As have many of us who read and write about current events online, I've been disappointed with the sluggish rate at which mainstream entities have taken up the Sudan issue. Now that the topic of Darfur has made it to the U.S. Congress and the major media, my mood is shifting more toward disgust.
What kicked the shift off, this morning, was this odd letter to the Providence Journal from Bruce Gillard of West Kingston, RI:
Bush ignores Sudan genocideRecent news reports from Darfur, in Sudan, have described the genocide that is going on there. My heart aches as I watch our country once again turn its back on genocide in Africa.
Every day, 1,000 more lives are lost, 75 percent of them children under 5. If we don't act, the death toll could reach a million within the next few months.
President Bush refuses to call the atrocities "genocide," but he is beginning to face a real challenge in Congress, where members of both parties are speaking up. We can only hope they succeed.
Apart from the conflict between Gillard's assertion that the United States is "once again turn[ing] its back on genocide in Africa" and his admission that Congress is taking action, this characterization of the way the matter is playing out jarred against my understanding. "Refuses"? Poking around, I found one possible source of what amounts to nauseating spin:
John F. Kerry yesterday told a national gathering of black leaders and voters that President Bush was ignoring ''genocide" in Sudan and the AIDS pandemic, which Kerry called ''the greatest moral crisis of our time."
Not surprisingly, some media reports seem similarly to be reporting according to a given framework. After Congress passed its resolution calling for more determination to end the atrocities, CNN, for example, presented Secretary of State Colin Powell's call for action as if in opposition to the President's unduly nuanced position but subsequently quoted Powell's explanation of why usage of a particular term requires care as evidence thereof:
"There is a legal definition of genocide which includes specific intent to destroy an entire group," Powell told reporters at the United Nations Thursday. Once he receives more reports from the region, "we will make a judgment in due course," he added.
As I understand international standards, "genocide" also gives cover for outside nations to take more direct and forceful action, which means that the term itself is a card for leaders to play in the course of diplomacy. Personally, I lean toward throwing such cards down when the lives of hundreds of thousands of people are teetering, but the ignorance of or demurral from noting the realities of international relations among media sources is distasteful. Somewhat worse is John Kerry's taking advantage of the restrictions that President Bush's job place on him.
White House Scott McClellan hints at the administration's predicament while fielding related questions from the press. He had to give a typically evasive answer to the "genocide" aspect of the question, but he advised, "look at the actions that we are taking." After all, it was the United States that brought the issue to the U.N. Security Council in the first place. It has been the United States that, facing opposition, has stood as the most aggressive voice on that council. And in its resolution, one of Congress's commendations of the administration is for appointing John Danforth, previously "Envoy for Peace in Sudan," as United States Ambassador to the United Nations.
In truth, coupled with an act, introduced earlier in the week, authorizing specific actions and granting specific resources, Congress's resolution sets up the administration to wrangle on the international stage. Being the milder voice in the American government, the Executive has room to parry and thrust as diplomacy requires. Such positioning is how these things work.
To some extent, Kerry and the media can assist by playing the same "bad cop" role as Congress, but it seems to me that they've gone too far. The tone and context of the rhetoric give one the sense that attacking the President is more important than assisting the him in attacking the Janjaweed. To the extent that sense is correct, the contempt indicated for the suffering people of Sudan ought to spark some reflection among those exuding it.
I've no doubt that such folks as Mr. Gillard are culpable for nothing more than allowing an over-heated political atmosphere to seep into truly humanitarian concerns. But that, too, ought to spark some reflection... among us all.
Posted by Justin Katz at August 2, 2004 11:40 AMFunny how the "greatest moral crisis of our time" didn't make it into his speech at the convention.
Posted by: Jeff Miller at August 2, 2004 1:01 PMTrying to keep up with liberal thinking on foreign policy is making my head spin: Bush is a bad guy because he went into Iraq. He wanted Saddam to stop killing the Iraqis, shut down the rape rooms, stop putting people through plastic shredders, feeding them to dogs, etc. (Video available upon request.) But that wasn't enough of a reason to go into Iraq. Oh no. The only reason that the libs thought was maybe adequate to go in was the fear that Saddam had WMDs. Then the liberals were furious (or maybe overjoyed) when we didn't immediately find the WMDs, because they insisted that that was the only reason to go into Iraq. The killing the people part was irrelevant.
In Sudan we have a government killing its people. And the killing is along racial and religious lines, which is supposed to be worse than killing people indiscriminately. (I don't quite understand why, but it doesn't matter.)
No one is claiming that Sudan has WMDs aimed at the United States. The only reason to intervene is humanitarian. And now the libs are criticizing Bush for failing to intervene when Sudan poses no threat to us at all?
How can the libs maintain these kinds of open contradictions in their views on foreign policy? It makes my head hurt when I try to think about it. Perhaps Lewis Carroll understood:
`I can't believe THAT!' said Alice.
`Can't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. `Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.'
Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said: `one CAN'T believe impossible things.'
`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'
Posted by: Ben Bateman at August 2, 2004 4:59 PMBen,
I agree with you that it is truly hypocrisy at the highest level for Democrats to say Bush is ignoring what is happening in Sudan and then to criticize the policy in Iraq.
But at least acknowledge that the hypocrisy is not based on some faulty ideology but solely on opportunistic partisanism.
Many Republicans were saying very similar things about some of foreign policy decisions made by Clinton including his bombing of Iraq.
If the incumbent was a Democrat and the circumstances were the same, I truly believe Rush and Howard Dean would be using each other's rhetoric.
Bottom line is that it isn't what or why as much as whose watch it is on. Having said that, the recent accusation of Dean (politically inspired terrorist threats) hits a new low, even for partisan Democrats.
I give Joe Lieberman credit for responding the way he did. It is possible to be a Democrat and have some integrity (seemingly rare, yet possible)
Posted by: Mark Miller at August 3, 2004 10:29 AM"Many Republicans were saying very similar things about some of foreign policy decisions made by Clinton including his bombing of Iraq."
Mark, I'm not following you here. IIRC, Republicans didn't criticize Clinton because he was too bold in foreign policy, but because he was too weak even when he acted. He didn't invade Iraq; he threw a couple of cruise missiles at some empty buildings. When he went into Bosnia, he did it with an ineffective air-only campaign to avoid ground casualties. We lost those Rangers in Mogadishu because our forces were too small, too lightly armored, and most of all too tightly constrained in what they could do.
The irony of Clinton's foreign policy was that he acted just like the American liberals who fought the early Vietnam war, which he had so vigorously protested: He wanted small operations with narrow objectives, all tightly controlled by politicians.
The basic truth at work here is that if you're going to use military power, it's best to set big goals that will really get your problem solved, and then turn all the other decisions over to the military professionals. Clinton never had the nerve to do that, which is why his foreign policy was so inconclusive.
If the parties' positions were reversed, you're right that the Republicans would be criticizing the Democrats. But the substance of the criticism would be entirely different.
Today, a Republican administration has won two small wars abroad, and the Democrats are in effect wishing that we had lost them, and hoping that was lose in the future.
If the Democrats had won in 2000, we would still be fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, trying to use air power against an enemy that lives in caves and debating whether we should trickle in a few more ground troops. All military operations would require the approval of Kofi Annan and an environmental impact study. The Democrats would be fighting in such a way as to make sure we lost, and the Republicans would be criticizing them for fighting so ineffectually. That's not nearly the same as what's going on now.
Posted by: Ben Bateman at August 3, 2004 11:50 AMBen, I agree with your substance but the reality is that Republicans did condemn the bombing of Iraq and the efforts in Bosnia on the grounds of "why?" and "is the lives of our children worth it?".
I'm sure there were some ideological conservsatives who agreed with you but many members of the opposing party in Congress were acting just as John Kerry is today.
I'm no fan of Clinton in any way but my point is that the policy criticisms of the members of the not-in-power party are most often politically motivated and based on hindsight rather than foresight. Or to put it simpler, there's a clear agenda and ideology goes right out the window.
Posted by: Mark Miller at August 3, 2004 12:16 PMSean Hannity and other prominent Republicans have repeatedly berated Bill Clinton for ignoring genocide in African countries. I think John Kerry is just playing "get even." A little childish, perhaps, but it is a game that has been played by both parties since the time I can remember.
Posted by: Joel Thomas at August 3, 2004 6:24 PMDarfur is a killing field. The whole thing is another test like Rwanda which the other nations of the world failed at. Does it always take unilateral action by the United States? At this point, if Bush dropped in a division, it would be a disaster all around.
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