducing and most of the cases involved family issues.

He rejected suggestions that frontline trauma caused soldiers to desert: "There's nothing we have that will suggest it is a particularly big issue."

Col Donnelly added: "We make great demands on our people but we also put in place a very strong welfare network to support the soldiers who need to take advantage of it."

The Ministry of Defence issued the following statement on Monday 26 March before transmission of Panorama but while the story was running on BBC News.

"It has been inaccurately reported in the media that mental health problems caused by operations in Iraq have had a detrimental impact on absent without leave (AWOL) rates within the British Army.

"In fact, operations in Iraq have had no discernable impact on the overall AWOL rate. The number of new AWOL cases has declined over the past two years. In 2006, the military had its lowest number of AWOL cases for seven years.

"There are a number of reasons why soldiers go AWOL, but current evidence suggests that most incidents are caused by soldiers' domestic circumstances, such as difficulties with families or partners. Confidential advice is available to all soldiers from the Army Confidential Support Line on 0800 731 4880.

"The Army has a comprehensive welfare structure in place that provides practical and emotional assistance for soldiers and their dependants. This includes direct access to mental health services, including 15 military Departments of Community Mental Health, across the UK and overseas.

"Some individuals abscond on multiple occasions. As a result, the total number of AWOL cases is higher than the number of individuals who go AWOL."

But what's the US's excuse beyond crippling red tape?