A friend of mine wrote: I have been studying U.S. legislation on the genocide as well as African Union proclamations regarding the situation and Sudan’s governmental involvement in the genocide and its vain attempts (read ‘smoke & mirrors’) at unification and inclusion. As I may have mentioned in an earlier email, I am reading Samantha Power’s Pulitzer Prize winnning book: “THE PROBLEM FROM HELL: America in the Age of Genocide.” All the reading leaves me desparately fending off the natural feeling that the situation is so complicated that there is little one can do. THERE IS A LOT ONE CAN DO. Doing nothing is no longer an option.
I called a local Orthodox Rabbi to ask for participation in planning the
December EVENT, mentioning the genocide going on in the Sudan. His first
response was “Well, we’re all kind of busy right now.” I replied: “That’s
what they said in the early 40s.”
What follows is the Letter to the Editor I submitted last week to the
Buffalo News:
It took the U.S. government almost half a century to ratify the United Nations convention against genocide. One year ago, President Bush declared as ‘genocidal’ the horrific situation in the Darfur region of The Sudan. It is clear that the Muslim government of President Bashir is trying to cleanse the oil-rich region of its native African inhabitants. The international
laws against genocide are supposed to obligate the signers to act before
there are no native inhabitants left and/or their culture is in ruins forever. While I realize there is no political gain in honoring his obligation to act, it IS the right thing to do, or has Bush declared war on righteousness, too? The president should lead, follow or get out of the way; the time to act is NOW. When does ‘never again’ become Never Again? What good is a declaration without the courage to ACT? [–end of letter]
Please Billy, all these threads do is cause disagreements among forum members, I know that you’re trying to contribute something topic worthy, and you have every reason to do so, but all of these political-debate threads you post do nothing but make people angry at one another… let’s have a discussion about something less “touchy”.
Billy, don’t stop posting on my account. With no offense to Ice Cream, I’d personally rather see JC stirred up in debate over something important than continue the slide into uselessness (Most Replies! and its variations, the endless mindless polls, etc.) that it’s been on this past year.
Americans should shop more often at the Marketplace of Ideas.
The US and the rest of the world have been ignoring similar crises in Africa for decades. So I ask, what is new?
It is difficult to get involved in those kinds of disputes in Africa politically, diplomatically, and militarily. What’s in it for us? How many US military people are we willing to let die in policing some place in Africa when there is no strategic US interest involved? When US troops got ambushed in Mogadishu and 18 people died President Clinton cut our losses and pulled out of there. Are we willing to go through that again?
Nightline (Ted Koppel is the man) seems to do regular returns to yet another crisis in Africa. They’ll broadcast pictures of the devastation and the plight and then comment that nothing ever gets done and that crises in Africa never get attention until we see TV reports of the plight and even then the attention is fleeting. So, what’s new?
Is it just the US’s responsibility? Where is the rest of the world and the U.N. on Dafur? Europe is a lot closer to Africa than we are, why aren’t they getting involved in Darfur?
I don’t think the USA should get involved in any engagment unless 1: it is directly influenced, or 2: It is protecting a friendly Republic goverment, from a communist, or socialist one. If two democratic societys want to have at it I think we shouldn’t get involved unless extreme circumstances warrant it. Just think, if we would have done what we were supposed to in Korea we wouldn’t be dealing with the nukes they have now, socialism, and communism needs to die, we should bring back Regans war on communism, just blow up north korea who cares about the people, most of them are humanist, and materialist anyways, communism can die along with faulty science, we’ll leave china since there is still alot of half decent people there.
Good point. Dafur should be the U.N.'s responsibility. The U.N. wasn’t able to do anything in this case. U.N. was made to prevent conflicts between nations rather than conflicts within a nation, but maybe the U.N. needs to be changed in order to be able to handle that kind of situation better.
You ask: What’s in it for us? Africa is all of us. By helping your brothers and sisters, you inject integrity and compassion into the heart of humanity.
Martin Neimoller, who reflected upon Germany’s fall to the Nazis:
“In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Who said anything about another war? Perhaps if America’s foreign policy hadn’t been so sideway over the last few years they might’ve had enough international credibility to apply enough diplomatic pressure on Sudan or the UN to help put a stop to the goings on in Sudan.
This is a core issue. I don’t ask what is new here; very little is new. I ask when was the age when there was no genocide? When was the age when there was no slavery? Where is the spot on the globe where these things never existed? This is cruel and brutal and it is the recorded and pre-recorded history of mankind. Bush is clearly responsible for the tsunami and for the gulf hurricanes and for rising gas prices and for the horrendous conditons at WalMart and I believe we should hold him responsible for the behavior of all humans throughout the world and throughout all of history. Why be rational and proactive when you can blame someone you call a cowboy? Humans are nasty, little animals.
I would have to largely agree with what Greg says here. I’d only add that while his sarcasm is well taken, I do believe that the supposed leader of the supposed free world must bear a degree of responsibility the rest of us don’t have to shoulder.
Of course, Edmund Burke of the triumph of evil fame also said, “No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” So the proactive part applies to us all.