It has now been
141 Days since President Idiot Boy has so much as mentioned the Sudan - and that was just in passing.
Even the most ardent fans of Bill Clinton will recall with some shame his administration's most egregious act of equivocation - and no, I'm not pondering the meaning of "is". I'm talking about the strategy used during the Rwanda crisis to avoid violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide - saying "acts of genocide" were occurring, but genocide (apparently) was not. It made about as much sense as saying one's mechanic did not repair one's car but rather committed acts of car repair upon it.
But President Cletus - perhaps because he thinks the tergiversation of his administration has reached a saturation point - has found a more efficient way to avoid the moral responsibility he claims as the hallmark of his reign - silence.
Because, folks, if we don't hear about it, it ain't happening.
www.genocidewatch.org lists 13 countries that in 2004 were at what it calls "stage 7" - i.e. engaged in full-scale slaughter. Another 12 were at "stage 6", i.e. gearing up for slaughter - including, I note, Equitorial Guinea, whose leaders continue to enrich themselves on Big Oil's money -
while their people starve.
This is what truly enrages me when I hear tell of the absolute moral duty to remove Sadaam which apparently obviates all others - including the one about not lying. There were ways to contain the damage Sadaam was doing to his populace which would have allow for the resources - and more importantly, the political will - to hopefully be allocated to other causes. Not that this would be a sure thing, of course - but at the moment it's an impossibility. You can't save lives in Darfur while you're busy not saving lives in Iraq.
While Bush builds his shining Jerusalem on the ruins of Baghdad, the rest of the wretched of the earth must wander in the desert.
The literary critic George Steiner argued that language failed before genocide - that silence was the only possible human response. Well, for once, Bush's language isn't failing him - he isn't even trying, and he's one of the few humans who might actually be able to do something by the simple act of speaking. His silence is golden for those who commit - and abet - the atrocities of our time.