July 25, 2004
SLOW LEARNERS:
US raising stakes over Darfur crisis: Some observers see the declaration of genocide as the first step toward putting US or UN 'boots on the ground.' (Abraham McLaughlin, 7/26/04, CS Monitor)
The US is poised to ratchet up efforts to halt the ethnic cleansing in Sudan's western Darfur region.This week Washington is expected to introduce a UN Security Council resolution that threatens sanctions against Sudan if it doesn't disarm Arab militias who have been attacking, raping, and killing black villagers in Darfur. This comes after Congress took the extraordinary step Thursday of declaring Darfur's crisis a "genocide" - and pushing the White House to follow suit. Some observers see the declaration of genocide as the first step toward putting US or UN "boots on the ground." An American legal team is here now doing tent-to-tent surveys of Sudanese refugees to determine if genocide occurred.
The crisis is far from over. Officials with the UN refugee agency and other groups are preparing for an influx of 200,000 more refugees here, including people like Um Fahara Muhammad, a recent arrival in Chad. After months of hiding in Sudan's dry riverbeds from Arab militias, she says she and her four children were eating only bits of camel food. So they made an eight-day dash for the border, arriving in Chad around July 11. About 200 new refugees a week come to this border town - one sign Darfur's mayhem hasn't abated.
"At the current level of pressure, Sudan's government will only go so far," says John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group in Washington. The new US steps may be what is needed to get Khartoum to rein in the militias, he says. But short of added pressure, they won't, "because they don't believe Washington or the UN Security Council have the political backbone to take it any further."
There are folks from Austin to Afghanistan who bet against George Bush's "backbone" and lost. His faith really leaves him no choice in this matter--we have to intervene. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 25, 2004 9:18 PM
What are the odds that when (not if) he announces intervention, journalists will immediately point out that he's doing it for "political" reasons?
Posted by: kevin whited at July 25, 2004 10:11 PM"In a bid for the black vote..."
Posted by: oj at July 25, 2004 10:50 PMI think the real play will be to get the Froggies to block the action.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at July 25, 2004 10:52 PMHe'll go in for Muslims but wouldn't for Christians.
He has a weird faith.
And why isn't his faith requiring him to go into Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 26, 2004 12:03 AMIf Bush is to be criticized for non-intervention, does that mean a support for intervention in general, for intervention in the cases mentioned, for intervention in some cases but not in others, based on a consistent criteria, or is this just the standard accusation of hypocrisy that is resorted to when all other criticisms fail?
After over a decade of hearing such accusations, first against Clinton, and then against Bush, you'd think people would finally realize that hypocrisy charges aren't sufficiently pursuasive as an argument.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at July 26, 2004 12:41 AMHe didn't save them. Last I heard, the black Christians (and pagans) had decided not to deal with Khartoum.
I don't know why, but the agreement was dead on arrival.
Bush won't intervene in Darfur because he has nothing to intervene with, and when Khartoum finishes there it will resume its work in the south.
They've taken the measure of the outside world, which cares no more for farmers in Darfur than it did for farmers in Abyssinia in 1935.
Or in Equatorial Guinea yesterday.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 27, 2004 3:20 AMWe're going, just like Blair went to Sierra Leone.
Posted by: oj at July 27, 2004 8:20 AMDon't you think it time for European countries to step up to the plate on this one? We are already stretched pretty thin.
Posted by: Jean at July 27, 2004 4:07 PMJean:
Are you being facetious? Waiting for Europe to "step up" is a death sentence for Darfur.
Posted by: oj at July 27, 2004 4:12 PMI'll cover any bets on our going into Darfur.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 28, 2004 11:13 PMDouble or nothing on what you lost on Iraq?
Posted by: oj at July 28, 2004 11:19 PM