President Omar al-Bashir must have emptied the country of enough money already. He probably has satisfied his appetite for murder and atrocities as well
Maybe time for him to take a long deserved exile in some third country.
They’re waiting for the USA to do something so then they can bash the USA for doing the wrong thing
In Afganistan there is a clear mandate to go in and fix the problem. But for example when you compare the size of armies of France and Germany to the number of troops comitted, it is small. Whats the rest of the army doing in their barracks? Why does you army need to be that size when you don’t use them
Problem with the EU is member states have their own agenda and concerns. Do the Italians and the Swedish have the same security concerns and foreign policy? No. Do they have the same interests in Africa or business dealings? Probably not. Common EU security policy and army my ass
It’s all very conceited and hypocritical. It’s not enough to have an army at hand; you got to be willing to use them when needed. Had many of these countries as Yeats put it “courage equal to desire”
General Rupert Smith stated in his book “The Utility Of Force” that we fight so as to maintain the force, which to me reads that we send in soldiers only when we are sure that they won’t be killed or where the casualties will be low. Think of the political backlash if casualties mount, irrespective of the fact that you are doing the right thing
[quote=“ludahai”][quote=“Jaboney”]What? Above ICC jurisdiction?
Who does he think he is, president of the US?[/quote]
Are either the US or Sudan party to the treaty? While the Sudanese government is disusting, if they are not party to the treaty creating the Court, their jurisdiction in this matter is dubious at best.[/quote]Neither the US nor Sudan are parties to the treaty.
Sudan has been referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council. Unfair?
In addition to the president, two Sudanese nationals – government minister Ahmed Haroun and militia commander Ali Kushayb – are wanted by the ICC and listed as fugitives.
Please forgive for any apparent ignorance but didn’t the world hear these same arguments of jurisdiction and expost facto laws during the Nuremburg Trials? Is there a difference here? If a bully is kicking your buds ass, don’t you intervene without thinking why you have the power to do so? Some folks simply need a good pummeling. Sudan invites it. However, at least it isn’t the U.S., but isn’t it interesting that local outrage is focused at the U.S.?
The difference was that Nuremburg took place after the Nazis had been defeated. The ICC sits somewhere far from the conflict and starts declaring people criminals and fugitives. They are criminals, but the problem is that they’re not fugitives - they actually run Sudan. They don’t give a shit what the ICC says about them. The Nazis as Nuremburg also whined about juridstidiction and ex post facto laws, but that didn’t matter because the US Army destroyed their system and then executed them after a more or less fair trial. Actually, I suppose they had a point about politically motivated show trials being a bit unsporting, not that niceties like that bothered them back when they were in power and offing people like Sophie Scholl.
I can pretty much guarantee that if the US actually did something to stop this, and since they government of Sudan are Islamists they could probably stretch the War on [Islamist] Terror to cover doing that then the ICC, rest of the world would condemn them for that instead of condemning them for inaction.
The best way to picture the ICC/UN etc is this. You have a lawless frontier town back in the Old West terrorised by outlaws. A lone man in black rides into town and decides to stop them, but at that point he gets arrested by the local Sheriff. The fact is that the Sheriff is not just useless, his existence actually dissuades people who would otherwise solve the real problem. Actually it’s more insidious than that - having him them makes people think that they are living a law based society when actually they aren’t.
Of course once you start to think like this, standard Euro criticism of American unilateralism and cowboy mentality starts to sound quite different too.
“Local outrage” meaning who?
I think primary responsibility should fall (in order) to the UN (no forces; no willing members… making everyone guilty), the AU (still getting its shit together; no clue), neighbouring countries (more basket cases; Egypt?; Ethiopia’s busy messing around in Somalia and watching Eritrea); the EU (unwilling to deploy; ‘colonialism’ twitchy); the US (if you’re going to set yourself up as world cop, walk the beat); China (ha!).
The ICC is immune to charges of ex post facto prosecution as it has jurisdiction only over events occurring after it came into being.
Some folks do need a real good pummeling. Apparently the people in Darfur don’t have any good, powerful buddies, and the oil’s in a different region of the country. Which is really too bad, because Hunt Oil could move in, backed up by Blackwater, and make the privatization of state functions a reality on the ground rather than freeriding on the US military. If nothing else, it’d be a good test case.
KingZog, the man in black rides into town, kills some bad guys, yadda yadda yadda… Ever seen Unforgiven? Was William Munny one of the good guys?
Quote: You have a lawless frontier town back in the Old West terrorised by outlaws. A lone man in black rides into town and decides to stop them, but at that point he gets arrested by the local Sheriff. The fact is that the Sheriff is not just useless, his existence actually dissuades people who would otherwise solve the real problem. Actually it’s more insidious than that - having him them makes people think that they are living a law based sociiety.
Sounds a bit like Tombstone, Arizona, when the Earps said “enough is enough” Some died but they stood up and did what had to be done. Actually, I don’t see much correlation to Nuremburg, but I get your point.
So how can one get jurisdiction, as in Nuremburg, without invasion and conquering? If jurisdiction is based on conquering, then maybe the U.N. should invade and conquer. Keep in mind, that I, for one, am
not against this, but the endeavor shoud be led by others who are not led by the U.S. Will that happen? I doubt it. By the way, let me mention another historical event. That of Gengis Khan. Is that what we should do? Impose a foreign will upon others because of advanced ability? Maybe.
I suppose it depends on what your motives are. If you invade to get resources then that would be bad. But if you do it to stop one group oppressing another it seems ok. Then again, I suppose the Chinese said they were doing that in Tibet.
Actually I don’t think the US shouldn’t intervene to stop oppression all over the world, because that is the nightmare path to empire. Though it can probably manage one intervention at a time.
The answer to that is “yes”, Jaboney.
(Apologies if this response strays too far from topic of the thugs running Sudan, and how an organization composed largely of representatives of similar thugs in other countries could work wonders for justice if only we gave them more power – but you did ask the question about William Munny, J — and he was definately one of the good guys. No question about that at all :uhhuh: )
-H
The answer to that is “yes”, Jaboney.
(Apologies if this response strays too far from topic of the thugs running Sudan, and how an organization composed largely of representatives of similar thugs in other countries could work wonders for justice if only we gave them more power – but you did ask the question about William Munny, J — and he was definately one of the good guys. No question about that at all :uhhuh: ) [/quote]I missed the bit in the thread about “how an organization composed largely of representatives of similar thugs in other countries could work wonders for justice if only we gave them more power” but William Munny was definitely not one of the good guys. There were no good guys! Well, Little Bill tried to be a good law man, and William Munny tried to be a good husband and father… What movie were you watching? Come on, the title’s Unforgiven, and might as easily have been Unforgivable.
[quote=“Unforgiven: Original Screenplay”]MUNNY
[b]Ned… don’t tell nobody… don’t
tell the kids… don’t tell 'em
none of… none of the things I
done.
And Ned has tears in his eyes and Munny's eyes are staring
and he is seeing something horrible...[/b][/quote]
[quote]LITTLE BILL
[b]Well sir... You are a cowardly
sonofabitch because you have just
shot down an unarmed man.[/b]
It has become a very formal moment and there are,
figuratively speaking, only two people in the room, Munny
and Little Bill... and WW Beauchamp is watching them, scared
to death, but this is it, what all those Easterners dreamed
about, the showdown in the saloon.
MUNNY
(the shotgun pointed
right at Little Bill)
He should have armed himself if he
was gonna decorate his saloon with
the body of my friend.
LITTLE BILL
[b]I guess you are Three-Fingered
Jack out of Missouri, killer of
women and children.[/b]
MUNNY
(a little drunkenly)
[b] I have done that... killed women
and children... I have killed most
everything that walks or crawls[/b]
an' now I have come to kill you,
Little Bill, for what you done to
Ned.
(to the others)
Now step aside. boys.
[…]
LITTLE BILL
I don’t… deserve this… to
die this way. I was… building
a house.
MUNNY
(aiming his pistol
point blank)
"Deserve" don't mean shit, Little
Bill.
(I prefer the screen version: “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”)
LITTLE BILL
(the pistol in his face)
I'll see you... in hell, you
three-fingered asshole.[/quote]
Back on track… guess who else is implicated? No surprise here:
[quote=“BBC”]The BBC has found the first evidence that China is currently helping Sudan’s government militarily in Darfur.
The Panorama TV programme tracked down Chinese army lorries in the Sudanese province that came from a batch exported from China to Sudan in 2005.
The BBC was also told that China was training fighter pilots who fly Chinese A5 Fantan fighter jets in Darfur.
China’s government has declined to comment on the BBC’s findings, which contravene a UN arms embargo on Darfur. [/quote]
Back on topic:
The UN is moving staff out of Sudan -
UN withdraws Sudan staff
[i]"KHARTOUM: The UN was pulling non-essential staff from Darfur yesterday as Islamist protesters rallied behind Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir over allegations he masterminded a campaign of genocide in the region.
Fears of a violent backlash have mounted since the International Criminal Court chief prosecutor on Monday sought an arrest warrant against Bashir on 10 counts including war crimes and the use of rape to commit genocide in Darfur.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon renewed his call for Khartoum to protect UN personnel after an international prosecutor sought the arrest of Sudan’s president for alleged genocide.
“I again urge the government to fully cooperate with the United Nations,” Ban said."[/i]
And from the [color=red]Toronto Red Star[/color]:
China breaking arms ban in Sudan
[i]"According to a British Broadcasting Corporation television documentary aired yesterday, the vehicle, produced by one of China’s leading auto makers, is powerful evidence that China has been breaking the United Nations arms embargo on military aid and equipment bound for Sudan’s embattled Darfur region.
Its markings, captured on film, show the truck was exported by China to Sudan in 2005, after the United Nations banned the transfer of military goods to Darfur.
And, the BBC program alleges, China is also training fighter pilots who fly its A5 Fantan fighter jets in Darfur, where up to 300,000 people have died at the hands of government-backed militias and tens of thousands more have been displaced.
The film was aired as the International Criminal Court filed 10 war-crimes charges against Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, whom the court’s prosecutor accuses of masterminding and implementing a plan to destroy three influential Darfur communities “on account of their ethnicity.”[/i]
But the PRC/PLA says no to the BBC pictures:
China rejects BBC Darfur claims
[i]"On Monday, the BBC’s Panorama programme revealed evidence that China had sent military trucks to Sudan, which were used in attacks on civilians in Darfur.
It also said China was training fighter pilots who fly Chinese A5 jets there."
Chinas’ envoy blamed the West for the continuing genocide and killings.
Hmmm…does this guy post on Forumosa.co?
The African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission, meanwhile, said it would be flying out non-essential staff to Ethiopia and Uganda, despite pledges from Sudan to protect peacekeepers and aid workers in the country.
I was very puzzled at first about how you could be so confused on this subject, Jaboney. But then I noticed that you seem to be working from some dodgy “original screenplay” that may not resemble the actual movie very closely. Fair enough, not your fault.
Just so you know though, in the film that was actually made, there were three (3) primary good guys: Will, Ned, and the Kid.
True, Will may not have always been a boy scout in his youth, but his wife Claudia cured him of drink and wickedness. By the time of the events of the film he is a kind and loving father, a generous neighbor, and a loyal friend. Okay, so he falls off the wagon and has one drink toward the end of the film, but that was only on account of how sad he was about what they done to Ned. And yes, he is a little rough in the justice he dispenses to Little Bill the Torturer and the rest of the wicked, violent, abusive, misogynist, racist, murdering villains when he goes to the saloon, but this is hardly the first time that the hero in a movie is forced to violence in order to defeat the bad guys, right?
As for the title, it refers to how misunderstood and unfairly maligned Will Munny was by those who did not really know him (his wife’s parents, for example). I don’t know what happens in that crazy screenplay that you read, but at the end of the film we hear soft and touching music, and it echoes back to words from opening of the film, causing the audience to reflect with great sympathy and sadness on the fact that despite Will Munny’s heroic triumph over his own foibles and the indiscretions of his youth, despite how he was transformed by the love his wife and his faith, despite how he led an honest life from that point on of goodness and kindness (one aberrant night in Big Whiskey apart – after which he promptly returns to pick up his children and take them to San Francisco where he never picked up a bottle or a gun again) … how despite all of that there were still people who somehow could not see that William Munny was a good man. The tragedy of the film was that regardles of how many examples we the viewers were shown of Munny’s virtue and decency, he remained in the minds of his wife’s family and many others of his day, sadly and unjustly, Unforgiven. 
Silly Hobbes, you’ve been neglecting your classics.
None of these characters were perfect. Even ‘good’ is a stretch for them.
The only character who comes close to manifesting innate goodness is the young whore with the heart of gold, the one who got cut up for snickering at the big bad cowboy’s lil’ willy.
The situation’s a mess. The whole question of the film is how to bring order to the chaos given all of the imperfections.
In terms of justice, it’s Aeschylus’ Oresteia: the eumenides vs furies.
English Bob offers one means of bringing vengeance, and cowardly mercenary he is, we might as well equate him with Clytemnestra’s lover, Aegisthus.
Munny, Ned, and the Kid offer another option, operating as familial surrogates. Still mercenary, but the whores’ familial relations with them – “Gettin’ free ones” – are also mercenary, so that’s not much of a concern. These three essentially play the role of Orestes. In modern parlance, they’re operating according to the ‘burn the village to save it’ school of thought. Effective, in their way, but horrifying to all involved, most especially themselves. From the beginning Munny and Ned, and at the end, the Kid, all know perfectly that they well deserve to be haunted by the furies. (Appropriate, isn’t it, that the Kid’s eyes are so poor given that he’s morally blind for so long.)
The third option is Little Bob Daggett’s. He’s doing his best to keep the peace and forces the two bad, whore-cutting cowboys to make restitution, but he’s in a bad spot: the older whores won’t accept his justice, and the big ranch – the town’s going concern – limits his ability to act against the perpetrators. Not that he’s all that good, as shown by his beating and taunting of English Bob and eagerness to use his guns given the merest excuse. He can’t take Athena’s place, can’t play the eumenide well enough… but he’s trying to break the cycle of violence and retribution. It’s flawed, but its the closest thing to justice for the Unforgiven.
In the end, unlike the Oresteia, Munny’s able to flee with his children and escape the furies: sadder, wiser, still horrified by himself. But there’s no justice in that. The cycle of violence is broken only because there’s no one left to come after him.
In this frame, the options in Sudan are flawed law and order (the Sheriff/ Athena/ international law), the lone gun (the Man with No Name, aka William Munny/ Orestes/ air strike), or the tyranny of bad men (the drunken cowboys/ Clytemnestra & Aegisthus/ Omar al-Bashir and the janjaweed). Hmmm… I suppose another, and more likely, option is a sequel: more unresolved blood and violence. I don’t much care for sequels.
Good post. Though I think the point I was trying to make was that international law is the same as the tyranny of bad men.
Great post, J. :bravo:
Unfortunately, I don’t have the time right now to dust off my old dog-eared copies of The Oresteia and give the post the attention it deserves, so I’ll have to get back to you I think.
One quick first impression/question from your last paragraph though: Why do you consider “more unresolved blood and violence” to be a 4th option, separate from #3 (tyranny of bad men)? Those seem like the same thing to me.
One problem with the Man In Black option is that in practice you need a government to do it. Morally, as people pointed before the Iraq War, it’s highly questionable to campaign for your government to start a war unless you’re willing to join up yourself.
It would be far better if we could all PayPal some money to some private company which would start bombing the janjaweed with unmanned drones and hire mercenaries. Islamists already work like this - Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Janjaweed are all non state actors that raise money from rich fucktards in Saudia Arabia and the like. The Taliban started off as non state actors and were removed by what where effectively mercenaries back by US airpower.
Actually the UK government intervened in Sierra Leone by subcontracting to mercenaries, so it’s not completely unprecedented. It’s “against international law” to do this, as you’d expect.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_repo … 207586.stm
I can see a need to intervene in Sudan, but I definitely don’t want the US or UK to send troops there given how Somalia worked out.
[quote=“Hobbes”]Great post, J. :bravo: [/quote] 
Aw, shucks.
[quote=“Hobbes”]Why do you consider “more unresolved blood and violence” to be a 4th option, separate from #3 (tyranny of bad men)? Those seem like the same thing to me.[/quote] I think the situation is Sudan today is similar to the situation in Afghanistan pre-9/11: a country divided against itself and in the hands of bad men.
Until 9/11, Afghanistan was left to the Taliban (although recognized by only three states, dealt with by many more). Non-Pashtuns, women, and anyone else caught in the cleft were essentially left to bleed and suffer alone. That’d be option 3. Not a sequel, not unresolved, just a bad ending: too bad for them; let 'em bleed.
Sudan, while it’s government is recognized by many, many more states, has long been widely perceived as a problem to be dealt with. So it – and its people – are not being left entirely to their own devices. Instead, everyone’s standing around, hands in pockets, saying, “Think somebody should do something? Yeah, somebody had better do something. Hmm…” No one’s decided to walk away, no one’s decided to act. I suppose it’s a case of a character walking offstage from a production of Orestia and immediately into Waiting for Godot.
[quote=“KingZog”]One problem with the Man In Black option is that in practice you need a government to do it. Morally, as people pointed before the Iraq War, it’s highly questionable to campaign for your government to start a war unless you’re willing to join up yourself.
It would be far better if we could all PayPal some money to some private company which would start bombing the janjaweed with unmanned drones and hire mercenaries. [/quote]How is that any better? In the first case, even if you’re unable/ unwilling to fight yourself, as a citizen you still have certain responsibilities. As a customer contracting with a mercenary company, individuals are far less likely to feel/ acknowledge those responsibilities. So long as you’re not immobilized by the debate, surely it’s better to acknowledge and wrestle with the moral difficulties (like Little Bob) than to cast such considerations aside and selfishly pursue your own ends (like the whores who put out the contract on the lives of the cowboys).
No need to wear black, well maybe those berets - but that’s another story, their is a presence in Africa - AFRICOM
More reason why the ICC might dissuade nasty bastards from pursuing their bad ends. No doubt Karadzic enjoyed unofficial gov’t protection for much of the past 13 years, but sooner or later the political winds change, and which of these yahoos is going to be happy spending his retirement in a cell?
[quote=“NYT”]Bosnia’s Serb wartime president, Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted war criminals for his part in the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, has been arrested, Serbian President Boris Tadic’s office said on Monday.
Serge Brammertz, the prosecutor of the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, said in a statement late Monday that Mr. Karadzic would be transferred to The Hague, but “the date will be determined in due course.”
Mr. Karadzic’s place of arrest was not announced, but Serbian government officials said Mr. Karadzic had been arrested by the Serbian secret police at a site not far from Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, nearly 13 years after he was first indicted on war crimes.
“This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade,” Mr. Brammertz said. “It is also an important day for international justice because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law and that sooner or later all fugitives will be brought to justice.”
Mr. Karadzic had topped the tribunal’s most-wanted list for more than a decade and was said to have resorted to elaborate disguises to elude authorities. Hague and European Union officials have long suspected that he was hiding in Serbia, and have pressed Belgrade to hand him over.
His reported hide-outs included refurbished caves in the mountains of eastern Bosnia and Serbian orthodox monastaries. Some Serbian newspapers reported that he had eluded arrest for the past 13 years by shaving off his signature mane of wild gray hair and disguising himself in a brown cassock.
[b]The arrest, 11 years after Mr. Karadzic went into hiding, marks the culmination of a long and protracted effort by the west to press Serbia to arrest Mr. Karadzic for what is widely considered among the most heinous crimes committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
It comes just weeks after a new pro-western coalition government in Serbia was formed whose overriding goal is to bring Serbia into the European Union, the world’s biggest trading bloc. The EU has made delivering indicted war criminals to the Hague a precondition for Serbia’s membership. [/b][/quote]
Beautiful: an argument that would favor the ICC… from none other than the whips and chains wing of the War on the Rule of La… d’oh, Terror.
[quote=“NYT”] As the administration wrestles with the cascade of petitions, some lawyers and law professors are raising a related question: Will Mr. Bush grant pre-emptive pardons to officials involved in controversial counterterrorism programs?
Such a pardon would reduce the risk that a future administration might undertake a criminal investigation of operatives or policy makers involved in programs that administration lawyers have said were legal but that critics say violated laws regarding torture and surveillance.
Some legal analysts said Mr. Bush might be reluctant to issue such pardons because they could be construed as an implicit admission of guilt. But several members of the conservative legal community in Washington said in interviews that they hoped Mr. Bush would issue such pardons — whether or not anyone made a specific request for one. They said people who carried out the president’s orders should not be exposed even to the risk of an investigation and expensive legal bills.
“The president should pre-empt any long-term investigations,” said Victoria Toensing, who was a Justice Department counterterrorism official in the Reagan administration. “If we don’t protect these people who are proceeding in good faith, no one will ever take chances.”[/quote]
All other nonsense aside, I think Victoria Toensing should be nominated for an Orwellian Doublespeak Award for defending torturers as “people who are proceeding in good faith.”