Soccer Dad

When tyrants commiserate

An AP dispatch from Doha, reported that the Syrian foreign minister, expressed his support for Sudanese president - and war criminal - Omar Hassan al-Bashir:

"What is required from all of us is to stand with our brothers in Sudan and its leadership in order to prevent dangers that affect our collective security," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said.

The New York Times explains why Syria might be more supportive of al-Bashir.

Syria may have an additional motive for denouncing the arrest warrant, because its leadership is said to be concerned that the international investigation into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister may implicate or even indict high-ranking Syrian figures.

The Times, though, notes that one observer thought that that rationale for supporting Sudan's president was more universal at Doha.

There was also some criticism of the Arab League's decision to welcome Mr. Bashir. Some critics said their leaders had embarrassed the Arab world and were supporting Mr. Bashir not on the strength of their convictions but from a sense of self-preservation.

"The leaders' position is their own self-defense, because they don't want to open the door to an international tribunal of any kind that will open the file of any crimes they committed against humanity or against their own people," said Saad al-Ajmi, a former Kuwaiti minister of information. "Most of those regimes are actually dictatorships, and most of them have their hands smeared with the blood of their own people."

Time's Scott MacLeod, notes the hypocrisy:

Then there was the sorry spectacle involving Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes in relation to the Sudanese government's alleged role in Darfur killings. The summiteers gave al-Bashir a hero's welcome in Doha, and used a final communique to side with al-Bashir and categorically reject the ICC's indictment. This came on top of al-Bashir's recent move to expel international humanitarian groups from Darfur, a move that further endangers the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese, in retaliation for an ICC-issued warrant for his arrest. The Arab League effectively thumbed its nose at the U.N., which has called on Sudan to cooperate with the ICC, the same U.N. whose resolutions the Arab League demands Israel accept in its disputes with Arab states. Wasn't it the height of hypocrisy that Arab leaders would rail against the ICC for prosecuting al-Bashir, while at the same time proposing at the summit the prosecution of Israeli leaders for the recent Gaza war that left 1,300 Palestinians dead? The Arabs hardly advance their cause when they so blatantly display the double standards they never tire of accusing others of practicing.

The problem with MacLeod's attitude is that he seems to have expected more. He treats the summit as a missed opportunity more than an indictment of the Arab League.

However the Washington Post weighed in with a very strong editorial, An Arab Summit Embraces the Butcher of Darfur, uses scare quotes very effectively:

"We stress our solidarity with Sudan and our rejection of the decision" of the ICC, said the communique, which Mr. Bashir welcomed in a bombastic address to the summit plenary. Leader after leader declared fealty. "We must also take a decisive stance of solidarity alongside fraternal Sudan and President Omar al-Bashir," said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas is hoping that the Obama administration will pressure Israel to stop building "illegal" settlements in the West Bank; the next time he utters the phrase "double standard" in the presence of a U.S. diplomat, we suggest a query about Mr. Bashir.

And then the Post points out that even if one thinks that Israeli troops behaved badly in Gaza (a claim now refuted) there's a matter of proportion.

To be sure, some human rights groups have alleged crimes by Israeli forces in Gaza. But, according to Palestinian accounts, 1,409 people were killed during the offensive, of whom a substantial number were armed Hamas fighters. In contrast, the United Nations has reported more than 300,000 civilian deaths in Darfur as a result of the genocidal campaign sponsored by Mr. Bashir. Scores of villages have been systematically burned, and thousands of women systematically raped. Mr. Bashir responded to the ICC's arrest warrant last month by expelling international aid groups from Darfur. The result has been growing food and water shortages and new epidemics, according to the Enough Project.

Yaacov Lozowick emphasizes this hypocrisy:

Keep this in mind the next time they or their mouthpieces rant on and on about how horrendous Israel is, where even if you take their version of events Israel hasn't done anything remotely similar to the genocide in Sudan (nor to the previous one, in southern Sudan, with 2,000,000 dead).

And though the Post won't go this far, Martin Peretz argues what the acceptance of al-Bashir shows:
I

n any case, the big news event of the Qatar gathering was the arrival of Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, who is a fugitive from the International Criminal Court which has a warrant out for his arrest on charges of genocide. Now, genocide is a serious accusation to have made against a head of state, particularly one who is being welcomed by an Arab summit that is so concerned about human rights. Well, no, that is not quite accurate. The summiteers are not concerned about human rights in their own countries or very much, for that matter, in each others' countries. But do any of you doubt that Bashir is guilty of genocide? Do any of you doubt that hundreds of thousands (three, maybe four hundred thousand) of African Muslims have been murdered by Arab Muslim hordes deployed by Khartoum to kill, rape and pillage.

The Arabs are moved only by the plight of the Palestinians.This is true. It is, in fact, a truism, so obvious that one should be embarrassed even having to argue it. And why the plight of the Palestinians? Because their condition can be blamed on Israel and--make no mistake about it--on the Jews, the Jews the world over.

Helena Cobban, whose criticism of Israel can safely be called antisemitic, reveals a racist side too. She favorably quotes a critic of the prosecution of al-Bashir who wrote:

a more troubling issue is how an initiative of international criminal justice meant to protect vulnerable people from brutal national rulers has managed to be subverted into an instrument of power against vulnerable countries. A court meant to embody and pursue universal justice is in practice reduced to imposing selective justice of the West against the rest.

300,000 innocents dead is "selective justice." Bashir, apparently, should be free from justice, because he killed Africans.

Finally, JoshuaPundit sums up the situation:

The world is not divided by Muslim and non-Muslim, but by the decent and indecent.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Posted by SoccerDad at April 2, 2009 5:27 AM