Dear Children of Darfur

It is with sincere regret that I must inform you that the United States will probably be unable to intervene to stem the murders, rapes and other hideous state-sponsored crimes in your country of Sudan in a meaningful way.

I'd like to think that many of my fellow citizens in the US would probably care if they had a better picture of what was happening, but unfortunately, nobody is going to tell them. If just one rich white girl had been raped and killed there, you'd be all set. I could pretty much guarantee you a few thousand hours of primetime news coverage, some genuine outrage and probably even a swift, effective public call for action.

Apparently, though, the handful of people here who decide what's "newsworthy" don't consider the massacre of entire villages of unarmed civilians important enough to mention. Neither do they consider the rape of five-year-old girls by soldiers, or the murder of women carrying their infants in their arms by Janjaweed 'militias' to be particularly newsworthy.

Maybe it's because you don't have any oil or other strategic resources. Maybe you're just not white enough. I really don't know. But all we're given here is a ticker legend or a ten second sound bite mentioning 'atrocities' that happened somewhere far away in a land most of us have never heard of. The few of us who do know what's going on just can't yell loud enough to awaken the rest.

Anyway, the cavalry ain't coming.

Sorry.