Intervention

The slow-motion genocide in Darfur represents a tragic failure of the world community. I am relieved that at least a few of our representatives understand that.

You can watch here as five Democratic members of Congress get arrested for demonstrating at the Sudanese Embassy to protest the crimes being perpetrated in Darfur. They included Tom Lantos of California, the only Holocaust survivor ever to be elected to the Congress.

I know that these arrests aren't as important as, say, Cynthia McKinney hitting a cop, but I hope that people take notice. There was another press event yesterday where conservative Sam Brownback and progressive Barack Obama came together to appeal for help in Darfur to stop the janjaweed.

As violence continues in neighboring Chad, with backing from Khartoum, the genocide in Darfur is turning into a regional conflict. The janjaweed want control of the refugee camps in Chad where displaced Darfurians are staying. And yet we still do nothing, years after the initial attacks. We were wrong to sit out Rwanda and we're wrong now. We cannot profess to support democracy and ignore killing. This is especially so when the CIA meets with Sudan's chief intelligence officer and calls the country an ally in the war on terror. They're terrorizing their own people, but they're somehow an ally.

This is an actual crisis, and each passing day causes more and more suffering. We have a duty to intervene.