Lubbock
07-11-2006, 06:03 AM
Ride On, Cowboy
The world can’t wait for the U.N.
By Joseph Loconte & Nile Gardiner
The ongoing crisis in Sudan has put many critics of U.S. foreign policy — particularly those who lament the Bush administration’s “cowboy diplomacy” (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/current) — in an untenable position. Recall that two years ago the United Nations concluded that “massive human rights violations” were being committed by the Sudanese government and its proxy militia against civilians in Darfur. What have two years of U.N. diplomacy and multilateralism accomplished for the people of Sudan?
The U.N. Security Council, unable to agree on sanctions, has passed several toothless resolutions. The Human Rights Commission, unwilling to criticize the Sudanese government, opted instead to renew Sudan’s seat for another three-year term. African Union “peacekeepers” were deployed, but with no authority and too few troops to stop the killing. Just as the United States declared that genocide was under way, a U.N. reform panel met to discuss topics such as “Strengthening United Nations Capacity for Crisis Management.” Even now, the government in Khartoum refuses to allow U.N. peacekeepers to enter the country: Earlier this month at a meeting of African leaders in Gambia, Sudan again rejected appeals to bring in a U.N. peacekeeping force of 15,000 troops, backed by NATO air support.
The end result of this standoff: At least 200,000 civilians have been killed and another 2.5 million displaced in the conflict. Government-backed militias continue to rape women and burn down entire villages. As Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary general, told the New York Times: “I think we’re headed toward total chaos.”Is this what the world is like when America fails to throw its weight around?
That’s how many human-rights advocates, pundits, and public intellectuals seem to be arguing these days. At the recent “Save Darfur” rally in Washington, D.C., representatives from organizations such as Amnesty International, the International Crisis Group, and the National Council of Churches mostly ignored the U.N. Security Council. They know the blue helmets will not come to the rescue. Rather, the focus of their rage is the U.S. and the Bush administration—for not pushing the U.N. hard enough to resolve the crisis.
Editors at the liberal New Republic apparently have had an epiphany: “It defies belief that people of goodwill would turn to the United Nations for effective action,” they wrote in a recent issue devoted to Sudan. “All these proposals for ending the genocide in Darfur are really proposals to prevent the United States from ending it.” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Darfur, says it’s time to “drop any fantasy that the U.N. is going to save the day as a genocide unfolds.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MjA0NzFjN2Y4Mzc2NjJmZmYyYTMwYjliYjUzNzA0YjE=
The world can’t wait for the U.N.
By Joseph Loconte & Nile Gardiner
The ongoing crisis in Sudan has put many critics of U.S. foreign policy — particularly those who lament the Bush administration’s “cowboy diplomacy” (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/current) — in an untenable position. Recall that two years ago the United Nations concluded that “massive human rights violations” were being committed by the Sudanese government and its proxy militia against civilians in Darfur. What have two years of U.N. diplomacy and multilateralism accomplished for the people of Sudan?
The U.N. Security Council, unable to agree on sanctions, has passed several toothless resolutions. The Human Rights Commission, unwilling to criticize the Sudanese government, opted instead to renew Sudan’s seat for another three-year term. African Union “peacekeepers” were deployed, but with no authority and too few troops to stop the killing. Just as the United States declared that genocide was under way, a U.N. reform panel met to discuss topics such as “Strengthening United Nations Capacity for Crisis Management.” Even now, the government in Khartoum refuses to allow U.N. peacekeepers to enter the country: Earlier this month at a meeting of African leaders in Gambia, Sudan again rejected appeals to bring in a U.N. peacekeeping force of 15,000 troops, backed by NATO air support.
The end result of this standoff: At least 200,000 civilians have been killed and another 2.5 million displaced in the conflict. Government-backed militias continue to rape women and burn down entire villages. As Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary general, told the New York Times: “I think we’re headed toward total chaos.”Is this what the world is like when America fails to throw its weight around?
That’s how many human-rights advocates, pundits, and public intellectuals seem to be arguing these days. At the recent “Save Darfur” rally in Washington, D.C., representatives from organizations such as Amnesty International, the International Crisis Group, and the National Council of Churches mostly ignored the U.N. Security Council. They know the blue helmets will not come to the rescue. Rather, the focus of their rage is the U.S. and the Bush administration—for not pushing the U.N. hard enough to resolve the crisis.
Editors at the liberal New Republic apparently have had an epiphany: “It defies belief that people of goodwill would turn to the United Nations for effective action,” they wrote in a recent issue devoted to Sudan. “All these proposals for ending the genocide in Darfur are really proposals to prevent the United States from ending it.” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Darfur, says it’s time to “drop any fantasy that the U.N. is going to save the day as a genocide unfolds.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MjA0NzFjN2Y4Mzc2NjJmZmYyYTMwYjliYjUzNzA0YjE=