DARFUR UPDATE: “The Canadian general who watched helplessly while genocide raged in Rwanda has launched a tirade against Western countries for their ‘lame and obtuse’ response to unnervingly similar horrors unfolding in Sudan.”
There will be a Rally in New York City on September 12th to address this. I hope it does some good.
UPDATE: Just noticed that John Kerry is calling for strong action on Darfur. That’s good. Unfortunately, what Kerry seems to think of as strong action seems a bit weak:
He called on Mr. Bush to “stop equivocating” and declare the attacks a genocide, and to release the findings of a State Department investigation of the crisis. Two dozen experts hired by the department spent a month interviewing refugees and confirming widespread atrocities, and their report, which includes 1,200 interviews, is on the desk of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
Mr. Kerry also said the president should press the United Nations to create a commission to investigate possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
He urged Mr. Bush to press the Security Council to impose sanctions on the Sudanese government in Khartoum. . . .
On the question of military intervention, Mr. Kerry said the administration should push the United Nations to deploy an international force and to authorize it to use all means necessary to disarm militias, protect civilians and allow aid to get through.
As the article notes, that’s not likely to happen given that Security Council members like France and China — which have oil interests in the region through the current government — would veto or sabotage any effort.
I guess Kerry’s not willing to call for unilateral action (that is, action not approved by France), here, but that’s what we need. Some special forces trainers and some weapons to organize the victims in Darfur (and across the border in Chad) would go a long way toward ending this genocide. But if you think that Security Council approval is essential for legitimate military action, then there’s not much that can be done here.