You read stories about people being brutally assaulted in Zimbabwe and think “that is horrible,” but it is not until you see the pictures that you understand the true horror:
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Following the weekend attack on Khartoum, the Sudanese government is calling JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim an agent of Israel and demanding that JEM leaders living abroad be labeled terrorists and handed over:
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Following the rebel attack on Khartoum over the weekend, the government has placed a nearly $250 million bounty on Khalil Ibrahim, head of the Justice and Equality Movement:
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On Friday, there were reports that the Sudanese government was stepping up its military presence in Kordofan amid concerns that the JEM rebels were preparing an attack. The JEM denied this at the time, but it looks like that is exactly what they had in mind:
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Reuters reports that Khartoum is stepping up its military presence in Kordofan amid concerns that the JEM rebels are preparing an attack, which the JEM denies:
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This recent speech by Senator John McCain is nothing less than outstanding. Here’s a taste (but please do read the entire speech):

There is a tendency in our age to accede to the spurious excuse of moral relativism and turn away from the harshest examples of man’s inhumanity to man; to ignore the darker side of human nature that encroaches upon our decency by subtle degree. There are many reasons for this. Blessed with opportunity, and intent on the challenges of work and family, our own lives often seem too full and hectic to take notice of offenses that seem distant from our own reality. There is also the threat in a society passionate about its liberty that we can become desensitized to the dehumanizing effect of the obscenity and hostility that pervades much of popular culture. It is in our nature as Americans to see the good in things; to face even serious adversity with hope and optimism. And yet, with so much good in the world, for all the progress of humanity, in which our nation has played such an admirable and important role, evil still exists in the world. It preys upon human dignity, assaults the innocence of children, debases our self-respect and the respect we are morally obliged to pay each other, and assails the great, animating truths we believe to be self-evident — that all people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — by subjecting countless human beings to abuse, persecution and even slavery.

Confronting evil has never been easy — in our age or any other. But the failure to do so affects even those who are complacent with our own blessings and secure in our human rights. Accepting the degradation of values we believe are universal is to relinquish some of our own humanity. America was founded on the belief in the inherent dignity of all human life and that this dignity can only be preserved through shared respect and shared responsibility. We can retain our own freedom when others are robbed of theirs, but not the sense of virtue that made our revolution a moral as well as political crusade, and which recognizes that personal happiness is so much more than pleasure, and requires us to serve causes greater than self-interest.

That is beautiful and powerful prose, my firends. I am very impressed with both Senator McCain and his speechwriters. Well done, gents. 

Reuters reports that the bombing reported by rebels in Darfur last week hit a school and marketplace and that the government is denying access to the site:
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Because there are some things that are much more important than politics.

Please pray for the people of Burma.

The Sudan Tribune is reporting that rebels are accusing Khartoum of hiring former Iraqi pilots to bomb the region:
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A French aid worker with Save the Children was shot dead in Chad yesterday:
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As much as I personally dislike the views held by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, I have to admit that they have been very willing to open their pages to op-eds about Darfur - probably more so than most other major papers. So today Mia Farrow and Eric Reeves have a piece on the one-year anniversary of the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court:
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Nat Hentoff, “a nonreligious pro-lifer” and columnist for the Washington Times, nails it:

[O]n abortion, Mr. Obama is an extremist. He has opposed the Supreme Court decision that finally upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act against that form of infanticide. Most startlingly, for a professed humanist, Mr. Obama in the Illinois Senate also voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act . . . . Furthermore . . . [Obama] “voted to kill a bill that would have required an abortionist to notify at least one parent before performing an abortion on a minor girl from another state.” . . . . 

As I was researching this presidential candidate’s views on the unilateral “choice” that takes another’s life, I heard on the radio what Mr. Obama said during a Johnstown, Pa., town-hall meeting on March 29 . . . ”But if they [his daughters] make a mistake . . . I don’t want them punished with a baby.” Among my children and grandchildren are two daughters and three granddaughters; and when I hear anyone, including a presidential candidate, equate having a baby as punishment, I realize with particular force the impact that the millions of legal abortions in this country have had on respect for human life.

Read the entire piece. It is most excellent.

(LvFT)

Rebels in Darfur are accusing the government of bombing areas under their control but, of course, the government denies it:
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AFP has a good article highlighting the fact that nobody really has any idea how many people have died in Darfur:
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Well, good news for people like me who think the International Criminal Court is a good idea - and we are probably in the distinct minority here at SA … so bad news for the rest of you:

A senior Bush administration official said Friday that the U.S. now accepts the “reality” of the International Criminal Court, and that Washington would consider aiding the Hague tribunal in its investigation of atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region.

“The U.S. must acknowledge that the ICC enjoys a large body of international support, and that many countries will look to the ICC as the preferred mechanism” for punishing war crimes that individual countries can’t or won’t address, John Bellinger, the State Department’s chief lawyer, told a conference in Chicago marking the 10th anniversary of the tribunal’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute. More than 100 countries have ratified the treaty.

Although it reiterated longstanding U.S. concerns about the court, Mr. Bellinger’s speech represented a rhetorical turnabout for an administration that came to power determined to hobble the movement for a permanent war crimes tribunal.

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This is actually a few months old, but I just came across it: The International Rescue Committee reports that 5.4 million people have died because of the conflict and humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo and 45,000 continue to die every month:
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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Darfur yesterday where there was a lot of hand-wringing and complaints and very little else:
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Nobody really has any idea how many people have died in Darfur over the last five years, but now the UN is saying that the death toll is probably upwards of 300,000:
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The wire services are reporting that church leaders in Zimbabwe are warning that organized violence could become genocidal:
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Nicolas Sarkozy seems to think it was at least partially responsible:
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Not surprisingly, it looks like things aren’t going so well in Darfur:
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It looks like the Senate has finally gotten around to realizing that, unlike Las Vegas, what happens in Darfur does not stay in Darfur:
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I’m having a Gollum-like internal struggle over the polygamy raid in Texas.  On the one hand, I’m a firm believer in the rule of law and protecting the innocent, so I can get behind the idea of saving all the children from general religious craziness.  I’m also not overly religious, so I have no sympathy in their “moral” defense.  And yet . . . isn’t there something inherently disturbing about law enforcement and child protective services storming the bigamist beaches, as it were, ripping dozens of children from the breasts of their mothers and fathers on nothing more that the fact that they all live in a town where a couple of people have been accused of rape?

I believe in statutory laws, to some extent (I have problems with the application more than anything else).  I understand that polygamy is, at least, a statutory no-no.  But this one is not passing the smell test for me.  I don’t want 13-year olds forced into marriage with 50-year olds.  I don’t want children brainwashed into some sort of mindless, communal servitude.  But I also think that parents should, within bounds, be able to raise their children as they wish.  And I certainly don’t think that the police should be able to take my kids away solely based on the fact that one of my neighbors raped a girl and we just happen to go to the same church. 

If the authorities had arrested just the specific alleged offenders and taken them to jail, I’d be all for it.  But to sweep through an entire town on the accusations of a few people is a bit much for my conservative anti-authoritarian streak. 

So, what say you, dear reader?  Is this just a visceral response to polygamy?  Do you think the State acted appropriately here, and, if so, do you really think the children, as a group, are better off now?