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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 7:21 pm Post subject: Biden Calls for Military Force in Darfur |
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I guess invading a third muslim nation (maybe a 4th, depending on the timing?) would be a great idea..
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Democratic presidential candidate, called Wednesday for the use of military force to end the suffering in Darfur.
``I would use American force now,'' Biden said at a hearing before his committee. ``I think it's not only time not to take force off the table. I think it's time to put force on the table and use it.''
In advocating use of military force, Biden said senior U.S. military officials in Europe told him that 2,500 U.S. troops could ``radically change the situation on the ground now.''
``Let's stop the bleeding,'' Biden said. ``I think it's a moral imperative.''
Under U.N.-backed agreements approved last fall, a hybrid force of 22,000 African Union and U.N. peacekeepers are to be deployed in Darfur to protect and provide relief for 2.5 million Darfurians who have been forced from their homes and are now confined to camps.
``We must set a hard deadline for Khartoum to accept a hybrid U.N.-AU force,'' Biden said.
The Bush administration has always rejected use of military force in Darfur, partly because of a possible outcry, particularly in Muslim countries about hostile U.S. action in yet another Islamic country on the heels of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Andrew Natsios, the special U.S. envoy to Sudan, said the U.S. has agreed to a request by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for a two- to four-week delay in imposing unilateral sanctions against Sudan so negotiations can take place on whether Sudan will accept deployment of international peacekeepers for Darfur. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 7:55 pm Post subject: |
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| I would support it. People are being masacred there. Why let it go on any further? So its a muslim country, big freaking deal. Go in, restore some order and arrest the criminals running that hellhole of a country. |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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| It'd make A HELLUVA lot more sense to invade THERE than ANY OTHER PLACE in the world right now. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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Only China can fix this now. 2,500 US troops won't accomplish jackshti unless they go in shooting, and very likely the UN force will not be permitted to do so unless under direct attack.
This is welcome though.
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WASHINGTON: For the past two years, China has protected the Sudanese government as the United States and Britain have pushed for United Nations Security Council sanctions against Sudan for the violence in Darfur.
But in the past week, strange things have happened. A senior Chinese official, Zhai Jun, traveled to Sudan to push the Sudanese government to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force. Zhai even went all the way to Darfur and toured three refugee camps, a rare event for a high-ranking official from China, which has extensive business and oil ties to Sudan and generally avoids telling other countries how to conduct their internal affairs.
So what gives? Credit goes to Hollywood � Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg in particular. Just when it seemed safe to buy a plane ticket to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games, nongovernmental organizations and other groups appear to have scored a surprising success in an effort to link the Olympics, which the Chinese government holds very dear, to the killings in Darfur, which, until recently, Beijing had not seemed too concerned about.
Farrow, a good-will ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund, has played a crucial role, starting a campaign last month to label the Games in Beijing the "Genocide Olympics" and calling on corporate sponsors and even Spielberg, who is an artistic adviser to China for the Games, to publicly exhort China to do something about Darfur. In a March 28 Op-Ed article in The Wall Street Journal, she warned Spielberg that he could "go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games," a reference to a German filmmaker who made Nazi propaganda films.
Four days later, Spielberg sent a letter to President Hu Jintao of China, condemning the killings in Darfur and asking the Chinese government to use its influence in the region "to bring an end to the human suffering there," according to Spielberg's spokesman, Marvin Levy.
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China soon dispatched Zhai to Darfur, a turnaround that served as a classic study of how a pressure campaign, aimed to strike Beijing in a vulnerable spot at a vulnerable time, could accomplish what years of diplomacy could not.
Groups focusing on many issues, including Tibet and human rights, have called for boycotts of the Games next year. But none of those issues have packed the punch of Darfur, where at least 200,000 people � some say as many as 400,000 � mostly non-Arab men, women and children, have died and 2.5 million have been displaced, as government-backed Arab militias called the janjaweed have attacked the local population.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan has repeatedly refused American, African and European demands that he allow a United Nations peacekeeping force to supplement an underequipped and besieged African Union force of 7,000 soldiers who have been trying, with dwindling success, to restore order in the Darfur region.
"Whatever ingredient went into the decision for him to go, I'm so pleased that he went," Farrow said in a phone interview about Zhai's trip. She called the response from Beijing "extraordinary."
In describing Spielberg's decision to write to the Chinese leader, the filmmaker's spokesman said that while Spielberg "certainly has been aware of the situation in Darfur" it was "only recently that he became aware of China's involvement there."
During a news conference on Wednesday, Zhai called activists who want to boycott the Games "either ignorant or ill natured." But he added, "We suggest the Sudan side show flexibility and accept" the United Nations peacekeepers.
During closed-door diplomatic meetings, Chinese officials have said they do not want any of their Darfur overtures linked to the Olympics, American and European officials said.
In an e-mail message on Thursday, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington warned anew against such a linkage. "If someone wants to pin Olympic Games and Darfur issue together to raise his/her fame, he/she is playing a futile trick," the spokesman, Chu Maoming, wrote.
National pride in China has been surging over the coming Olympics, with a gigantic clock in Tiananmen Square counting down the minutes to the Games, and Olympic souvenir stores sprouting all over with the "One World, One Dream" Beijing Olympics motto.
In public, Bush administration officials have been relatively restrained in welcoming China's new diplomatic zeal.
"We have indications at this point that the Chinese are now taking even a more aggressive role than they have in the past," Andrew Natsios, the Bush administration's special envoy to Sudan, told a Senate panel on Wednesday. "I think they may be the crucial actors." |
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/13/america/web-0413diplo.php |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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Why not let Ethiopia or Egypt take care of it.
cbc |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:20 pm Post subject: |
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| cbclark4 wrote: |
Why not let Ethiopia or Egypt take care of it.
cbc |
Ethiopia seems busy in Somalia.
Egypt? No way. Why would they?
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| she warned Spielberg that he could "go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games," a reference to a German filmmaker who made Nazi propaganda films. |
its too bad he had to shamed into doing something. |
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madcap
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Gangneung, Korea
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| Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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| OK, I know squat about this whole mess, but why isn't more pressure being put on China to give some troops? It seems like if they are the ones with economic ties to the area, they would be the ideal people to lend the soldiers. It's not like they don't have an enormous army anyway. I'm all for sending some of our troops if that's what it takes, but they are a little busy at the moment and I don't like the idea (I know Romney has proposed it) of increasing the number of active troops, which we will have to do in the next few years if we keep up all these military actions. Surely a few European countries or one of the Asian biggies (Russia/China) could spare a paltry 2500 troops. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:51 pm Post subject: |
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Nobody is pressuring China because its a very simple calculation: what's more important, China or some poor people in Darfur? Nobody has the balls to stand up to China, atleast not over some people in Darfur. Why? Nobody really gives a crap. They pay lip service to the mess but nobody really wants to put anything on the line. How long has this been going on? What action has been taken?
China wont send any troops unless they are shamed BIG TIME into doing something. Even then dont expect troops. They have too much money invested in the Sudan.
Europe? You expect Europeans to send troops? Good luck. There isnt a more spineless region on earth than Europe at the moment. When you have EU members turning their backs on other EU members and dancing to Putin's tune, that tells you where the Europeans stand. Nobody in Europe had Poland's and the Czech Rep's back when Putin threatened them, so why would you expect Europeans to stand up for Darfour? Poland and Czech Rep are EU and NATO allies. |
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madcap
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Gangneung, Korea
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| Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 10:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Italy and France were the first to commit troops to Lebanon right after Israel invaded to enforce the peace. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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| madcap wrote: |
| OK, I know squat about this whole mess, but why isn't more pressure being put on China to give some troops? It seems like if they are the ones with economic ties to the area, they would |
China has thousands of (underreported) troops in Sudan. They are used to protect the Chinese oil interests. About half a year ago there were reports of the Chinese troops there firing on native Sudanese protesters near an oil facility.
The "international community", in all her glory. |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 12:49 am Post subject: |
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My parents did a lot of relief work in The Sudan and they told me that China was always a problem. They tended to hassle their workers (and their work), and just generally interrupt the goings on.
When it comes to The Sudan, only two words are important:
*beep* CHINA!
They blocked/ vetoed the original Security Council Resolution and they have done nothing but nothing.
*beep* China! |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 12:53 am Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
| It'd make A HELLUVA lot more sense to invade THERE than ANY OTHER PLACE in the world right now. |
Totally! And it would enjoy massive support, unlike Iraq.
Its not a matter of invading a 4th muslim country so much as being seen to stop a clear and cynical case of religio-ethnic cleansing.
Islams plan to devour Africa whole is going in overdrive right now.
One last question: Why do African Americans identify with a religion that is slaughtering and enslaving their race as "inferior" in Africa? |
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madcap
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Gangneung, Korea
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| Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:40 am Post subject: |
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| I guess nobody ever accused China of being altruistic...or us, for that matter. Why exactly are we suddenly so interested in putting a stop to something that we've known about for years? |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 10:20 am Post subject: |
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| no nation has spoken up more about the Sudan than the US. |
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