Sudan Sanctions
Posted 2007/05/30
President Bush was certainly right in ordering new economic sanctions against Sudan, but the bad news is that the sanctions may be ineffective in stopping the desert bloodshed.
Sanctions are of limited help, even in the best of economic cases, and American sanctions will do little good, especially when China is pouring investments into the Sudan.
Between 200,000 and 300,000 villagers in Darfur have been killed in the ongoing genocide in that nation and there’s little reason to believe the killings will stop anytime soon.
In making his announcement President Bush said this nation would not avert its eyes from “a crisis that challenges the conscience of the world.”
To be honest, the world’s conscience hasn’t been challenged and is utterly worthless. Human Rights Watch is worried about Wal-Mart. Amnesty International insists that Guantanamo Bay be closed. The members of the Arab League have indicated the Darfur slaughter doesn’t bother them at all. China has oil investments in the Sudan and is not planning to allow a few minor genocidal peccadilloes to change its’ policies. (After all, China is still occupying Tibet after fifty years. The brutalizing and occupation of Tibet hasn’t bothered the world either. Never has. Never will.)
Still, the president was morally and politically correct to order the sanctions. The actions are a tiny spark of light in the face of the darkness of Darfur. If other nations follow suit, the light might spread.
