Few humanitarian crises have occasioned as much media and activist attention in the US as the conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Major politicians routinely pay homage to suffering Darfurians in their speeches, well-heeled Darfur advocacy groups take out full-page ads in the New York Times, and commentators regularly fill op-ed ledgers around the country with righteous, indignant calls for the West to act to end the suffering.