December 19, 2005

Failure of the U.N.: U.N. Refuses To Permit Discussion of Mass Murder of Civilians in Darfur

With all the news that directly impacts Americans, it is easy for us to overlook the drama currently taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan. From AllAfrica.com:

An International Intervention is Necessary Now

Recent reports from the UN, humanitarian agencies and the media confirm a sharp deterioration in the security situation in Darfur. Already more than 400,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been forced out of their homes since the genocide began in 2003. As the violence worsens, growing numbers of people are being attacked and displaced, humanitarian organizations face increasing risks to their operations, and there are new demands for a protection force to provide security to the region. An international intervention is essential to serve four main purposes: (1) Stop the killings, rapes and pillaging in Darfur; (2) Provide security to facilitate humanitarian assistance programs for internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees; (3) Enforce the African Union cease-fire between the Khartoum government and the rebel groups in Darfur to allow meaningful political negotiations to move forward in Abuja, Nigeria, and (4) facilitate the voluntary return of IDPs to their land and the reconstruction of their homes by providing a secure environment.

How did this begin? What's it all about? From SaveDarfur.org:

History Of The Conflict

Open warfare erupted in Darfur in early 2003 when the two loosely allied rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), attacked military installations. This was followed closely by peace agreements brokered by the United States to end the twenty-year-old civil war in the south of Sudan which allocated government positions and oil revenue to the rebels in the south. At that time rebels in Darfur, seeking an end to the region's chronic economic and political marginalization, also took up arms to protect their communities against a twenty-year campaign by government-backed militias recruited among groups of Arab extraction in Darfur and Chad. These "Janjaweed" militias have over the past year received government support to clear civilians from areas considered disloyal to the Sudanese government. Militia attacks and a scorched-earth government offensive has led to massive displacement, indiscriminate killings, looting and mass rape, all in infringement of the 1949 Geneva Convention that prohibits attacks on civilians.

The war, which risks inflicting irreparable damage on a delicate ethnic balance of seven million people who are uniformly Muslim, is actually multiple intertwined conflicts. One is between government-aligned forces and rebels; a second entails indiscriminate attacks of the government-sponsored Janjaweed militia on civilians; and a third involves a struggle among Darfur communities themselves. Its implications go far beyond Darfur's borders. The war indirectly threatens the regimes in both Sudan and Chad and has the potential to inspire insurgencies in other parts of the country.

Recently the U.N. considered this subject and -- shockingly -- moved to cut off any debate on it. From Rene Wadlow and David G. Littman:

Faced with the challenge of massive displacement of people in Darfur, Sudan, a destabilizing flow of refugees to Chad, the systematic and multiple rape of women, and the wide-spread destruction of villages, the United Nations General Assembly voted on November 23 to take "No Action". A "No Action" motion, systematically practiced by China in the Commission on Human Rights, is rarely used in the General Assembly. A "No Action" motion prevents a vote on a resolution and cuts off any debate. 

How in the name of all that is rational could the U.N. cut off debate on such a subject?

There was a specifically African aspect to the vote. Partly, this is a reflection of bloc voting. No matter what the situation, States in the UN vote to protect their neighbors from criticism. Thus both the African and the Arab states voted to protect Sudan. The Chinese representatives helped behind the scenes in structuring support for the vote and in explaining the "No Action" procedure. China buys nearly all of Sudan's oil and the Chinese government-owned oil company is the producer/refiner of Sudan oil. 

In other words, in such cases the U.N. is self-defeating, because the member states have all agreed not to criticize each other. This sheds light on the general inefficacy of the U.N.

Wadlow and Littman provide additional insight:

The other aspect concerns the current discussion in the General Assembly on improving the UN structures for dealing with human rights. The September Summit had agreed that the UN Commission on Human Rights should be replaced by a smaller, but more competent UN Human Rights Council, leaving the details for the General Assembly to work out. States that do not wish to see stronger and more effective structures had to fire a warning shot without having to put it into obvious words. The success of the "No Action" motion is a sign to all that any resolution from a human rights body can be shot down in the General Assembly no matter what the facts are 'on the ground'.

So not only has the U.N. abjectly failed to fulfill its responsibility to assist in resolving the situation in Darfur -- it has actively moved to shut down all debate on the subject.

Libs Are Shocked—Shocked—to Discover Government Spies on Terrorists

As usual, all this nonsense about how shocked Libs are to "discover" that the government spies on suspected terrorists is just for show.

Clinton did the same thing. 60 Minutes did a report on it in 2000.

Clinton NSA Eavesdropped on U.S. Calls

During the 1990's under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon.

On Friday, the New York Times suggested that the Bush administration has instituted "a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices" when it "secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without [obtaining] court-approved warrants."

But in fact, the NSA had been monitoring private domestic telephone conversations on a much larger scale throughout the 1990s - all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.

In February 2000, for instance, CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft introduced a report on the Clinton-era spy program by noting:

"If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency."

NSA computers, said Kroft, "capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world."

...Mr. Frost detailed activities at one unidentified NSA installation, telling "60 Minutes" that agency operators "can listen in to just about anything" - while Echelon computers screen phone calls for key words that might indicate a terrorist threat.

But the NY Times pretends they'd never heard of such a thing: 

...Still, the Times repeatedly insisted on Friday that NSA surveillance under Bush had been unprecedented, at one point citing anonymously an alleged former national security official who claimed: "This is really a sea change. It's almost a mainstay of this country that the NSA only does foreign searches."

The Times is like the character played by Claude Raines in Casablanca, who claimed he was "shocked -- shocked -- to find out that there is gambling going on in here."