Better late than never

Reuters reports that the Europeans Union plans to pay more than half the cost (about $100 million) of the African Union's planned yearlong peacekeeping mission to Darfur to end the genocide there.

Three U.S. Air Force C-130s and 120 American Airmen from the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein AB, Germany, landed in Rwanda Saturday to help the A.U. deploy more than 3,000 troops to Darfur. According to Reuters, A.U. commissioner for peace and security Said Djinnit said today that Nigerian troops will be deployed Thursday and Rwandan troops will be deployed Saturday.

Two thoughts on this:

First, I wonder if the United States still would be in a position to provide this kind of support if we dramatically drew down our forward based forces in Europe, as some have proposed. These three C-130s came from an American air base in Germany, and a KC-135 from RAF Mildenhall, an American base in Britain, provided their aerial refueling support.

Second, on a personal note, as a Jew and an Airman, it gives me great pride to see America's Air Force for the second time in just over five years playing a key role in the fight against genocide. (America's Air Force, with an assist from U.S. Navy air forces, stopped the genocide of Kosovar Albanians in 1999.)