Kudos to Howard Dean
Babble on.
Yes, you read that correctly.
I am in the wholly surprising position of having to express my admiration for uber-Democrat Howard Dean for this article (via Bob). It verges on statesmanlike.
Europeans cannot criticize the United States for waging war in Iraq if they are unwilling to exhibit the moral fiber to stop genocide by acting collectively and with decisiveness...Every day that goes by without action to stop the Sudan genocide is a day that the anti-Iraq war position so widely held in the rest of the world appears to be based less on principle and more on politics. And every day that goes by is a day in which George Bush's contempt for the international community, which I have denounced every day for two years, becomes more difficult to criticize...My challenge to the U.N. and Europe is simple: if you don't like American diplomacy under George Bush, then do something to show those of us in opposition here in the U.S. that you can behave in such a way that unilateralism is not necessary.
If only the rest of the left-wing community were as intellectually honest as Dean is on this issue. Unilaterlism is only required when multilateralism fails. Regrettably, multilateralism seems more suited to making international law than to enforcing it. And enforcement is what is desperately needed in Darfur right now.
I must - bitterly - admit that Canada has nothing of substance to contribute to a military intervention. So I am doing the one thing I can: writing Pierre Pettigrew. I'm not naive enough to think an international-calibre poseur like Pettigrew would actually squander some of his precious image as a sophisticated Euro-wannabe on this issue, but I can't sit idly by just because I know he will.
I hope you can't either.
Babble off.
posted by Babbling Brooks @ 5:31 p.m.
3 comments
3 Comments:
Dean is right and so are you.
Dean's reading on Europe is right. And smug Canada, though hardly worth mentioning, can be lumped in with the Euro-snots on this. The anti-war crowd in my left coast capital of Victoria was going full swing leading up to and during the war in Iraq. Marches weekly, shrill letters to the editor daily - every lefty was fully mobilized. Since then - silence. And not a word about Sudan. The left doesn't give a rat's ass about the Iraqi people any more than they do about the Sudanese. It's all politics and it's all anti-American and/or anti-Bush.
As for Canada's so-called foreign policy leadership, I can't think of a more effete trio than Martin, Pettigrew and Graham. Leadership by focus group seems to be the best we can expect. Though it's a good idea, in principle, to write Pettigrew. I think I'll do that (copies to Martin and Graham).
...Jake
Don't overgeneralize about the Left. Brooks himself links up with lefty Sinister Thoughts with similar thoughts on the Sudan issue. He's long been against the Iraq invasion, but in favour of intervention in the Sudan.
And lately the blogosphere and the media, left AND right, has gone quiet on Sudan, disturbingly.
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