The power vacuum

They wonder why Osama Bin Laden was not captured on Bush’s watch. They want answers. Why is Sudan’s al-Bashir, indicted again today by the International Criminal Court, being legitimized by President Barack Obama? Through lack of teeth in his policy, he sanctions the ongoing genocide of black Africans in Darfur by al-Bashir’s Janjaweed and other militias.

I have read dozens, hundreds of reports in the last few years. Sadly, they are produced by “people who sit in offices.”

For answers, I look to the outspoken Samantha Power. Her article, which appeared in The Atlantic in September 2001,  “Bystanders to Genocide” is more relevant today than it ever was. My admiration for Mrs. Cass Sunstein, [ahem, Glenn Beck] wavers.  Cass Sunstein has arguably accomplished a great deal of the President’s domestic agenda, but I wonder why the same cannot be said for the anti-genocide agenda. IS it really that hard to stand up and say “The US Government will not stand idly by as thousands die.”

Genocide rages on in Sudan, where a Rwanda-esque tragedy may occur yet again due to the tensions with the oil-rich lands in the South.  Genocide rages in the Congo, where estimates are 45,000 die every month. The war in Congo is the bloodiest since World War II. The latest UN report says there are 200,000 documented rapes.

I ask only that Samantha Power and the whole of the human rights community recognize that pursuit of President Obama and the Democratic majority’s domestic agenda has placed real action in Africa on the altar for sacrifice. All the advocacy in the world does not matter if we look away when our own political team fails. I know this from experience.

If Samantha Power is advocating for teeth in American policy with regard to Sudan, then unleash her. Fire the feckless, hapless and incompetent instrument of president Obama’s policy, Gen. Scott Gration.  Let Bashir face Samantha Power. She possesses all the necessary skill, political and intellectual acumen, supporters, and firepower to defeat Bashir.

Ask this of ourselves, and our government today:

Who were the people in his Administration who made the life-and-death decisions that dictated U.S. policy? Why did they decide (or decide not to decide) as they did? Were any voices inside or outside the U.S. government demanding that the United States do more? If so, why weren’t they heeded? And most crucial, what could the United States have done to save lives? —Samantha Power

Who are those people, President Obama. Who indeed?

Elizabeth Blackney is best known as a media & communications strategist to private sector clients, US Senate & Gubernatorial campaigns, as a political emissary, confidante and commentator.