UN Troops to Darfur

After years of talking about the genocide in Sudan and trying to get Sudanese permission to station peacekeeping troops in the country, and even though they expect deployment to take another year, the UN has approved 26,000 troops and police to be sent to Darfur.

Special rapporteur Manfred Nowak, U.N. anti-terror investigator, says that "soldiers from countries whose armies are suspected of engaging in torture or other abuse should not be considered for peacekeeping duty."

I guess that frees us up from having to send any of our already overstretched troops.

Cornered by Condi

Activist actor Don Cheadle, who has been working to stop the genocide in Darfur, was recently called up by Condi.

"She wanted to tell me what the U.S. was doing," Cheadle said. "First she said, 'We're doing all we can, but it's not us, it's the United Nations. They're bogged down with red tape, and trying to push anything through just takes forever. The bureaucracy is almost insurmountable, and it's the United Nations, not the U.S.' And then she said, 'It's like when we had this crisis in Lebanon, I had to send someone down specifically to push through all of our legislation and make sure that everything moved through efficiently.' I'm thinking, I thought you had no control over the United Nations. But I didn't say that, 'cause I wanted to leave!"

The audience erupted in laughter.

"And then she basically said, 'And I've heard a lot of you activists talking about George Bush needs to do more to stop the crisis in Darfur, and George Bush can't stop this crisis in Darfur. You guys need to back off of that.'"

  

Bossy little minx, eh?