No One Thinks of Sudan Anymore

A couple posts linked and excerpted here are far more eloquent and informed than I could be. Sudan and Darfur definitely deserve the attention of those of us who care about human rights and are not endemically opposed to working with other nations. Of course that seems to leave our current administration out; it is my hope that a reasonable portion of our citizenry, at least those not already bought off by the credit card vendors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and abstinence novitiates can make up the difference. It is imperative that the community of caring activist souls keeps this issue front and center and continues to agitate for action to end this genocide. Samantha Power's "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" is one (admittedly bracing) source of background information on the sorry history of our dealings with genocide that I can personally endorse.

From Foreign Policy:

As the Darfur region of Sudan smolders, human rights activists and a growing number of governments have adopted a new strategy. They are calling for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to take the lead by investigating and indicting those responsible for the atrocities. The court, established in 1998 and situated in The Hague, Netherlands, is designed to prosecute the worst crimes against humanity. Given the continuing brutality in Sudan, who could object?

But judicial intervention may not be the wisest course—at least not yet. Those clamoring for the ICC to take the lead want to establish the precedent that atrocities will be punished. Instead, they may be handing cautious politicians an excuse for continued inaction while unnecessarily dividing the United States and Europe.

No one disputes the urgency of the situation in Darfur, where the Sudanese government has employed Arab militias known as Janjaweed to fight an insurgency and terrorize the local population. By some estimates, the conflict has killed as many as 200,000. More than a million people have been forced from their homes. In September, then U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell publicly labeled the campaign in Darfur a genocide. In response, the U.N. Security Council passed resolutions and helped establish a small African Union peacekeeping force. But council members have refrained from sending their own troops or even threatening the Khartoum government with force. Meanwhile, the atrocities continue.

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It is more than a little disconcerting for me to be offering up the idea of US military forces becoming involved in yet another far-away place. However, this one seems far more appropriate than, say, a unilateral unjustified occupation of Iraq or an air assault against Iran.

From New Democrats On Line:

The Iraq invasion of 2003 was a very difficult and divisive test for the United Nations and for the international collective security it is intended to provide. But the ongoing genocide in Darfur is a much easier case, morally, politically, and militarily, and gives the international community an important opportunity to rebuild credibility for effective collective action.

No one, other than the Khartoum government itself, denies the slaughter which goes on each day, or that government's culpability for it. Earlier this week, a British parliamentary committee suggested that the death toll in Darfur may have already reached 300,000, or about four times the official estimate. The number of displaced persons inside Sudan has risen to nearly two million. There are now over 200,000 refugees in the neighboring country of Chad.

Hopes that the recent political settlement between the Khartoum government and the southern Sudanese rebels might lead to an end to the genocide have been proven wrong. The Organization of African Unity's military contingent in Sudan is a good and important step forward, but the force is far too small and far too constrained in its mandate to have any hope of stopping the killing on its own. Likewise, the U.N. Security Council resolution setting up a process for trying those involved in the Darfur genocide as war criminals is a positive development. But it's not enough, either.

It's time for the countries with the will and the capacity to intervene and stop the killing to do so, in conjunction with the OAU force. That means the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy.

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Dust Annoy Ya?

Sorry, no allergy cures here. Merely playin' with words.

In my quixotic quest for connections , I recently encountered and was of course compelled to buy a slightly musty and less-than-"fine" copy of "It Can't Happen Here," by Sinclair Lewis (1935). While not on my formal written "wants" list, memory was jogged due to several references to this novel in the past year. The fact that it was in the cast-off bin, selling for $2, was just gravy. Connection, indeed:

Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
. . . a cautionary tale about the rise of fascism in the United States. During the presidential election of 1936, Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, observes with dismay that many of the people he knows support the candidacy of a fascist, Berzelius Windrip. When Windrip wins the election, he forcibly gains control of Congress and the Supreme Court, and, with the aid of his personal paramilitary storm troopers, turns the United States into a totalitarian state. Jessup opposes him, is captured, and escapes to Canada.

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It CAN Happen Here!, December 8, 2003
Reviewer: Charles Häberl (Cambridge, MA United States)
Surprisingly, Sinclair Lewis' darkly humorous tale of a fascist takeover in the US, "It Can't Happen Here," is not merely out-of-print, but also quite hard to find. As dated as it is (1935), its themes will be quite familiar to Americans today. It starts with the highly contested election of an oafish yet strangely charismatic president, who talks like a "reformer" but is really in the pocket of big business, who claims to be a home-spun "humanist," while appealing to religious extremists, and who speaks of "liberating" women and minorities, as he gradually strips them of all their rights. One character, when describing him, says, "I can't tell if he's a crook or a religious fanatic."

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In this case I am very much looking forward to looking back. In the meantime, there's no scarcity of contemporary cautions. The redoubtable Mr. Krugman, a reliable weathervane if there ever was one to the appalling behavior of the sorry would-be-dynasty we never elected, has returned from vacation in fine form:

Democratic societies have a hard time dealing with extremists in their midst. The desire to show respect for other people's beliefs all too easily turns into denial: nobody wants to talk about the threat posed by those whose beliefs include contempt for democracy itself.

We can see this failing clearly in other countries. In the Netherlands, for example, a culture of tolerance led the nation to ignore the growing influence of Islamic extremists until they turned murderous.

But it's also true of the United States, where dangerous extremists belong to the majority religion and the majority ethnic group, and wield great political influence.

Before he saw the polls, Tom DeLay declared that "one thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America." Now he and his party, shocked by the public's negative reaction to their meddling, want to move on. But we shouldn't let them. The Schiavo case is, indeed, a chance to highlight what's going on in America.

One thing that's going on is a climate of fear for those who try to enforce laws that religious extremists oppose. Randall Terry, a spokesman for Terri Schiavo's parents, hasn't killed anyone, but one of his former close associates in the anti-abortion movement is serving time for murdering a doctor. George Greer, the judge in the Schiavo case, needs armed bodyguards.
Another thing that's going on is the rise of politicians willing to violate the spirit of the law, if not yet the letter, to cater to the religious right.

Everyone knows about the attempt to circumvent the courts through "Terri's law." But there has been little national exposure for a Miami Herald report that Jeb Bush sent state law enforcement agents to seize Terri Schiavo from the hospice - a plan called off when local police said they would enforce the judge's order that she remain there.

And the future seems all too likely to bring more intimidation in the name of God and more political intervention that undermines the rule of law.

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Under the circumstances, perhaps we just need to collectively grapple with the behavior and recognize it for what it is:

Journalists often refer to the Bush administration’s foreign policy as “unilateral” and “preemptive.” Liberal pundits like to complain that a “go-it-alone” approach has isolated the United States from former allies. But the standard American media lexicon has steered clear of a word that would be an apt description of the Bush world view.

Paranoid.

Early symptoms met with tremendous media applause in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Skepticism from reporters and dissent from pundits were sparse while President Bush quickly declared that governments were either on the side of the USA or “the terrorists.” Since then, the paranoiac scope of the administration’s articulated outlook has broadened while media acceptance has normalized it -- to the point that a remarkable new document from the Pentagon is raising few media eyebrows.

Released on March 18 with a definitive title -- “The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America” -- the document spells out how the Bush administration sees the world. Consider this key statement: “Our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism.”

A high-ranking Pentagon official, Douglas Feith, offered this explanation to reporters: “There are various actors around the world that are looking to either attack or constrain the United States, and they are going to find creative ways of doing that, that are not the obvious conventional military attacks.” And he added: “We need to think broadly about diplomatic lines of attack, legal lines of attack, technological lines of attack, all kinds of asymmetric warfare that various actors can use to try to constrain, shape our behavior.”

Translation: They’re after us! And “they” are a varied assortment of individuals, groups and nations bent on harming us while impeding our efforts to do good and protect ourselves. (The Pentagon document says: “Our leading position in world affairs will continue to breed unease, a degree of resentment, and resistance.”) Some want to murder thousands or millions of American civilians, others want the United States to respect human rights and abide by the Geneva Conventions, still others vote the wrong way at the United Nations.

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Imagine that. Those sorry underachieving non-superpowers (of course we earned everything we got without ever coloring outside the lines) have the temerity to try to get us to pay attention to human rights!!

As the old '60's mantra had it, "Even Paranoiacs Have Something to Fear."