While Bush Falters, Americans Respond

[NATO AIR]

Students and church goers do their best for Darfur as Bush does jack shit:

From the NYT Select: Nick Kristof's newest column

(The original version--which is part of the new, fee-based "TimesSelect"--also mentions "Dolls for Darfur". - EJM)

A year ago, a group of Swarthmore students decided to take on an unusual extracurricular activity: stopping genocide.

Mark Hanis, one of the students, is Jewish and all four of his grandparents survived the Holocaust. He was troubled by the way generations of Americans acquiesced in one genocide after another - only to apologize afterward and pledge "Never Again."

So Hanis and fellow students started to raise money to help provide security to stop the slaughter in the Darfur region of western Sudan. In particular, they wanted to help pay for African Union peacekeepers.

Their Genocide Intervention Fund has now raised US$250,000 and is about to hand over the first installment to the leaders of the African Union. The money may be used to pay for female African police officers to protect Darfur women from being raped.

Challenging the politicians

The Genocide Intervention Fund now has an all-star cast, including the backing of former White House officials, generals, and celebrities like Mia Farrow and Don Cheadle. Its spokeswoman, a Rwandan genocide survivor who is now a Swarthmore sophomore, introduced Bill Clinton at a student conference. It has opened a Washington office and is lobbying for the bipartisan Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, which calls for sanctions on Sudan and a no-fly zone.

"We do lobby days, where we arrange for people to come to Washington to meet their congressional offices and say, 'I've put US$20 down to protect the people of Darfur. What are you doing?'" said Hanis, who graduated recently.

So far more than 100 colleges have raised money for the fund (www.genocideinterventionfund.org), and universities have become the center of the movement to stop the slaughter. A group started at Georgetown [University], STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur), has chapters nationwide and across Canada, and Harvard led a divestment effort by having its endowment sell stock in companies that support the Sudanese government.

In the long term, the organizers hope to encourage more education about genocide in American schools - California and a few other states have passed laws that public schools must include education about genocide - and to bolster an early warning system so that the world will respond to atrocities more promptly.

"We're getting smarter at this," Hanis said. "We're building a permanent political constituency against genocide." He paused and added soberly: "Of course, there are lives lost every day."

Doing what they can

So while President Bush is proving wimpish on genocide, the response of many ordinary Americans like Hanis has been inspiring. Aside from students, the leaders in the effort include Jewish and Armenian groups (the word genocide has special resonance for both) and religious groups.

There are the big-hearted folks at Ginghamsburg Church, a large [United] Methodist church in Tipp City, Ohio. After the pastor, Mike Slaughter, read about atrocities in Darfur, he decided to ask the congregation to spend only half as much on Christmas presents last year as they planned, and to donate the rest to victims in Darfur.

The result, along with other fundraising efforts, was US$327,000 in donations; the congregation is planning the same campaign this Christmas. The money is being used to keep children alive and safe in South Darfur.

"We recognize that this is only a pittance in the face of the entire crisis in Darfur," says Karen Smith, director of operations for the church. "However, if we can successfully engage other churches across the U.S. in this call so that they issue the same challenge to their constituents, the impact could truly be God-sized."

During the Holocaust, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was as uninterested in genocide as George W. Bush is today, Arthur Koestler referred to those who demanded action as "the screamers." Today, Hanis, Smith and others like them are "the screamers," and if it weren't for them the death toll in Darfur would be even higher. Countless thousands of survivors sitting in refugee camps owe their lives to screams coming from places like Swarthmore or Ginghamsburg.

So out of the miasma of horror that is Darfur, something uplifting is taking place. Ordinary Americans are finding creative ways to respond to the slaughter, so that they personally inject meaning into those traditionally hollow words: Never Again.

 

[insein]

honestly, private donations should be the way foreign aid is done. I dont like how much money we waste on foreign interests that have nothing to do with our interests. Such as all the money we pour into Africa, Malasia, the middle East, South America, etc. We just send money over for nothing in return and rarely do we receive even a thank you for any aid we give.

Darfur is the UN's fuckup. US will get to it eventually but we have other more pressing issues to deal with that involve our country. We are already wasting enough time not finishing this war. We need to focus on one thing and stop multitasking these other big things (speaking in foreign terms). Do one thing right then goto the next.

 

[Annie]

honestly, private donations should be the way foreign aid is done. I dont like how much money we waste on foreign interests that have nothing to do with our interests. Such as all the money we pour into Africa, Malasia, the middle East, South America, etc. We just send money over for nothing in return and rarely do we receive even a thank you for any aid we give.

Darfur is the UN's fuckup. US will get to it eventually but we have other more pressing issues to deal with that involve our country. We are already wasting enough time not finishing this war. We need to focus on one thing and stop multitasking these other big things (speaking in foreign terms). Do one thing right then goto the next.

It may be too late for anyone to do anything about Darfur. I can't really fault Bush here, the US just cannot do something like that alone. We don't have the vital interests needed to redirect resources there-as we did for the tsunami, Katrina, and now will in India/Pakistan-all while fighting a multi-front war. There are limits and resources are finite.

 

[NATO AIR]

Jihad must be stopped whenever possible. Clinton never stopped jihad in the 90's, and it flourished. Now, after 4 years of waging war against the jihadists, we are content to let it flourish again, from S. Thailand to Darfur.

Jihad will never stop unless we exact a terrible price from the jihadists every time they initiate it.

 

[theim]

Jihad must be stopped whenever possible. Clinton never stopped jihad in the 90's, and it flourished. Now, after 4 years of waging war against the jihadists, we are content to let it flourish again, from S. Thailand to Darfur.

Jihad will never stop unless we exact a terrible price from the jihadists every time they initiate it.

But but but...that would mean we would have to..act unilaterally! And that would mean diplomats not having tea and biscuits with Arab diplomats! And poor, poor Mr. Clinton being left out of the European coctail circuit! Come to your senses man!

The important thing is not to act like we are concerned, heavens no! Any low-bred cowboy can do that. Sophisticated gentry know that the most important thing one can do in situations like these is to issue Stern Admonitions and form a committee or a Task Force that has no forces and does no tasks. This way, a Spirit of Cooperation is encouraged, and all participating nations feel better about themselves. Except...what's that place? Oh...Darfur. Except Darfur. But their African, so they'll probly just get eaten by a lion or something anyway. Just think! By making the ultimate sacrifice, they are helping to ensure the Spirit of Understanding and Peace and Cooperation lives on!

Pass the shrimp!

 

[insein]

Jihad must be stopped whenever possible. Clinton never stopped jihad in the 90's, and it flourished. Now, after 4 years of waging war against the jihadists, we are content to let it flourish again, from S. Thailand to Darfur.

Jihad will never stop unless we exact a terrible price from the jihadists every time they initiate it.

Hey im all for it. But we need to finish the job we started first. then we can talk these other things like Iran, NK, Darfur, wherever the enemy chooses to promote its evil religion. We dont have the resources to fight in Darfur and Afghan/Iraq as well as continue hunting down terror cells around the world. Thats why i say this is another in the long list of UN fuckups. US cant solve all the worlds problems.

 

[NATO AIR]

I agree the UN is worthless.

We're not asking for invasion... just a short, targeted campaign of assasination and surgical strikes against Janjaweed (arab jihadists) and the Sudanese military that is cooperating with them. We must begin to make these bastards BLEED for the jihad they're committing. Our missile technicians and pilots can use additional target training anyway.

 

[insein]

I agree the UN is worthless.

We're not asking for invasion... just a short, targeted campaign of assasination and surgical strikes against Janjaweed (arab jihadists) and the Sudanese military that is cooperating with them. We must begin to make these bastards BLEED for the jihad they're committing. Our missile technicians and pilots can use additional target training anyway.

All for killing Muslim assholes. But right now i want the ones that keep mucking up the works in Iraq surgically destroyed.

 

[CSM]

I sincerely believe that they are all connected (not physically of course). I think NATO is on the right track here and we need to send a strong message (read "cruise missile" or other PGM) to some of these other terrorists. If we truly are in a global war on terror, we need to fight it globally....and that includes Dafur, et al. Lob a few bursts of democracy in there just to let em know that they are on the list and that we haven't forgotten them....


Screw the UN and everyone else. Obviously, all the talk about the US acting unilaterally is merely cover for the Europeans and the UN (not to mention any other country) lack of will to do anything at all!

 

[Nuc]

honestly, private donations should be the way foreign aid is done. I dont like how much money we waste on foreign interests that have nothing to do with our interests. Such as all the money we pour into Africa, Malasia, the middle East, South America, etc. We just send money over for nothing in return and rarely do we receive even a thank you for any aid we give.

Darfur is the UN's fuckup. US will get to it eventually but we have other more pressing issues to deal with that involve our country. We are already wasting enough time not finishing this war. We need to focus on one thing and stop multitasking these other big things (speaking in foreign terms). Do one thing right then goto the next.

Private aid and low taxes is how everything should be done. But as long as this government insists on forcing us to pay taxes for corporate welfare the taxpayers have a right to go light on voluntary donations. It's one or the other. High taxes and low charity, or low taxes and high charity. Both is ridiculous.

 

[insein]

Private aid and low taxes is how everything should be done. But as long as this government insists on forcing us to pay taxes for corporate welfare the taxpayers have a right to go light on voluntary donations. It's one or the other. High taxes and low charity, or low taxes and high charity. Both is ridiculous.

People are more inclined to give when they are not forced to do so. I agree that coporate bailouts etc (airline industry comes to mind) are all bullshit. Sometimes i stop and wonder what the next 100 years will bring to this country. In the last century we saw our power increase but our production decrease. We went from the biggest producer in the world to one of the biggest consumers. We went from manufacturing big things like steel and textiles to outsourcing it too third world shitholes. One day it will bite us in the ass. Might not be in my life time, but we cant keep living as consumers when we arent producing anything.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

The best thing for the federal government to do is: nothing. Somehow, someway, they will fuck this up and make more enemies than we had before, among people who probably couldn't find america on a map before. And it will drain taxpayer wallets in the process, while a hundred other genocides rage across the globe.

Let this guy raise all the money he wants, that's great. Personally I'd say use the funds to buy cheap machine guns and distribute them amongst the persecuted. Or, he can ask for volunteers to go over there and form a militia.

 

[NATO AIR]

CSM, I'm sorry I just noticed this post again, but that is about the most profound thing I've heard all week.

The tragedy is that our government now is aligned with Sudan's regime in order because of their intelligence assistance. We're abandoning these people to stop a couple jihadists in Iraq who cut their teeth raping girls, slitting the throats of men and throwing children in the fire in Darfur.