It was mid-February, 2006, and western Darfur was hot as fire. The colonel was an American. He’d been seconded to the region’s doomed African Union peacekeeping mission, one of dozens of Western military personnel – Canadians, Germans, French airmen in smart blue jumpsuits, even a lone Cuban (compared with Sudan, Cuba is definitely the West) – serving as advisors to the underpaid and underequipped African Union force.
I can’t recall where the colonel was from. He and his family were based in Italy and they hated it. “It’s the language,” he said. “And it’s the food. My kids don’t like the food. Neither does my wife. Or me, for that matter. It’s a lot of McDonald’s, that’s how we’re getting by.”
Continue reading “September 11: A Conspiracy Colonel in Darfur”