Michael Scheuer: Obama detests the moral obligation to protect the U.S.; Israel supporters should resign from Congress

Michael Scheuer, in a commentary dealing with the war in Afghanistan, has declared that President Obama "detests" his "moral obligation . . . to protect the United States and the American people". He writes in a forum entitled "Obama's Afghan Dilemma: Go Big Or Go Home?" in the current internet edition of the National Journal:

"Quite simply, there is no moral dimension to our Afghan War other than to protect the United States and the American people. That moral obligation was ignored by Bush and is detested by Obama, being Harvard educated and the good student of Rev. Wright, Saul Alinsky, and Bill Ayers."

Scheuer's commentary, which is premised on the idea that U.S. troops should not be fighting to establish democracy in Afghanistan, goes on to oppose the use of American military force and diplomacy for anything other than defense. He also advocates that members of Congress who support Israel should resign and join the Israeli military.

"No U.S. soldier or Marine should ever be called on to be maimed or killed to make sure Mrs. Muhammad can vote or little Ibrahim can go to a secular school; they should be called on to make such sacrifices only in an effort to decisively defeat America's enemies on the battlefield or to defend its borders. In other words, if Mrs. Clinton wants to install women's rights in Afghanistan; and if Senator McCain wants to become involved in the civil war in Darfur; and if most members of the Congress want to do everything possible to defend Israel, let them all resign their official positions and go and take up their "sacred" causes as private citizens following their personal beliefs. They would all be likely to get their butts shot off, and America would be no poorer for their loss. Indeed, all Americans would be better off because we would stop intervening in other peoples' wars and we would preserve the lives of our soldier-children for the few occasions where the application of overwhelming military power is necessary to defend America."

Scheuer concludes his commentary by attributing the rallying cry of World War II era isolationists, "America first", to the founding fathers.

"Our moral obligation in Afghanistan is framed solely by the requirement laid down by the Founders: America first."

Scheuer, who served as the head of the CIA office assigned to monitor Osama bin Laden in the decade preceding 9/11, has moved toward the far-right, advocating an increasingly isolationist position. During the 2008 presidential campaign, he served as an adviser to Ron Paul in his run for the Republican nomination.

Scheuer's commentary has been reposted by far-right forums, including the Ron Paul forum (read here) and the Concealed Carry Forum (read here). The Ron Paul Forum administrator who posted it indicates in her post that Scheuer submitted it to that forum via email (read here).

Sudan expels reporter investigating arms industry

from the Christian Science Monitor:  Sudan expels a Canadian contributor to the Monitor

The expulsion of a Canadian journalist from Sudan has brought new attention to Khartoum's uneasy relationship with the news media.

Sudan is a relatively free country – with a vibrant independent media, where other African countries have only state-owned newspapers – but it maintains firm control over local and foreign news organizations through censorship on issues deemed sensitive by the government. In the case of Heba Aly, a Canadian journalist with Egyptian nationality as well, Sudan says it expelled her because of immigration issues, not because of her reporting.

Yet Ms. Aly says it was her investigating of Sudan's arms manufacturing industry that prompted agents from Sudan's national security agency to call her in for a hastily convened meeting this past weekend at a restaurant in Sudan's capital.

It is sensitive issues like the military that have led Sudan to impose censorship rules on its independent newspapers, jail protesting reporters, and to arrest an opposition leader for suggesting that Mr. Bashir should face trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

"It is pretty paradoxical, because Sudan is a country that does well in press freedoms compared with other African countries," says Ambroise Pierre, Africa desk officer for Reporters Without Borders in Paris. "But the whole climate within the country is one of censorship and self-censorship, where there are many subjects that just cannot be investigated."

Although he admits that any government has the right to decide who enters its borders, and who has the right to work inside its territory, Mr. Pierre says that Sudan makes it very difficult for journalists to play by the rules, to get accreditation, and to obtain work authorization.

"For the last six months, Heba Aly has been fighting to get accredited as a journalist, and she never succeeded," he says. "It's pretty difficult when you are like Heba Aly, trying to do your best as an honest journalist, you are like a hostage of the administration. The government can control who can work, where people can work, and what they can write."

Aly, a freelance reporter who writes for several news organizations including the Monitor and Bloomberg News, says she had been told by a Sudanese official at the time of her arrival that, as an Egyptian passport holder, she could live in Sudan without a residence permit. She says that she maintained her status as a member of the press – with a press card from the Sudanese Ministry of Information – throughout the bulk of her stay in Sudan, but despite months of waiting, she never received a work permit or accreditation as a foreign correspondent residing in Sudan.

While she admits that she worked for her final month, January, without accreditation, she says it was only after she started pursuing a story about Sudan's arms-manufacturing industry that she received a call from National Security agents requesting a meeting. At the meeting, the agents told her that she must leave Sudan by Monday.

"I was never given any written expulsion order, despite my repeated requests," says Aly, who had been detained twice before during her year in Sudan. "I was simply harassed, and was counselled by someone in government that if I did not leave I would be arrested. I was followed, intimidated into leaving the country, and escorted by national security all the way onto the tarmac to board the airplane. The reason they gave me was that I was asking about arms. But they told me the line they would use publicly was that I didn't have my work papers."

Heba Aly works with the Puliter Center.  Her profile and links to some of her articles are available at their website here.  Her report for the radio program PRI's The World is available here.

China revokes visa of gold medalist, Darfur activist Cheek

from Yahoo! Sports (By Chris Chase):

Olympic gold medalist and outspoken Darfur activist Joey Cheek has had his visa revoked by the Chinese embassy, hours before the speedskating champion was set to fly to China. And he wasn't even planning on wearing a mask when he got there.

Chinese officials don't need a reason to revoke anyone's visa but, in their eyes, they had plenty of reasons to snatch Cheek's. He is the founder of Team Darfur, a group of 70 athletes whose goal it is to raise global awareness of the human-rights violations taking part in the Darfur region of Sudan. China's military, economic and diplomatic ties to Sudan have been well-publicized in the lead-up to the Games.

Said Cheek of his ban in a prepared statement:

"I am saddened not to be able to attend the Games. The Olympic Games represent something powerful: that people can come together from around the world and do things that no one thought were possible. However, the denial of my visa is a part of a systemic effort by the Chinese government to coerce and threaten athletes who are speaking out on behalf of the innocent people of Darfur.

Cheek was going to China to support the athletes on Team Darfur -- including soccer player Abby Wambach -- and to promote the cause, one that he has championed for years. After winning gold in the Torino Games, Cheek announced he was donating his $25,000 USOC bonus to Darfur and implored his sponsors to do the same. It seems that Joey Cheek is truly one of the good guys.

And now he's out of China before he even got there. With the Games getting closer (just two days away now), the world seemed ready to forget about all the Chinese issues in order to focus on the Games themselves. Unfortunately, China's actions make that impossible. In a time when we should be wondering who will light the Olympic cauldron, whether Michael Phelps can break an all-time record and how Liu Xiang will react to the pressure of 1.3 billion of his countrymen hanging on his every step, we're instead left to discuss the Chinese government's reluctance to allow any dissension in their country, despite repeated promises that they'd clean up their act when the Olympics came to town.

and this from the New York Sun: Chinese Christian Activist Claims He Was Beaten, Threatened:

A Chinese Christian activist claims he was beaten, threatened and detained by police on Sunday as he tried to get to a church service President Bush attended while in Beijing for the Olympics, according to a watchdog group, Human Rights in China.

Hua Huiqi, 46, wrote a letter to the group claiming that "religious affairs police" sought him out him prior to the service. "They asked me why I was going to Kuanjie Protestant Church to worship and threatened me, saying, 'You are not allowed to go to Kuanjie Protestant Church because President Bush is going there today. If you... go again, we will break your legs. We brought you here to wait for orders from our superiors. We shall see how they want to deal with you,'" Mr. Hua wrote.

Mr. Hua said he escaped when some guards fell asleep and is now in hiding.

NPR Interview: Zionists to blame for Darfur

Want to know who's responsible for the continuing genocide in Darfur? NPR listeners were given a surprising answer last night. According to Professor Horace Campbell of Syracuse University, the United States and France are responsible for its continuation. Professor Campbell went on to claim that the situation is being "manipulated" by what he calls "elements of the Zionist command", along with Christian fundamentalists and the neo-conservatives.

listen here: NPR : Africa Update: "Darfur Peace Talks"

The host of the program, Farai Chideya, didn't follow up this outrageous accusation. Was she trying to avoid being further embarrassed by the Africa expert her program's producers chose from the NPR rolodex? Was she too surprised or out of her depth to respond? I'm not certain. But I do know this: NPR, particularly the News and Notes program, owes its listeners an apology and an interview with an objective expert to undo the damage to truth done by this interview.

By the way, NPR shouldn't have been surprised by Horace Campbell's accusations against "the Zionist command" (whatever that is) because he's leveled the same charges before against "the neo-cons". According to the Spring 2007 edition of the Current, a journal published by Columbia University (read here):

Syracuse African American Studies and Political Science professor Horace Campbell says that the U.S.'s "neocon leadership" is using the perceived Arab-on-black genocide in Darfur as a means of "mobilizing a crusade against Islam" and "fighting wars in Iraq, Palestine, and Iran."

Campbell is promoting a book on Zimbabwe which purports to tell the whole story of Robert Mugabe's oppression of that country. No sane, honest person could assume Campbell is exploiting that situation for his own benefit. Revealing the horrors of the Mugabe regime, and addressing those horrors, are honorable pursuits. But somehow, when Jewish groups are involved in the campaign to end the genocide in Darfur, that indicates something nefarious, an anti-Muslim action by the Zionist high-command. (For the record, in case the reader is unaware, both sides in the Darfur conflict, both the perpetrators and the victims, are Muslim. The perpetrators identify themselves as Arab, whereas the victims are black.)

So Campbell is an expert of sorts -- an expert in applying a strategic double-standard designed to remove blame from mass murderers and place blame on those trying to end the genocide. That's the sort of expertise NPR listeners could do without.

Bizarre protest sign awards. First nominee.

From a "Boston Anti-Zionist" rally: "Defend Sudan from Zionist U.N.!"




Thanks to Ian Thal

Mia Farrow Takes On China -- and Jimmy Carter

from Washington Wire - WSJ.com :

Actress Mia Farrow is stepping up her campaign to stop the killing in Darfur, taking on China. She even had tough words for former President Jimmy Carter who is trying a new diplomatic channel to promote peace.

Farrow, who has traveled a number of times to the war-torn region of Sudan, wrote an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal calling on China (“Khartoum’s largest and closest business partner”) to turn around its relationship with Sudan. “What better time for China to step up and change its image?” she wrote. “In the face of mounting criticism of its support of brutal repression and cultural destruction in Burma and Tibet, Darfur represents an opportunity for Beijing to create a positive impression — and desperately needed favorable PR in anticipation of the 2008 Olympic games.”

Still, she said, “The undeniable fact remains that China continues to underwrite genocide and the immeasurable suffering of millions of human beings in the Darfur region of Sudan.”

As for President Carter, Farrow is clearly disappointed with his trip to Darfur with Desmond Tutu and several other prominent figures as part of the newly formed “Elders” group of senior diplomats that advocates peace in the world’s troublespots. On her Web site, Farrow headlines a posting: “WAKE UP JIMMY! YOU’RE OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER.” She took issue with Carter’s characterization of a meeting with Sudanese President Omar al Bashir as “constructive” and Carter’s comment in a BBC report that al Bashir’s promise of $300 million — mostly a loan from China — was a clear indication of (al Bashir’s) commitment.”

Today, wire services reported that government forces and militias burned down the Darfur village where 10 African Union soldiers were killed last week.

Solomonia: The Green/Islamist/Racist Convention

The latest from Solomonia is a stunning expose of the connection between the Green-Rainbow party (the name the Green Party goes by in Massachusetts) and a variety of anti-Semites, Islamists and other assorted crackpots. No one should take these Greens at face value, as environmentalists, as human rights advocates. These are not the idealistic but practical Greens of Germany. These Green-Rainbow supporters are the stuff that shakes loose and falls out of real political parties. These aren't the campaigners against abuses by any government, regardless of orientation. These are the defenders of the Janjaweed and the Khartoum regime, the enablers of Sudan's Darfur genocide. These are not the Greens who participated in the unmasking of "ex-" Nazis in power in German businesses and corporations. These are the Holocaust deniers, the "anti-Zionist" conspiracy nuts, the ones who know who to blame for everything. Incredibly, some of them even support David Duke.

In other words, Solomonia explores the point where the Greens go over the rainbow. Apparently, in this version of the Wizard of Oz, their shirts turn brown.

read: Solomonia: The Green/Islamist/Racist Convention

Sudan refuses to turn over Colonel and gov't minister accused of mass rape

from Independent Online Edition: Rape in Darfur persuaded charity to act

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor, 13 August 2007

When observers from Amnesty International visited Darfur in 2004, they were appalled by the number of rape victims they encountered.

The women and girls fall victim to rape as they collect firewood outside the refugee camps. Many have been gang-raped in front of their families as the conquering Janjaweed militia burnt down their homes.

Hundreds of rape cases, including against girls as young as seven or nine, were documented by human rights workers at the height of the ethnic cleansing in Darfur in 2004.

To allow the victims of mass rape to give birth is arguably tantamount to complicity in genocide. Because the most horrible conclusion of rape as a weapon of war is that it can change the ethnic makeup of a country. In the case of Darfur, it could mean the steady Arabisation of the next generation.

In 2005, about 100 countries took a landmark decision agreeing that rape should be acrime against humanity, which could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The court's statutes include "rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity" as a crime against humanity, when used as part of a "widespread or systematic attack" against the civilian population. Today, the former Sudanese former interior minister, Ahmad Harun, and Ali Kushayb, have been accused by the court of acting together to commit war crimes, including mass rape, against Darfur's civilians.

According to ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Ali Kushayb - known as "colonel of colonels" in west Darfur - victimised the local population "through mass rape and other sexual offences". Mr Harun was quoted as saying: "Since the children of the Fur had become rebels, all the Fur and what they had, had become booty" of the Janjaweed.

Last May, the court issued arrest warrants for the pair. However, although Mr Kushayb is reportedly in custody in Sudan, the Sudanese authorities have refused to hand over the men for trial. The loophole for Sudan, which the government has exploited by saying that its own judicial process is under way, is that the ICC can only come into play when a state is unwilling or unable to prosecute the crimes in national courts.

The systematic use of rape has been documented in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. But it was most reported in Rwanda, where according to the World Bank and Unifem,as many as 500,000 women were raped during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis.

The ICC is also hearing cases against the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and the Central African Republic.

The UN blinks on Darfur

from a Christian Science Monitor editorial at csmonitor.com:

Despite the UN action to save it, Darfur still needs a peace to keep before it can use peacekeepers.

from the August 3, 2007 edition

Rather than plan for an invasion of Darfur to end a genocide, the UN Security Council decided Tuesday to send in 20,000 peacekeepers – not peacemakers. And the Blue Helmets will operate only without usurping Sudanese authority. Why the compromises? Two reasons: China and Iraq.

First, China. With its veto power within the Council, Beijing has delayed tough UN action on Darfur for years. It treasures Sudan's oil for its booming economy more than saving hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Darfur. But with global activists launching a save-Darfur campaign against China's hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics, it recently sent diplomats to its erstwhile allies in Sudan for a little arm-twisting.

That, and some limited sanctions on Khartoum by the UN, led to limited concessions for a much-constrained UN force to enter Darfur. The result is a complicated peacekeeping mission – the largest ever for the global body – that will take months, perhaps a year, to see if it can bring long-lasting peace to Darfur's survivors – just long enough for Beijing to finish up the Games next summer.

China, in essence, won a decent interval so it can use the Olympics to mark its ascendancy as a world power.

Second reason, Iraq: Before the US invasion in 2003, many officials at the United Nations were moving toward a doctrine of intervening in any country where a civil war or a humanitarian crisis was getting out of control. That was the UN's main lesson from the 1994 Rwanda genocide. But then the post-9/11 "preemptive intervention" in Iraq to destroy then-alleged weapons of mass destruction put a bad name on such well-meaning meddling.

The UN now remains wary of acting in such an assertive, sovereignty-busting way – even in the face of another genocide. And the result in Sudan is global intervention by dribs and drabs – and with many doubts.

Sudan did allow in a force of 7,000 soldiers from the African Union in 2004. That proved ineffectual, as expected, and left more than 2 million refugees still vulnerable to attacks. But even with the new UN African Union Mission in Darfur (Unamid), peacekeepers won't be able to disarm militias or arrest suspected war criminals. They can only protect civilians. And they are allowed to operate only "without prejudice to the responsibility of the government of Sudan," according to Tuesday's UN resolution. That's a loophole for Sudan to block anything.

In addition, the UN officers must be African, no sanctions are threatened if Sudan doesn't comply, and the UN secretary-general is not obligated to report violations.

Perhaps this UN move is the baby-step needed to end Darfur's tragedy and provide enough security to feed the refugees. If it fails, and China agrees, the UN can move to tougher sanctions. Still needed is international pressure on Darfur's rebel groups to unite and negotiate a peace deal with Khartoum – one that equitably distributes power and wealth to Sudan's regions. It is that inequality that lies at the heart of the dispute.

Since 2003, the conflict has claimed more than 200,000 lives and has shown the weakness of the UN as a global body. To end both, Darfur first needs a peace. Only then can it use peacekeepers.

Ron Paul's Latest Darfur Outrage

Rep. Paul, who believes that any U.S. action overseas is "interventionist", has cast the only vote in Congress against the U.S. government divesting in Sudan until it's government stops committing genocide in Darfur.

In other words, he wants the U.S. government to continue to do business as usual with the tyrants in Khartoum. How can he justify this outrage against human rights?

read more at: U.S. House of Representatives bill protects those divesting investments in Iran, Darfur - International Herald Tribune

Full text of bill H.R. 180 and roll call vote available at Thomas.

Petition to UN: Deploy Darfur Peacekeepers!

Take Action: End the Delays - Deploy the Peacekeepers

Although the UN Security Council authorized a robust peacekeeping force for Darfur one year ago, the force has still not been deployed - the first time the UN has ever failed to deploy an authorized peacekeeping mission.

On July 31, the UN Security Council authorized yet another peacekeeping force: a hybrid United Nations-African Union force similar to one that the Sudanese government has said it will accept.

Fill out the form at the link above to add your name to a petition urging UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to pressure world leaders to stand behind their commitment to deploying this new peacekeeping force without further delays.

Sudan will punish Darfur refugees who go to Israel

from Ynetnews:

Sudanese Interior Minister Zubair Bashir Taha blamed Israel for using his country's refugee crisis to undermine Sudan's international reputation, Ynet has learned Monday.

In a press conference held in Khartoum Sunday, Taha said some 3,000 refugees had found their way to Israel via Egypt. About 40 percent of them are from southern Sudan and some 35 percent are from Darfur.

The Sudanese authorities, he added, would "find the appropriate way to deal" with those who "dared immigrate to Israel."

Read the rest here...

Sudan: "Jews behind Darfur conflict"

from Ynetnews: Sudanese defense minister says '24 Jewish organizations fueling conflict in Darfur' by Yaakov Lappin

Sudan's defense minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, has accused "24 Jewish organizations" of "fueling the conflict in Darfur" last week in an interview with a Saudi newspaper.

Hussein was interviewed during an official state-visit to the Saudi kingdom last week.

A journalist from Saudi Arabia's Okaz newspaper asked Hussein: "Some people are talking about the penetration of Jewish organizations in Darfur and that there is no conflict there?"

A journalist from Saudi Arabia's Okaz newspaper asked Hussein: "Some people are talking about the penetration of Jewish organizations in Darfur and that there is no conflict there?"

"The Darfur issue is being fuelled by 24 Jewish organizations, who are making the largest amount of noise over the issue, and using the Holocaust in their campaigning," the Sudanese defense minister replied.

Hussein added that the Darfur conflict was driven by "friction between farmers and herders and shepherds. Among the biggest problems is that of water, which is used to exploit the differences and fuel the conflict."

"Are these Jewish groups supporting (the rebels) financially?," the interviewer from Okaz asked Hussein.

"Yes, they provide political and material support through their control over the media and across American and British circles," Hussein said, adding that Jewish groups were using "all means to fuel these conflicts."

He added that Western reports of 200,000 people dying in Sudan were false, and said: "We talk about 9,000 dead as a result of either government or rebel actions."

'We came to Israel to look for a better place'
Several days ago, Sudan's Interior Minister, Zubair Bashir Taha, lashed out at Sudanese refuees who had sought asylum in Israel, and accused "Isaeli authorities of encouraging the Sudanese refugees to come to their country."

He added that his ministry was "very confused" by Sudanese citizens who came to Israel."

The Sudan Tribune quoted a Sudanese refugee as telling al-Jazeera television: "We were surprised when we came here. We met good people, who welcomed us and gave us food. We feel that we are extremely happy. We hope that the Israeli government would find a solution for us and our children. We came here to look for a better place."

Meanwhile, in the US, a number of Jewish organizations have attempted to raise awareness over the plight of Sudanese citizens who face mass killings and ethnic cleansing from the Sudanese government. Some 20 Jewish organizations joined the 'Save Darfur Coalition,' along with other religious communities and American civil rights groups.

Vito Fossella's Darfur Scorecard

Following up on the U.N. condemnation of Sudan's war against civilians in Darfur, and on a couple of posts (here and here) concerning Ron Paul's opposition to doing virtually anything to help those poor souls, I checked out my congressman's record. Oy, vey... He got a "D".

He voted AGAINST the Funding amendment for protection and AGAINST humanitarian aid. In case anyone believes this is an ideological issue, and that I, as a Democrat, am expressing some bias against Rep. Fossella, you should know that such other raving liberals as Senators Brownback and McCain voted FOR these amendments. And...President Bush supported and signed them.

What's up with that, Rep. Fossella? I would really like to know.


Vito Fossella | Darfur Scorecard

Ron Paul Gets an "F" on Darfur Report Card

Following up on an earlier post on this blog which quoted Ron Paul opposing the Comprehensive Peace in Sudan Act (2004), here, from Darfurscores.org, is Ron Paul's report card grading him on issues relating to Darfur. He received an "F".

read the report card at: Ron Paul | Darfur Scorecard

UN criticises Sudan abuses

from BBC NEWS:

Mr Kouchner called for quicker changes to the peacekeeping force

The UN Human Rights Committee has criticised Sudan for what it says are widespread and systematic abuses.

The HRC expressed concern over reports of torture, discrimination against women and the use of child soldiers.

It also condemned violations in Darfur, including murder, rape, evictions and attacks on civilians.

In a separate development, the French foreign minister called for quicker deployment of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force to Darfur.

In its first overall review of Sudan's record for more than a decade, the HRC said "widespread and systematic serious human rights violations, including murder, rape, forced displacement and attacks against the civil population, have been and continue to be committed with total impunity throughout Sudan and particularly in Darfur".

The HRC, which comprises 18 independent experts, called on Khartoum to "ensure that no financial support or materiel is channelled to militias that engage in ethnic cleansing or the deliberate targeting of civilians".

French concern

The AU peacekeeping force currently in Darfur is over-stretched and under-funded, the BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, reports.

The current plan is to move in phases towards a properly resourced and full international peacekeeping force.

In the next phase the AU will reinforce its troops with logistical support from outside, and only in the third phase will this become a hybrid AU-UN force.

France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said this process would have to be speeded up, and UN funding would be needed for this.

"We have to join, to merge, the third phase with the second phase," Mr Kouchner said, speaking in Addis Ababa after talks with AU and Sudanese government officials.

Britain and France to call for 26,000 U.N. Peacekeepers to Darfur

Britain and France to make joint effort on terrorism and Darfur - International Herald Tribune

Heralding a new era of cooperation, France and Britain vowed Friday to intensify cooperation on terrorism and make a joint push in the United Nations Security Council to deploy thousands of peacekeeping troops in Sudan. Following their first meeting since they took office, President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned the Sudan government of tougher sanctions if it did not halt the killing of civilians in its western Darfur region. They said they would send their foreign ministers to New York to lobby fellow Security Council members to approve a draft resolution authorizing 26,000 troops and police officers from the African Union and the United Nations to go to Darfur and pledged a symbolic joint trip to the region to press for an immediate cease-fire once the resolution is passed.

"People are dying and people are suffering and it must stop," Sarkozy said during a joint news conference with Brown, vowing to pressure more reluctant members of the Security Council, like China, to come on board. "We cannot guarantee success. But what Gordon and I guarantee is that we are determined to shake up the system."

The French-British initiative on Sudan is the most concrete evidence yet that Europe's resolve is toughening to end a four-year-old conflict between rebels in Darfur and government-backed militias that has killed an estimated 200,000 people and driven 2.1 million from their homes.t is also a first indication of how the arrival of two new leaders over the past two months could reshape the political landscape in Europe. On Monday, Sarkozy and Brown held separate talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. Three high-profile meetings in the past week gave a glimpse of the new personal and political relationship that is forming at the heart of Europe. The triangular dynamic heralds a fresh start and not just because the three leaders share a nonideological approach to politics and governance. It also ends years of squabbling among their predecessors over a host of issues, most notably the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Bush Admin Tried to Silence His Warnings on Darfur.

Nicholas Kristoff from the NY Times via The Unknown Candidate:

He Rang the Alarm on Darfur By Nicholas D. Kristof

Some day an American president will visit a genocide museum in Darfur and repeat the standard refrain: If only we had known ...

But that excuse will ring hollow, because there was a whistle-blower in the heart of the Bush administration. Roger Winter, whom President Bush had appointed in 2001 to a senior post in the U.S. Agency for International Development, frantically tried to ring alarm bells — but instead the administration turned away.

If there was a hero within the U.S. government on Darfur, it was Mr. Winter. But it was doubly frustrating for him because in 1994 he had the same experience during the Clinton administration, when he was running a refugee organization and desperately trying to galvanize officials to respond to the Rwandan genocide.

In outrage at Bill Clinton’s inaction during the Rwandan slaughter, Mr. Winter abandoned the Democratic Party and became a Republican.

Mr. Winter, 65, who also served in the Carter and (briefly) Reagan administrations, traveled regularly to Sudan for the Bush administration, trying to end the 20-year war between northern and southern Sudan. On those trips, Mr. Winter encountered the slaughter in Darfur as it began.

In May 2003, long before any newspaper noticed, Mr. Winter warned in Congressional testimony that violence was erupting in Darfur. Then, on Nov. 3, 2003, the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum transmitted a message warning Washington that “the situation in Darfur is critical” and adding that “ethnic cleansing ... is underway.”

But Washington shrugged.

State Department officials apparently worried that an uproar over Darfur would derail the north-south agreement in Sudan, a prize achievement for the Bush administration. So they looked away. The State Department was even angry when the Agency for International Development released satellite photos showing the burned villages in Darfur.

Before testifying to Congress, Mr. Winter had to submit prepared remarks to the State Department for vetting. Frustrated by State’s passivity, he used his off-the-cuff remarks to speak passionately — and uncensored — about the horrors in Darfur.

Mr. Winter once took an administration colleague with him to fly over Darfur from Chad, to show him the Janjaweed militias as they burned villages. Administration officials aren’t supposed to invade another country’s air space and buzz militias as they slaughter civilians, but Mr. Winter was desperate to get another administration witness.

“We were trying to get everybody’s attention, including the White House and State Department and everybody else,” Mr. Winter recalls.

When Sudanese forces blocked a road to aid groups, Mr. Winter invited aid groups to join his own convoy and insisted on going down the road to assure humanitarian access.

It was agonizing, he says, to feel that Mr. Bush wanted to do the right thing on Sudan — and yet see the administration acquiesce on mass murder. Later Mr. Winter served as State Department envoy for Darfur, but at State he burned with the same frustration and retired last year, deeply disillusioned.

“Khartoum looked the U.S. in the eye, and we looked away,” Mr. Winter said, adding: “There was no real intention of taking effective action. They saw that. They read us. And so they weren’t threatened.”

Mr. Winter favored — and still favors — a no-fly zone over Darfur. We wouldn’t keep planes in the air, or even shoot planes down. But after Sudan bombed civilians in Darfur, we would later destroy a Sudanese attack helicopter on the ground.

Aid groups worry that such a strike would endanger their efforts. But I think Mr. Winter, who has 26 years’ experience in Sudan, is exactly right that a no-fly zone is the best way to shake up Sudanese officials and make them negotiate seriously for a peace agreement in Darfur.

“What we have done with our handling of Darfur is show Khartoum that in certain circumstances we are a toothless tiger,” he says. “No matter how forceful the words we use, we don’t act. Or we act in ways that the bad guys in Khartoum find tolerable. ... It tells them that they can get away with mass murder.”

The upshot, Mr. Winter believes, is that Sudan is increasingly likely to resume its war against southern Sudan, erasing one of Mr. Bush’s genuine achievements. Mr. Winter says of administration officials, “They’re turning a silk purse into a sow’s ear.”

Mr. Winter admires Mr. Bush for pushing for north-south peace but fears that the administration is simply running out the clock on Darfur. “Where we have gotten to with Sudan,” he says heavily, “is a tragedy.”

Alan Dershowitz: End the Occupation!

from The Huffington Post

The indigenous population is killed or chased away. New settlers of a different ethnic background are brought in to replace the indigenous population. They are given financial inducements to settle the stolen land and are protected by military forces.

No, I'm not talking about Israel and the Palestinians. I am talking about Darfur where a dictatorial Arab regime, supported by other Arab governments, is committing a brutal genocide against Black African Muslims in Darfur. This genocide includes not only mass murder and systematic rape, but also a policy of replacing the murdered black Africans with ethnic Arabs. This is how Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times describes the situation:

"One of the most troubling signs is that Sudan has been encouraging Arabs from Chad, Niger and other countries to settle in Darfur. More than 30,000 of them have moved into areas depopulated after African tribes were driven out. In the last few months, Sudan's government has given these new arrivals citizenship papers and weapons, cementing in place the demographic consequences of its genocide...

Then there's rape. Ever since Sudan began the genocide, it has been using rape to terrorize populations of Africans - and then periodically punishing women who seek treatment on charges of adultery or fornication....As Refugees International puts it in a new report: 'The government is more likely to take action against those who report and document rape than those who commit it."

Arab governments actively support the genocidal Sudanese regime, which thus far has murdered 400,000 civilians and displaced 2.5 million. Jimmy Carter, who has mendaciously said that what Israel is doing is even worse than genocidal Rwanda and Apartheid South Africa, has said little about Darfur in comparison to his daily tirades against Israel. Carter, the Neville Chamberlain of today's war between tyrannical, terrorist regimes and democracies, calls for "balance" in our approach to genocidal regimes and their victims. The United Nations does little about real genocides because it is preoccupied with Israel's imperfections.

The real victims of this obsessive focus on Israel to the exclusion of major human rights violators are neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians. The real victims are Black Africans and others whose dreadful plights are being ignored or downplayed in the name of some bizarre notion of political correctness.

By any standard of justice, human rights, international law and basic common sense, what the Sudanese government is doing in Darfur is incomparably worse than anything the Israelis have ever been accused of. Indeed, there is absolutely no comparison. Even to mention them in the same condemnatory breath is an obscenity. The relatively small number of Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli Army have been the accidental victims of self-defense action, whereas the Darfur genocide has been deliberate and unprovoked. Arabs have killed more Palestinians than Israel has, despite the terrorism directed at Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists. More Muslims have killed Muslims in Darfur than Israel has killed Muslims in all the wars and battles in the Mideast. Yet those who complain most loudly about the Israeli occupation of parts of the West Bank are actively supporting - or at least not actively opposing -- the Sudanese genocide and occupation in Darfur.

It's perfectly reasonable, indeed desirable, to criticize Israel and other democracies for their imperfections or excesses, so long as the criticism is proportional to their faults and does not deflect attention away from far more serious offenders. But the disproportionate degree of condemnation being heaped on Israel today - by British unions, American academics, human rights organizations and others - is, in fact, deflecting needed attention away from ongoing genocides.

As hypocrisy reigns supreme, innocent victims continue to be murdered, raped and displaced. It's about time the international community, and those who claim to speak for the victims of human right violations, got their priorities straight.