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2004-06-08 Africa: Horn
State Depart responds to WaPo’s Sudan Characterization
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Posted by Super Hose 2004-06-08 2:56:17 AM|| || Front Page|| [11124 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 First of all, I would take issue with the word "genocide." We have made it clear and I think the international community has made it clear that this is a situation of ethnic cleansing.

And the difference is, what, exactly?
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-06-08 9:53:41 AM|| [http://www.kloognome.com]  2004-06-08 9:53:41 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 I really, "fooking" hate the State Department. With unbound passion.
Posted by Sorge 2004-06-08 10:10:37 AM|| [http://totalwar.typepad.com/]  2004-06-08 10:10:37 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 "Genocide" is of course the magic word, requiring action on the part of UN governments. Hence, we will never hear it again. Anybody who saw the Frontline show about Rwanda recently will confirm that the dancing around the word "genocide" by a State Dept. Equivocation Specialist at a press conference was extremely disturbing. They love to talk, but when push comes to shove they have no answers. And doesn't push nearly always come to shove?
Posted by Jeff Brokaw 2004-06-08 11:58:43 AM|| [http://jeffbrokaw.net/notes/]  2004-06-08 11:58:43 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 And the difference is, what, exactly?
It's easier to wash your hands of it with Ethnic Cleanser.
Posted by ed 2004-06-08 12:04:41 PM||   2004-06-08 12:04:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 MR. ERELI: I guess there’s just no -- you know, you can write that, you can write something like that, if you ignore everything we’ve done on this issue. I mean, we’ve got -- it was because of our pressure, I think, that humanitarian workers have been allowed into Darfur. Look at the briefing Andrew Natsios gave, where he said, quite frankly, we’re doing this briefing to raise the pressure on the Sudanese Government because they’re keeping people out of Darfur, and then, lo and behold, people got into Darfur.

Who led the charge or who led the effort to get a ceasefire in Darfur? Who brought the issue to the UN? Who marshaled an international effort in Geneva and with the EU in Chad to bring attention to this issue? Who has contributed more in terms of humanitarian assistance to Darfur than any other country?

So you can say we’re -- you can suggest that somehow we’re backing off from taking a strong stand or exercising every diplomatic tool at our disposal on behalf of the crisis in Darfur, but I think you’d have to ignore all the actions we’ve taken that suggest the contrary.

I would match what'we've done against what the UN and EU have done, and we're engaged elsewhere as well. Same thing with Haiti.
Posted by Super Hose  2004-06-08 1:34:51 PM||   2004-06-08 1:34:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Righto SH
Posted by Michael  2004-06-08 2:12:06 PM||   2004-06-08 2:12:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 I think Genocide is the deliberate murder of an ethnic group while 'Ethnic Cleansing' is the forced removal of an ethnic group from an area. But I may be wrong.

Of course that is a fine line. I would call what is happening in Sudan 'Genocide' since they are killing all the men and raping every FEMALE (weather a young child/girl or woman) they can get their hands on (thus making them mostly spoiled for marriage/childbearing accoring to Islamic custom....). It amounts to the same thing.

As I recall after WW2 the 'Comfort Women' were shunned by their villages/towns when they returned because they were 'spoiled'. Very few married and fewer had children (sometimes because of inability or disease).

You might say Sudan is using Genocide to implement 'Ethinc Cleansing'.

I agree with you SH, where the hell is the United Nations and European Union on this? Out back counting their oil-for-palaces money?
Posted by CrazyFool  2004-06-08 3:25:42 PM||   2004-06-08 3:25:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 I posted a link to a transcript to an address that Rumsfeld made last weekend speech. The Q&A ws especially excellent. Here is a Rumsfeld answer to a question about coalitions of the willing and unwilling kind:

"I guess I’m not surprised that the world is evolving the way it’s evolving. There are a lot of hopes that the United Nations, for example, would solve the problems of the world. Let’s take a recent one that’s kind of isolated and we can look at it in a microcosm. Take Haiti. Haiti’s got lots of troubles and it was in duress and there were riots and they needed help. The United Nations wasn’t ready to help. It did not have the ability to step in fast and do something about that.
So the United States agreed to help form a coalition of the willing, to use your term – not a coalition of the reluctant – and four or five countries, God bless them, stepped up and put troops in and helped to stabilize the situation and reduce the number of deaths that might have occurred and reduce the humanitarian disaster that might have occurred, and worked with the United Nations to get the United Nations to fashion a resolution where they would then follow on and put a UN force in there to succeed that coalition of the willing. That is now happening this week. Months later, many months later. But thank goodness that the countries that agreed to go in and help out at the outset, a coalition of the willing, did it, stabilized the situation, created an environment that’s hospitable for the United Nations force to take its time, fashion a new coalition, blue hat them, I guess, send them in there as they’re just starting to go in to take over that responsibility."

I understand his message to be that the US is more willing than most, particulaly post-9/11.
Posted by Super Hose  2004-06-08 4:15:40 PM||   2004-06-08 4:15:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Would some RBurgers please slap together a position paper and bring State up to speed?
Posted by Shipman 2004-06-08 5:38:31 PM||   2004-06-08 5:38:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 A pointless endevour,Ship.
Posted by Raptor 2004-06-08 5:57:10 PM||   2004-06-08 5:57:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 I fear you are correct Raptor.
Posted by Shipman 2004-06-08 7:15:30 PM||   2004-06-08 7:15:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Well, you know, semantics are semantics.
And dead is dead.
Posted by tu3031 2004-06-08 9:45:05 PM||   2004-06-08 9:45:05 PM|| Front Page Top

15:08 BMN
14:40 Antiwar TROLL
11:44 BigEd
09:31 Shipman
09:27 Shipman
07:55 Mitch H.
03:40 .com
03:29 ed
03:23 ed
02:58 Super Hose
02:56 Super Hose
02:34 Phil Fraering
01:21 .com
01:11 Rafael
01:02 .com
00:55 Rafael
00:52 Rafael
00:49 Not Mike Moore
00:48 GK
00:45 Not Mike Moore
00:42 .com
00:42 Not Mike Moore
00:38 Not Mike Moore
00:33 Not Mike Moore









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