It's All The UN's Fault

Today, Babbling Brooks blames the impasse on Darfur on the United Nations - the poor United States did everything right, but those darn diplomats in the UN just won't move on the crisis. But, funny, nowhere in his column does he discuss the Security Council resolution the United States submitted to the Council demanding the declaration that events in Darfur constitute genocide, demanding military intervention, calling for the dispatch of peacekeeping forces, or authorizing any nation to intervene to stop the bloodshed. What? You mean, the U.S. didn't submit any such resolution? Go figure. As As Nat Hentoff points out:

On September 18, the U.N. General Assembly passed a watered-down U.S.-sponsored resolution saying "it shall consider" possible oil sanctions on Sudan, but not, at the present time, any sanctions against Khartoum's murderous leaders.

So what Mr. Brooks seemingly means is that the U.S. engaged in a series of diplomatic moves meant to make Bush look good, but without taking any constructive or binding steps toward ending the violence. Without exercising genuine diplomacy, to overcome international resistance to effective intervention, or to build an actual coalition which might act. Which, as it seems, is all Babbling Brooks wants of his beloved President.

Nat Hentoff, while criticizing both parties for their falure to take a stand on this issue, also points out:

John Kerry, at the National Baptist Convention in New Orleans, in a speech hardly mentioned in the media except notably by Stanley Crouch in the September 13 Daily News, "got a standing ovation by calling on President Bush to take leadership in 'the immediate deployment of an effective international force to disarm militia and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Darfur.'"

So one might expect Babbling Brooks to expend a sentence or two endorsing Kerry's position. Or suggesting that, as Kerry indicated, the President could do more about the situation. Or expressing that it is a shame that the President chose a watered-down resolution over the type of authorization Kerry called for.

Well, no. If you know the work of Babbling Brooks you had no such expectation - something that might reflect a modicum of insight or balance. If you read Brooks and actually expect such balance, I leave you with the words of Homer Simpson.