September 9, 2004
BEARING RESPONSIBILITY:
Powell says genocide committed in Sudan (Associated Press, September 9, 2004)
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that abuses by government-supported Arab militias in Sudan qualify as genocide against the black African population in the Darfur region - a determination that should pressure the government to rein in the fighters. [...]"We concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed (Arab militias) bear responsibility - and genocide may still be occurring,'' he said.
He added that that as a contracting party to an international genocide convention, Sudan is obliged to prevent and punish acts of genocide.
"To us, at this time, it appears that Sudan has failed to do so,'' he said.
Powell noted that Article VIII of the convention provides that parties to the accord may call on the United Nations to take such action under the U.N. charter ``as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide ... .''
Powell called on the United Nations to undertake a full investigation.
"To this end, the U.S. will propose that the next U.N. Security Council resolution on Sudan request a U.N. investigation into all violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law that have occurred in Darfur, with a view to ensuring accountability,'' he said.
Maybe he wants to stay for the second term because he enjoys being a force for good in the world. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 9, 2004 4:10 PM
If your family was in a zone where Jinjaweed serial killers were roaming, would you be comforted by a call for "investigation"? How friggin' long will that take?
This should be the schedule:
Nov 4-11: destroy Jinjaweed
Nov 15-22: destroy Iranian Mullocracy
Nov 22-29: destroy Syrian Baathists
Dec 1: get back to U.N. to see how that investigation proposal is doing
Posted by: Jim Gooding at September 9, 2004 4:44 PMJim:
Not being Realists doesn't require that we be Unrealistic.
Posted by: oj at September 9, 2004 4:59 PMWe would be confronting the government of the Sudan, an oil-producing state, a member of the Arab League and a good buddy of the Bush Family sugar daddies in Saudi Arabia. The belief that America will do anything other than the merest peppercorn here is laughable.
Posted by: Bart at September 9, 2004 5:14 PM& we'll never invade Iraq or help Haiti....
You seem not to have processed yet that the President is serious about his Christianity, not about oil.
Posted by: oj at September 9, 2004 5:21 PMWhat do Haiti and Iraq have to do with this discussion?
Our intervention in Haiti occured because there was a 'boat people' problem of massive proportions in South Florida and Haitians are a significant voting bloc in Florida, NY and NJ.
Our intervention in Iraq took place because of Saddam's role in sponsoring international terror and the distinct likelihood that he would develop nuclear and other WMD and would use them on people like Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia much to the detriment of American economic and political interest.
What then is the basis of an intervention in Sudan, however laudable our intent? Again, you have to explain to that mother in fly-over country why her kid had to get killed?
Posted by: Bart at September 9, 2004 5:29 PMWhat boat people?
what threat?
We're going to Sudan for the same reason we went to Iraq, Haiti, Afghanistan, etc.--it's our moral responsibility.
Posted by: oj at September 9, 2004 5:37 PMOJ,
You really should lay off the hallucinogens. There were tens of thousands of Haitians sailing to the States on rickety rafts. If you think that the Iraq campaign has anything to do with humanitarianism, and nothing to do with Iraq's role as a terror state, then you really are living in a delusion. We went to the junkyard that is Afghanistan because al-Qaeda was using it as a staging area for terrorism against Americans, not because anybody gives a rat's derriere about what happens to Afghans.
Your naivete is staggering.
Posted by: Bart at September 9, 2004 10:14 PMWe are not doing anything about Darfur.
That's good.
We could. We could shut it down overnight.
That we haven't shows we won't. We're now at the point where everybody will be too embarrassed to do anything, because doing it would prove that we could have done it long before, raising the moral question, why didn't we?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 10, 2004 1:48 AMOJ,
The Haitian rafts were such a problem that references to them made it to sitcoms.
Are you telling me that Iraq never had WMD? Then what did they gas the Kurds with? Felaffel?
Are you trying to say that Osama doesn't exist?
What precisely is your point?
Posted by: Bart at September 10, 2004 7:26 AMYes, your ostensible causes are sitcom fodder.
Posted by: oj at September 10, 2004 8:31 AMHarry:
There are already boots on the ground--that's record time in response to genocide.
Posted by: oj at September 10, 2004 8:45 AMOJ,
A few hundred people to cover tens of thousands of square miles and protect millions of people. That's an insult to everyone's intelligence, not a presence. It is a salve to make us feel good, it is not an effective response to a human tragedy.
Posted by: Bart at September 10, 2004 12:14 PMIt's early innings. The SEALs who went into Iraq in September 2001 didn't change the regime themselves either.
Posted by: oj at September 10, 2004 12:25 PMActually, Orrin, there aren't.
The 300 Africans are not allowed to protect the locals, only the do-gooders.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 10, 2004 10:41 PM