Darfur: Should the U.S. Send Peacekeeping Troops?

I think if the United Nations, NATO and the African Union are not helping Darfur, the United States should. Yes, our relations with other countries might diminish, but we have to think of the real reason we would be in Darfur. The mass killings of citizens by the janjaweed helps give this atrocity a "genocide" rating, and if the United Nations isn't going to step in, we can't just be an innocent bystander. I don't think the U.S. always has a right to be the "global police", but when innocent people are being killed and nobody will stop it, it's time to intervene.

This intervention, like mentioned in the reading, doesn't have to be an air strike, but rather funding to peacekeeping groups (African Union peacekeepers) and "to lobby the United Nations". Something needs to be done.

Heart of Darkness: Part II

Marlow sees the Africans as savages, but yet he says that he also sees that they are human. "The mind of man is capable of anything..." (p. 32). This means that although Marlow and the rest of the crew are civilized, the Africans on shore are still humans and capable of becoming more civilized in their ways. He also makes a comment about how they (the natives) wouldn't know much about time; "I don't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged to the beginnings of time--had no inherited experience to teach them as it were." This shows that although the natives aren't civilized, they didn't have a choice in learning those things because they haven't had the experiences that would cause such civilities.

He doesn't think that skin color should make a difference, but many times when he sees a black man, even the one on the ship that would help him, he would call the "n" name.

I think that Marlow's character is trying to say colonization isn't a bad thing. He talks about the natives being "not inhuman" and so it is kind of like saying they have potential to become more civilized, which chalks up to being more human-like.

Kurtz is a man that many men know. He sells/trades ivory and is known anywhere where they need ivory--which would probably mean that he is known in many places (all of Europe).

Heart of Darkness

This means that although you take the world away from someone to have all the glory, the thought is still there that is justified, wanting something strong enough that people can make "sacrafices" to it. This could be a quote on justice and imperialism in the sense that the "sacrafices" made would be those who are forced into this new way of life, "because their noses are flatter" and the thought of domination was justifed by needing something to command and rule.

Marlow talks a lot about maps, saying that if he saw white space on one, he would plan to discover a land mass himself. "But there was one yet--the biggest, the most blank, so to speak--that I had a hankering after." Fulfillment, in Marlow's eyes, is conquering another land mass, even with natives, showing how he supports colonialism in this effort as well. You can't have expansion without it.

Should the United States drop out of the United Nations

Despite certain setbacks of the U.N., including it's lax standard of using force and it's expensive remodeling bills, the U.S. should emphasize the need for a revised United Nations. The Defense Monitor states that "Beyond a carefully revised Security Council, the increased us of the UN to avert, restrain, or intervene in disputes between and within nations calls for improved military planning capabilities under the direction of the Security Council" (p. 77) As we saw "Beyond the Gate" in class, it became a question of whether or not the UN actually cares about what they are doing. They are helping to help sustain peace, but with orders not to fight for natives unless the UN members are being shot at. These orders must be revised before we can get anywhere new.