Five Years After the Genocide Started, The World Finally Kind of Does Something
If you want to know just how well the left’s strategy of using criminal laws and international institutions to fight Islamism is going to work, look no farther than the world’s shameful inaction in the Sudan.
Five years after Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir began his genocidal campaign in Darfur, the International Criminal Court has finally decided to try to get an arrest warrant charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity. I say “try” because even after the chief prosecutor presents his evidence to the court, it will take the panel of judges two to three months to decide whether to issue the warrant or not.
So, it’s possible that sometime later this year, almost 5 1/2 years after al-Bashir began to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Sudanese, after his forces have raped their way across Darfur, after what has amounted to a one-sided holy war to cleanse the country of all non-Arabs, the international community will act in earnest. Kind of.
The reaction from al-Bashir’s government has been scorn and defiance. His ambassador to the UN says that “If the United Nations is serious about its engagement with Sudan, it should tell this man [Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the ICC] to suspend what he is doing with this so-called indictment. There will be grave repercussions.”
The UN responded to this bluster with its characteristic cowardice. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council (which includes the United States) are meeting with UN officials to see to the “safety” of UN peacekeepers. The UN military honchos are already “moving peacekeepers to safer locations”.
Mind you, these peacekeepers are well-armed soldiers. The forces who have been committing the genocide have killed most of their victims with machetes. Yet it is the UN forces in retreat.
And this whole kabuki play is the mechanism the left wants to bring to bear against the Islamists who are trying to kill and enslave us. Except that they want to bring the American criminal justice system to the dance, too because nothing says “speed and prevention” like a protracted court trial. This is the “global test” that the Democrats say we must use to decide our foreign policy even though they occasionally have to shout over the screams of those being hacked to death with machetes. This is where our foreign policy is headed unless we get very serious about using all our strength to beat back the forces of evil afoot in the world.
If you really want to know why so many people around the world hate the West, you don’t have to look much farther than the genocide in Darfur and the enduring realpolitik that says we should do nothing to stop it.
(cross-posted at PoliGazette)
Other Posts of Interest:
- UN Peacekeepers Deployed. Women and Children Hardest Hit.
- It’s Not Climate Change that’s Killing Africa. It’s the UN.
- While Burmese Die, The Tyrants Keep the Aid at Bay
Category: Fighting the Islamists, No More Tyrants, The World At Large
