As we honor the memory of President Ronald Reagan, we?re reminded of the many wise things he said. For example, in 1992 he told the Oxford Union Society, ?Evil still stalks the planet. Its ideology may be nothing more than bloodlust ? but it is evil all the same.?

 Evil was on display ten years ago, when ethnic Hutus in Rwanda began a killing spree after the country?s president died when his plane was shot down. In three months, more than 800,000 Tutsis were murdered. Their bodies piled up in churches, floated down rivers, rotted in the sun. It was ?ethnic cleansing.? In the face of that evil, the rest of the world did almost nothing.

 After it was all over, though, we promised we?d never let it happen again. ?All over the world there were people like me sitting in offices who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror,? President Clinton announced during a 1998 visit to Rwanda. ?Never again.?

 Well, it?s happening again.

 In Darfur, Sudan, Arabs known as the Janjaweed have driven more than a million black Africans from their homes. U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland says the Arabs are engaged in ethnic cleansing.

 ?Scorched-earth tactics are being employed throughout Darfur, including the deliberate destruction of schools, wells, seeds and food supplies, making whole towns and villages uninhabitable,? Egeland said.

 So far, though, we?ve responded only with words.

At the G-8 summit in Georgia, world leaders expressed ?grave concern? over the humanitarian and political crisis in Sudan. ?We call especially on the Sudanese government to disarm immediately the Janjaweed and other armed groups which are responsible for massive human rights violations in Darfur. We call on the conflict parties to address the roots of the Darfur conflict and to seek a political solution,? they announced in a statement.

 But as we should have learned in Rwanda, words aren?t enough.

 Right now, more than a million Sudanese are homeless. Some 150,000 have fled to Chad, where they lack food, shelter and medicine. Without international help, hundreds of thousands could starve. Meanwhile, the government of Sudan is doing all it can to keep workers and aid from reaching the refugees.

Words won?t help these people. We need boots on the ground. Luckily, we?ve got well-trained soldiers available.

Last month 1,300 Spanish soldiers returned from Iraq to their base in Badajoz. Recently elected Prime Minister Jos?uis Rodr?ez Zapatero was keeping a campaign promise by withdrawing these soldiers from Iraq. But many believe the withdrawal was also a response to the March 11 Madrid train bombing, an attack blamed on Islamic militants. If that?s the case, then certainly Zapatero could appease Muslims the world over by coming to the aid of the Sudanese Muslims who?ve been chased from their homes. Continued...