It Takes An Actor

George Clooney is making the rounds on the morning shows and getting the word on out Darfur and the ongoing genocide there. I guess it's nice that Clooney knows where Sudan is and that there's a genocide there, but if he thinks that relying on the UN to get anything done will solve matter, he's sorely mistaken.

The problem is that Clooney doesn't want to bother with the facts - namely that the UN can't act if Russia or China refuse to go along with action. That's why the only action thus far was sanctions against four Sudanese officials because the Russians and Chinese simply agreed to abstain instead of veto the move. The UN's only actions have come because Sudan's backers relented on this modest action, which will have no net effect on the ongoing violence.

So, who else will take action? NATO is made up of European countries, none of whom other than the British have military forces capable of mounting the effort necessary to conduct peacekeeping anywhere - including in their own backyard (Serbia/former Yugoslavia). It's a lack of military power and projection. NATO would further require US airlift capabilities, and again, NATO would run into interference from Russia and China who would try and thwart further action because they wouldn't want their cozy deals upset by peacekeepers taking care of the situation.

The US wants the Africans to do more to solve their own problems, and that's why they've been backing the AU - but the AU has gotten to the point where they're unable to continue because they can't deal with the problem anymore. So they're pushing it off on the ineffectual UN - which to this day refuses to utter the word genocide in relation to Sudan because that would mean that the key clauses of the Genocide Convention are tripped and therefore demand immediate action.

Many American politicians do not want to engage in peacekeeping operations, particularly because of committments elsewhere, including in Iraq, which suffered through nearly three decades of genocidal rule by Saddam Hussein that resulted in at least 300,000 killed in Iraq and more than a million killed as a result of wars Saddam launched against his neighbors.

The latest reports indicate that more than 200,000 people have been killed (though I've seen and heard figures as high as 400,000) in the Darfur genocide. Where were Brownback and Obama years ago when the violence first started to spiral out of control? Brownback, along with then Sen. Jon Corzine managed to pass a humanitarian aid package of $90 million, and have called for sanctions. That's the extent of their committment, despite the growing butcher's bill.

If members of Congress are truly concerned and want the US to take action, they better do something about increasing the size of the military or - better yet - create a peacemaking force to deal with these situations that can utilize military assets and put together the right kind of troops to stop the genocide. Lots of talk, but no action. It's far easier to talk about stopping the genocide than actually doing something about it.

And it bears repeating but the lawlessness in Darfur is only going to make it easier for al Qaeda to reestablish itself in Sudan, which Osama himself called home in the late 1990s before going back to Afghanistan. Osama is trying to turn the Darfur situation into part of his worldwide jihad. So, it is my ongoing contention that the US must act in Darfur, if not for the humanitarian needs that by itself should be sufficient, then for the national security needs in order to deny al Qaeda a base of operations from which to regroup and reassert itself in Africa.

UPDATE:
Several members of Congress were arrested demonstrating outside the Sudanese embassy.

"The slaughter of the people of Darfur must end," Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., a Holocaust survivor who founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, said from the embassy steps before his arrest.



Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., center, is handcuffed is his arrest during a demonstration outside the Sudanese Embassy in protest of the Sudanese government's role in atrocities in the Darfur region Friday, April 28, 2006 in Washington. Five Congress members were willingly arrested and led away from the Sudanese Embassy in plastic handcuffs Friday.

Four other Democratic Congress members _ James McGovern and John Olver of Massachusetts, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Jim Moran of Virginia _ were among 11 protesters arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly, a misdemeanor subject to a fine.

It starts will small actions, but someone has got to do more than just demonstrating out in front of the embassy knowing full well that the Sudanese government couldn't care less what a couple of American congressmembers do. Sudan doesn't want to allow the UN into the country, and Russia and China have been backing the regime in Khartoum.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan