Thursday, January 27, 2005
“…YOU COULDN'T CRY IN AUSCHWITZ. YOU CRIED, YOU DIED."
World leaders gathered today at Auschwitz to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the industrial killing center created by the Nazis that has forever defined the terms "death camp" and "Genocide" in the public mind. The vow " Never Again" was made then and renewed today.
The best possible tribute to the victims of Nazi genocide would not be ceremonies or pious incantations of memory but for the world to actually try to stop the next one.
In Cambodia, when the Khmer Rouge marched city dwellers out into the countryside and created fields of human bones only Israel's ambassador stood up in the UN and demanded that something be done. Nothing was done. Had not the mad and sinister Pol Pot not ordered a quixotic invasion of Cambodia's brother Communist state of Vietnam, thus provoking Hanoi to conquer Cambodia, Pol Pot might still be in power. A quarter of a century later, the surviving architects of the killing fields remain unpunished.
In Ethiopia, the Communist government of Colonel Haile Menghistu Mariam, larded with Soviet military aid and Cuban advisors, starved a million people to death. The response of the West was to sing " We are the World".
Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds, massacred the Shiites and destroyed the Marsh Arab minority and with his power broken he sits in a cell untried and defiant while European diplomats and NGO's withold needed forensic expertise for fear that an Iraqi tribunal might sentence Saddam to death for his crimes.
How many Bosnians disappeared into Slobodon Milosevic's Night and Fog ?
Where was Kofi Annan when the Interhamwe hacked 800,000 Rwandans to death and General Dallaire was begging his UN superiors for help ?
Where now is the world when the Janjaweed rides ?
Never Again ?
¶ 4:11 PM
World leaders gathered today at Auschwitz to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the industrial killing center created by the Nazis that has forever defined the terms "death camp" and "Genocide" in the public mind. The vow " Never Again" was made then and renewed today.
The best possible tribute to the victims of Nazi genocide would not be ceremonies or pious incantations of memory but for the world to actually try to stop the next one.
In Cambodia, when the Khmer Rouge marched city dwellers out into the countryside and created fields of human bones only Israel's ambassador stood up in the UN and demanded that something be done. Nothing was done. Had not the mad and sinister Pol Pot not ordered a quixotic invasion of Cambodia's brother Communist state of Vietnam, thus provoking Hanoi to conquer Cambodia, Pol Pot might still be in power. A quarter of a century later, the surviving architects of the killing fields remain unpunished.
In Ethiopia, the Communist government of Colonel Haile Menghistu Mariam, larded with Soviet military aid and Cuban advisors, starved a million people to death. The response of the West was to sing " We are the World".
Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds, massacred the Shiites and destroyed the Marsh Arab minority and with his power broken he sits in a cell untried and defiant while European diplomats and NGO's withold needed forensic expertise for fear that an Iraqi tribunal might sentence Saddam to death for his crimes.
How many Bosnians disappeared into Slobodon Milosevic's Night and Fog ?
Where was Kofi Annan when the Interhamwe hacked 800,000 Rwandans to death and General Dallaire was begging his UN superiors for help ?
Where now is the world when the Janjaweed rides ?
Never Again ?
¶ 4:11 PM
Comments:
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That was a gratuitous post. It is easier said than done. We are having trouble maintaining 150,000 troops in Iraq, where we have a direct national security concern. There is no support in the U.S. for policing the world so why should we assume someone from India or Brazil or wherever should be willing to fight in Rwanda or Darfur.
Barnabus
Barnabus
# posted by 
: Friday, 28 January, 2005
: Friday, 28 January, 2005
Hi Barnabus,
You wrote:
"There is no support in the U.S. for policing the world so why should we assume someone from India or Brazil or wherever should be willing to fight in Rwanda or Darfur."
My ire was mainly directed at the hypocrisy of the Europeans who like to hold forth on the sanctity of International Law and then, instead of acting upon their ideology and treaty commitments - cut deals with the Sudan. The leaders gathering at Auschwitz to commemorate the Holocaust can't be bothered to impose *economic sanctions* on genocidal governments and rogue states, much less military action.
No, I don't expect the U.S. to police the world or handle the Sudan solo but I'm going to call the Euros and the Chinese on their complicity and hypocrisy.
Post a Comment
You wrote:
"There is no support in the U.S. for policing the world so why should we assume someone from India or Brazil or wherever should be willing to fight in Rwanda or Darfur."
My ire was mainly directed at the hypocrisy of the Europeans who like to hold forth on the sanctity of International Law and then, instead of acting upon their ideology and treaty commitments - cut deals with the Sudan. The leaders gathering at Auschwitz to commemorate the Holocaust can't be bothered to impose *economic sanctions* on genocidal governments and rogue states, much less military action.
No, I don't expect the U.S. to police the world or handle the Sudan solo but I'm going to call the Euros and the Chinese on their complicity and hypocrisy.
# posted by : Friday, 28 January, 2005
: Friday, 28 January, 2005<< Home
