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.

The Spanish troops probably would be eager to help. After all, many weren?t pleased at being pulled out of Iraq. ?We should have stayed and finished our mission,? 29-year-old Jos?rancisco Casteneda told the Boston Globe. ?When you are there on the ground, you see the poverty and people living in mud houses next to Saddam?s palaces,? another 29-year-old, Cesar Royo told the paper, ?the work we were doing seems justified. It had valor.?

Royo is right. And helping the Sudanese maintain the tentative peace agreement they signed just last month would have valor, too.

Germany, France and Russia claim they took the moral high road by opposing the coalition?s intervention in Iraq. Recently the foreign minister of Spain got in on the act. He now says his nation ?will not have any presence in Iraq because we?re convinced that the best way of speeding up the process of the stabilization of Iraq is that foreign occupation forces withdraw.?

Well, the best way -- in fact the only way -- to maintain stability in Sudan would be to bring in troops. If the Russians, French and Germans would match the Spanish contingent, the world could have more than 5,000 men on the ground within weeks, protecting the peace and delivering aid and comfort to more than a million oppressed Muslims.

Bombs, missiles and chemical weapons aren?t the only Weapons of Mass Destruction.
People are, too. Sudan?s Janjaweed know that, and they?re doing all they can to kill hundreds of thousands of people. The world can stop them -- and it should.

 We?ve done our part for peace, by taking out Saddam Hussein, a WMD who killed more than 300,000 Iraqi Muslims.

 Now it?s time for Europe to step up. Just a few thousand European soldiers could stop the killing in Sudan, and save untold thousands of Sudanese Muslims. Let?s see those who consider themselves our moral betters do what?s right, and fight for peace on earth. We?ve said ?never again.? This time, let?s mean it.