Although Sudanese president Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir meets more than all of the requirements that qualified Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi for regime change - the U.S. has shown an alarming amount of empathy for the oppressor and his cabal in Khartoum.
In fact, Gaddafi’s sins pale in comparison to those of Bashir, whose transgressions were concisely enumerated by Doyle McManus in the L.A. Times on Tuesday. Because of his role as the architect of the Darfur genocide – a campaign which claimed over 300,000 lives - Bashir became the first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The Bashir regime even earned a slot on the U.S. list of states accused of sponsoring terror, driven in no small part by Sudan providing sanctuary to Osama bin Laden for five years in the 1990s. But the Obama administration is reconsidering this designation because Sudan has broken ties with Al Qaeda.
Bashir professedly shed his jihadist leanings and, according to U.S. officials, has now transformed himself into an "active partner" in the war on terror. And the Bashir government could potentially be expunged from the aforementioned list of disesteem if Khartoum abides by the peace agreement it recently struck with the newly-independent South Sudan.
Bashir’s predacious methods have not been relegated to his rivals in the south, considering he has shown no qualms about keeping the entire country impoverished. According to WikiLeaks cables released at the end of last year, Bashir siphoned off nearly $9 billion from state oil funds, stashing most of it in European banks – an amount that represents roughly one tenth of Sudan’s annual GDP.
The U.S. has maintained its propitiative stance with Sudan despite the regime's continuing commitment to a policy of race murder, evidenced by mass graves being discovered in South Kordofan which were captured in satellite photos by George Clooney’s Sentinel Project. A UN assessment of Sudan's recent seizure of Abyei concluded that Bashir's forces inflicted atrocities that were "tantamount to ethnic cleansing."
The Obama administration’s mind-bending policy of coddling Bashir became even more evident last week when U.S. envoy Princeton Lyman put forth an unconscionable defense, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Sudanese government had a legitimate complaint about rebel groups in Darfur refusing to talk peace. Lyman was quoted as saying, "You can't expect the government to come to the table to talk about [rebel demands for] overthrowing the regime."
Senator John Kerry, who strenuously supported the military intervention against Gaddafi, exasperatingly concurred with Lyman’s assessment, alleging that the U.S. couldn’t blame Khartoum "if the players in Darfur aren't choosing to be part of the process."
If true, then why blame Gaddafi for his brutality against the Benghazi rebels who want to overthrow him and don’t want to negotiate? Does Gaddafi not have the right to repress and kill uncooperative elements that dwell amongst his people as well?
It bears mentioning that the source of U.S. hypocrisy with respect to the Bashir-appeasing policy sits in the White House, with the first half of the double standard being established when candidate Obama stated in April of 2008:
“The Government of Sudan has pursued a policy of genocide in Darfur. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children have been killed in Darfur, and the killing continues to this very day…Washington must respond to the ongoing genocide and the ongoing failure to implement the CPA with consistency and strong consequences.”
How to explain such duplicity? The ugly truth is, the last thing in the world the Obama administration wants is for the Darfur rebel movement to topple Bashir, because the strongest anti-government faction, the Justice and Equality Movement, is backed by, interestingly enough - Muammar Gaddafi.
At some point after becoming President Obama, the former Senator's perspective on genocide apparently changed, his moral lens reshaped to fit the contours of American Realpolitik. From the outset, administration officials were never very enthralled with the idea of the Sudanese dictator being prosecuted, envisioning post-Bashir Sudan as an unstable breeding ground for the likes of Al Qaeda. U.S. leaders have consistently dodged queries as to why someone hasn't already dragged Bashir by his turban to The Hague, certain the idealist types wouldn't like the answer and wouldn't understand that sometimes liberal principles had to be compromised "for reasons of state".
The wily dictator has impressively evaded facing justice before the ICC tribunal ever since a warrant was issued for his arrest in March 2009 based on five counts of crimes against humanity (murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape). However, Bashir was unable to avoid racking up more charges, as two counts of war crimes (attacking civilians and pillaging) and three counts of genocide were added last summer.
It all seemed to be such an inconvenience to the U.S. special envoy at the time, Obama crony Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, who feared the charges would impair his ability to work with Bashir's government to “stabilize Sudan" (God forbid a war criminal is brought to justice – an insane notion considering it might interfere with the labor of a U.S. bureaucrat).
To make matters worse Gration openly expressed displeasure with the ICC, claiming the indictment would make his mission more difficult and challenging. Gration asseverated that Bashir was indispensable to resolving the crisis in Darfur, combating terrorism and protecting oil interests. Gration ended his harangue with the plea: "...we [Americans] need Bashir.”
Hence, it appears the Obama regime is willing to prop up a murderous despot while closing a blind eye to injustices suffered by countless innocent civilians in order to protect America’s sacrosanct “national interests”.
Meanwhile, Tripoli remains under siege by NATO bombs and U.S. drone strikes. If toppled, the Libyan dictator won’t likely blame his demise on an atrocious human rights record. Rather, he will, no doubt, have regrets of another sort, forever wondering if and how it could have all turned out for the better – if we [Americans] only needed him.
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