Monday, June 07, 2004

Genocide in the Sudan Synopsis of a Washington Post Editorial: "THE EARLY PREPARATION for the genocide in Darfur, Sudan's vast western province, played out behind a veil of ignorance: Almost no foreign aid workers operated in the region, and the world failed to realize what was happening. Stage two of the genocide, the one we are now in, is more acutely shameful: A succession of reports from relief agencies, human rights groups and journalists informs us that hundreds of thousands of people are likely to perish, yet outsiders still cannot muster the will to save them. Unless that changes, we are fated to live through the genocide's third stage. There will be speeches, commissions of inquiry and sundry retrospectives, just as there were after Cambodia and Rwanda. Never again, we will be told." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21016-2004Jun6.html The American media and the American people are always disturbed at reports of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Yet, little ever seems to happen. There was intervention in the Balkans, many years too late to save tens of thousands of lives. It took U.S. leadership because the European nations were once again watching a tyrant swallow up countries. With some not very well executed exceptions (Somalia, Haiti) The United States can generally bring itself to intervene only if our security is threatened. We are happy to have ended tyranny in Iraq, but that is not why we invaded. Things are unlikely to change. The U.N. will remain impotent and while we Americans claim religious imperatives, we are clearly content to allow these tragedies to continue. Shame on us. From my blog at: http://radio.weblogs.com/0137954/ Melvyn Polatchek 7:52:08 PM    comment []