By Gene Sperling
03/22/2006

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Below is an excerpt of an article from Bloomberg News:

For three years we have known that the government in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, is supporting atrocities by the gangs of Arab janjaweed militia against the black African Muslims in Darfur -- leading to as many as 400,000 deaths, 2 million displaced persons, and stomach-turning accounts of brutal mass rapes. Yet year after year, horror after horror, the global response falls tragically short.

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Policy makers would have to be comatose to miss the reports of atrocities from the International Crisis Group, Save Darfur Coalition, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, Refugees International, not to mention the compelling accounts from the New York Times' Helene Cooper, the Washington Post's Emily Wax, Today Show's Ann Curry, and especially Kristof.

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Last month, President George W. Bush momentarily provoked hope by making an emotional call for doubling the current peacekeeping presence and providing ``NATO stewardship.'' But the White House immediately seemed to downplay Bush's comments. It is still unclear if the African Union will fulfill a commitment to hand over control of its peacekeeping operation to a stronger U.N. force.

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The Bush administration sees itself as the champion of freedom around the globe. If that is the case, then we should ask why we have officially acknowledged the Darfur genocide, but then use the cover of `it's very complex'' as an excuse to do so little?

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Yes, bold action will be complex and result in unforeseen consequences. Inaction, on the other hand will be simple and highly predictable: more horror stories of children watching their parents butchered and sisters raped while the most powerful nations on the planet fail to even muster a slow-motion response to slow-motion genocide.