(I'm writing another Darfur diary because I think this issue is important and we can really hurt Bushco with it)
Nicholas Kristof, who is by no stretch of the imagination liberal, today writes in his NY Times column that
'...the Bush administration is fighting to kill the Darfur Accountability Act...send[ing] a letter, a copy of which I have in my hand, to Congressional leaders, instructing them to delete provisions about Darfur from the legislation.
Mr. Bush might reflect on a saying of President Kennedy: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality."'
More, with a link, below the fold.
Now I see this issue as very powerful when held in the light of the Schiavo case: in one a single brain-dead white woman has the entire attention and resources of the Republican Congress and the Executive Branch, led by Bush who made a special trip back to Washington to sign legislation under the glow of TV cameras, and in the other hundreds of thousands of poor black men, women and children with fully functional brains are being driven into exile with deadly force, and our President is trying to slide the issue under the rug.
I think that most Americans would side with the oppressed and want our government to at least make a show of doing something to help them. Unfortunately, we have backed away from this issue, and this needs to be brought out into the light of day repeatedly right now.
More from Kristoff (link here http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/opinion/03kristof.html?incamp=article_popular_5 free registration required)
Aside from the effort to block Congressional action, there are other signs that the administration is trying to backtrack on Darfur. The first sign came when Condoleezza Rice gave an interview to The Washington Post in which she deflected questions about Darfur and low-balled the number of African Union troops needed there.
Then, in Sudan, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick pointedly refused to repeat the administration's past judgment that the killings amount to genocide. Mr. Zoellick also cited an absurdly low estimate of Darfur's total death toll: 60,000 to 160,000.
So what is Nick going to do?
Granted, Darfur defies easy solutions. But Mr. Bush was outspoken and active this spring in another complex case, that of Terry Schiavo. If only Mr. Bush would exert himself as much to try to save the lives of the two million people driven from their homes in Darfur.
So I'm going to start tracking Mr. Bush's lassitude. The last time Mr. Bush let the word Darfur slip past his lips publicly (to offer a passing compliment to U.S. aid workers, rather than to denounce the killings) was Jan. 10. So today marks Day 113 of Mr. Bush's silence about the genocide unfolding on his watch.
I think we should help Nick with his count. Every day we can remind Bush of how much he really cares about human life by reminding him about Darfur.