Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

I've been writing on Sudan and MSF a lot lately. Most recently, here, also noting some additional organizations doing good work from Dr. Bill K.

The purposeful dismissal by U.S. political leaders--on ALL sides--of what is happening in Sudan is racist and unconscionable.

You should be happy with US actions. We are working with the UN, which, if I recall correctly, is what you have advocated for any US involvement in the sovereign affairs of any other country. Are you saying that you would welcome unilateral action on the part of the US then?

Because of the DNC noise, the litle protest at the Holocaust Museum where they suspended normal operations [http://allafrica.com/stories/200406240868.html] went largely unnoticed.

One other thing: Kerry has said the following repeatedly:

"The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to. That is the standard of our nation."

That rules out US intervention in this sort of situation, since the US has no "need" to go to war there. Is this the standard you want?

Intervention or war . . . . That’s a semantics issue isn't it? When one intervenes does it necessarily mean one is at war?

When I read some things, my knee-jerk reaction is to scream for intervention:

"I was sleeping when the attack on Disa started. I was taken away by the attackers, they were all in uniforms. They took dozens of other girls and made us walk for three hours. During the day we were beaten and they were telling us: 'You, the black women, we will exterminate you, you have no god.' At night we were raped several times. The Arabs(1) guarded us with arms and we were not given food for three days."

---A female refugee from Disa, a Masalit village in West Darfur

"When we tried to escape they shot more children. They raped women; I saw many cases of Janjawid raping women and girls. They are happy when they rape. They sing when they rape and they tell that we are just slaves and that they can do with us how they wish."

---A 37-year old female refuge from Mukjar

"They took K.M., who is 12 years old in the open air. Her father was killed by the Janjawid in Um Baru, the rest of the family ran away and she was captured by the Janjawid who were on horse back. More than six people used her as a wife; she stayed with the Janjawid and the military more than 10 days. K, another woman who is married, aged 18, ran away but was captured by the Janjawid who slept with her in the open place, all of them slept with her. She is still with them. A, a teacher, told me that they broke her leg after raping her."

---A, a 66-year-old farmer from Um Baru in the district of Kutum

"Some women were raped. We heard about this. But only those who are not married can talk about it. We believe that nobody can become pregnant when raped, because this is unwanted sex and you cannot have a child from unwanted sex. For those who are in the camps in Darfur, those whom they rape day and night, they might become pregnant. Then only Allah can help the child to look like the mother. If an Arab child is born, this cannot be accepted."

 . . . .

The stigma attached to women who have been raped has far-reaching social and economic consequences on the rape victims. Married women can be "disowned" by their husbands, although this is not always the case. As for unmarried survivors of rape, they may never be able to marry because they are stigmatized or considered to be "spoiled" by their communities.

Should we go there? I don't know. I want to be pragmatic. I want to believe that the best course of action should be to leave the sovereign affairs of any nation to that nation's rulers. But, sometimes suspending such beliefs is difficult.

Yes, I'd favor intervention in the Sudan if it would help.

As for Kerry's aphorism, I don't find it very helpful. It doesn't get much past saying that we invaded Iraq without sufficient justification. The way around the aphorism, if that matters, is to ask what "have" means, and I suspect that for Kerry, who backed the Kosovo War, it includes "have to for moral reasons."

We can - and should - argue over whether invading Iraq was done for moral reasons, should have been done for moral reasons, and whether Kerry's foreign policy makes sense. But right now we shouldn't, IMO, get distracted from the immediacy of the horrors of the Sudan.

Our "Allies" - France in particular, but Russia as well - are obstructing against any meaningful response. Those of you who favor multilateralism over all should ponder that

Isn't it amazing that within the same week that Carter, Clinton and Kerry speak, everyone is suddenly in favor of a nuanced foreign policy? This must be what they mean by a "tipping point!"

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Maybe my unconscious mind is too mercenary for that. It made me not want to have kids and I know that's mean to say but honestablished is supposed to be a good thing right? Oh oh oh I have to say this too cause it freaked me out when I found out what the deal was. Tell me again, I want to hear who broke my faith in all these years, who lays with you at night when I'm here all alone, remembering when I was your own.