A "Culture of Life" and Darfur
Tonight I saw HBO's film about the Rwanda genocide of 1994, "Sometime in April." It's a powerful movie, and it is especially impressive in making it clear how little the U.N. and the U.S. did despite extensive knowledge of what was happening day by day. As for the French... well, the film does a subtle but devastating job of showing Paris' sympathy for the wrong side.
As it happens, there is something that I and the other millions of people who may ultimately see "Sometime in April" can do other than feel guilty. We can raise holy hell about today's ongoing genocide in Darfur, a situation in which New York and Paris and Washington (along with Moscow and Beijing) seem determined, once again, to do little or nothing until it is too late.
The OAU presence in Darfur is completely inadequate to the task. U.N. action will probably be blocked by Russia and China. Today's New Dem Dispatch proposes an emergency NATO mission. That will require immediate and vocal leadership from the President of the United States, who for once has a genuine opportunity to show he really believes in a "culture of life," and in U.S. moral leadership.
Like my colleague The Moose, I believe agitating for action in Darfur is a mission that should unite all sorts of disparate elements of the blogosphere.
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