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Author: John Norris

A Choice Rebuttal

A good post from our friends over at Opinio Juris. As it turns out, if you are going to launch a scathing attack on the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, it actually helps to have read the prosecution's application and the court's decision in response before doing so. Some of the attacks that we continue to see on international justice seem to be grounded in much more rhetoric than either fact or history. Well worth a read ...

Israel on the Airstrikes

Looks like Israel is claiming responsibility for the airstrikes I discussed in a post earlier today ...

Bad Moon Rising

Bad Moon Rising
A debate continues to take place on the 38th floor of U.N. headquarters as to whether U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon should meet with President Bashir on the sidelines of the upcoming Arab League Summit in Doha. Perhaps we can help clarify the thinking of the Secretary General and his staff: This is a very bad idea. Such a meeting, as well as the photographs that would inevitably leak out, would be a propaganda bonanza for Bashir and send a very clear message that the Secretary General is incredibly wobbly on issues of international justice. The Secretary General's legacy will ...

Curious

Not sure what to make of this. A very interesting lone blog post on the New York Times about Sudan's claims that the U.S. bombed a convoy within Sudan that was likely carrying arms headed for Gaza back in January. Others suggest that Israel carried out such an attack — if it occurred ...

More on Natsios

In case you think we here at Enough were too tough on Andrew Natsios, Elizabeth Rubin makes very clear that he has a long history of looking the other way on war crimes. From a roundtable discussion on The New Republic: Let's take the indictment of Ahmed Haroun as an example. As State Minister of Interior in 2003 and 2004, Haroun organized the Janjaweed to murder and destroy villages in Darfur. In February 2007, Ocampo indicted Haroun and Ali Koshayb, a Janjaweed militia leader and one of his henchmen. At first the Sudanese panicked. They dispatched an ambassador to Ocampo ...

Natsios Slow Dances with Bashir

Natsios Slow Dances with Bashir
Andrew Natsios, the former head of the United States Agency for International Development and a special envoy to Sudan in the Bush Administration, has a new piece on Sudan up on ForeignAffairs.com. For those of you who do not remember Natsios, he is the same gentleman who assured the American public in April 2003 that the cost to taxpayers for rebuilding Iraq would absolutely be no more than 1.7 billion dollars. (“The American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this," said Natsios in a statement that was so far off ...

Gerson on Darfur

A good thoughtful piece on Darfur by Michael Gerson in today's Post. He clearly spells out the decision facing the administartion and the international community. I give him credit for acknowledging that neither alternative is cost or risk free, but for also recognizing that Sudan's status quo is simply untenable. Well worth a read ...

We Failed

As regular followers of this space know, I am always delighted to highlight when we as a movement get things right. I firmly believe our collective pressure helped push the administration to speed up the process of naming a Special Envoy and take an increasingly firm policy line. But last night we failed. President Obama held a prime time press conference, and he did not get a single question about Sudan from reporters – despite the arrest warrant, despite the looming humanitarian tragedy, despite the need for clear international leadership to resolve the situation. We need to make more noise ...

More on the Eritrea Visit

So it comes as no surprise that President Bashir wanted to visit a neighboring country to again thumb his nose at the international community. (But don’t expect him to stay long; I imagine that he doesn’t want his fellow party members to figure out that they can get along perfectly well without him.) Perhaps the biggest loser from this short visit: Eritrea. Eritrea had a chance to hit reset in its relations with the United States with the advent of the Obama administration. Eritrea’s least desirable tourist will now make that much harder, and that is a huge lost opportunity ...

Enough in Congressional Quarterly

Enough gets a nice mention in a Congressional Quarterly story on conflict minerals. Senators Feingold, Durbin, and Brownback continue to take the lead on this issue, in a very good example of bipartisan efforts to end the scourge of violence in the Congo. Learn more about conflict minerals and visit our RAISE Hope for Congo site ...