The New Republic

Do nothing...Sudan 'did not attack us...poses no threat'...put troop on the Mexican border, or use them to route out illegals. By the way...how is that "trickle-up" poverty working out for you guiys?

- Mark

March 6, 2009 at 6:19pm

Israel does not have religious freedom, like China, it does not allow proselytizing. It it an oppresive government that does not allow religious freedom and persecutes millions of Christians in Israel.

- Toudor

March 8, 2009 at 9:16am

toudor - wow, thanks for that incisive and completely topical comment. ____________________________________________________ Ms Rubin, you say "Obama should take the lead here and support the ICC, sign the treaty, and let the law be a check on the immoral compromises politicians will always make as long as there is impunity." What, just exactly, does the ICC plan to actually *do* to apprehend Bashir and bring him to face their justice? Two aphorisms come to mind - "Don't run your mouth if you can't back it up," and that old NRA standby, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will carry guns." The application of the first, I think, is obvious. The application of the second is thus: The reason the U.S. has not signed onto the ICC is because we understand that it perfectly combines an inability to prevent even the most horrific actions of unlawful regimes, with a unique suitability to the purpose of undermining even the lawful actions of its signatories. Put another way: While the ICC is powerless to prevent Bashir from anything but rallying his people against the western aggressors, the time interval between when Obama signs the ICC treaty and when Belgium introduces a mile-long list of political war-crimes charges against Bush for Iraq and Afghanistan will have the prefix "nano-". Does anyone think that will be an encouragement for future administrations to send troops to places like Darfur?

- dhauck

March 9, 2009 at 1:11pm

Ms Rubin cites Moreno Ocampo's justification for acting by quoting his assertion that the people of Darfur "are being killed now", and that they "have no hopes". She seems to suggest that by quoting him this is proof enough of the veracity of his comments. Without getting into the overall mortality debate, what is clear is that in the last 18 months at least, if not the last three years, the mortality figures in Darfur have been at near normal levels. Moreno Ocampo's inflated figures of 5,000 deaths a month are unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable. This brings us to the stark factual truth. Mr Natsios is right that the conflict has morphed, thankfully in many ways, into a low-intesnity conflict. However horrible life conidtions are in the camps, the people were being fed at levels sufficient to keep them on a par with peacetime mortality rates (for the most part). Having chosen in the first instance not to go after Al Bashir, but pursue Harun and Kushayb, he embarked on a path that gave an impression that he was taking an incremental approach. That was certainly what many States thought he was doing. He is reported also to have told his investigators that he did not intend to pursue Al Bashir, and indeed he frequently pointed out in early comments that political responsibility was not the same as criminal responsibility. It is far from clear why Moreno Ocampo changed his view. He had an option of going for an intermediate level of responsibility which would have avoided the regime change perception. He did not take it. He had the option of going for Al BAshir with a host of others including GOS and Janjaweed leadership. He did not take it. We should not pretend that the responsibility for the imminent deaths of many Darfuris as a result of the expulsions is anything other than Al Bashir's. But nor shold we pretend that there were not other acceptable and wise options available that were not taken by Moreno Ocampo. Ms Rubin presented some time ago what amounted to a hagiograpghy of Moreno Ocampo in the New York Times magazine, inflating him into a kind of crusading knight able somehow to offer hope to the people of Darfur. Such one-dimensional reporting ends up sometimes having very untoward conseqeunces: the subjects sometimes start believing it. It did not have to be like this. The criminal responsibility for any deaths now is Al Bashir's. But the policy and strategic failures are Moreno Ocampo's.

- Icarus

March 10, 2009 at 8:43pm

Icarus seems overly concerned with ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo's personality to the point of personal vendetta. But putting aside for a moment this strange obsession, let's consider a more pragmatic concern raised by Icarus' comment: how can he posit that the application of justice for massive crimes be a "strategic failure"? Al-Bashir is a wily and ruthless criminal, but let's not be timorous about calling him to account. Justice is an inherent value, one without which societies ultimately fail. We saw in Latin America over the past 40 years a sea-change from a continent dominated by dictatorships to one dominated by democracies - this is a shift I witnessed first hand in my lifetime, as in one country after another generals and dictators faced justice. Justice wasn't the sole reason for the change, but it was a crucial part, and now the prospect of military dictatorships in Latin America is remote. The ICC is a permanent court - al-Bashir knows that, and it's the reason it has grabbed his attention like nothing else since he took power. At the least, his travel plans are altered, followed by a distancing from his "allies" as the prospect of dealing publicly with a war criminal becomes increasingly unappealing (especially after his decision to expel humanitarian groups from Sudan). I couldn't disagree more with Andrew Natsios' lack of resolve regarding the application of justice when faced with al-Bashir's threats. Al-Bashir will likely lose power some day, like most dictators - the ICC will be waiting.

- Paco

March 14, 2009 at 5:29am