Darfur and the Global Elders

I blogged recently about Jimmy Carter (one of the Global Elders) and his lack of backbone in Darfur despite the AP headline "Jimmy Carter faces down Darfur officials". Now I read that "As the Darfur peace mission of the retired statesmen known as the Elders came to an end, two of their number - former UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and former US President Jimmy Carter - chastened the West for its handling of the violent situation in Sudan." Yes, that's right, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed by the government troops and their Janjaweed Arabic speaking militia and the Global Elders criticise the West for its handling of the violent situation. Brahimi and Carter are so blindly pro-Islam that they can happily forget about the around half a million people killed by an Islamic government and its Muslim militia in order to criticise the always evil West.

So who are these two Elders?
I am sure you know that Jimmy Carter is an ex-President of the United States. You may also remember that he only served one term and as Wikipedia puts it "During Carter's presidency the United States was beset by stagflation, suffered massive fuel shortages, and struggled through several major crises including the invasion of the American Embassy in Tehran and the subsequent holding of embassy personnel as hostages by Islamic Radicals". The latter two crises had a rather odd effect on Jimmy Carter and he is now a leading exponent of anti-Israel and pro-Muslim rhetoric. His "Carter Center" was funded (before his death in 2005) by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, "in 1993 alone, the king presented Carter with a gift of $7.6 million. And the king was not the only Saudi royal to commit funds to Carter’s cause. As of 2005, the king’s high-living nephew, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, has donated at least $5 million to the Carter Center....Meanwhile the Saudi Fund for Development, the kingdom’s leading loan organization, turns up repeatedly on the center’s list of supporters. Carter has also found moneyed allies in the Bin Laden family, and in 2000 he secured a promise from ten of Osama bin Laden's brothers for a $1 million contribution to his center."(1)

Jimmy Carter refuses to debate the issues he raises in the aforementioned book with Alan Dershowitz or anyone tainted by being “representatives of Jewish organizations” or by their support for Israel, their ties to pro-Israel lobbying organizations, or their Jewish background. He is however happy to take the money from Arab countries such as the United Arab Emirates. "In 2001, Carter even traveled to the country to accept the Zayed International Prize for the Environment, named for Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the late UAE potentate and former president-for-life. Having claimed his $500,000 purse, Carter enthused that the “award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahyan.” Carter also hailed the UAE as an “almost completely open and free society” -- a surreal depiction of a rigidly authoritarian country where the government handpicks a select group of citizens to vote and strictly controls the editorial content of the newspapers and where Islamic Shari’a courts judge “sodomy” punishable by death. (To appreciate the depth of Carter’s cynicism, one need only compare his gushing encomia to the emirates with his likening of Israel, the most modern and democratic country in the entire Middle East, with the racist “apartheid” of South Africa.)" (1)

"Carter was offered a forum at the Abu Dhabi-based Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow Up, the country’s official “think-tank.” For his part, Carter declared his intention to forge a “partnership” with the center; in a 2002 letter, Carter praised its efforts to “promote peace, health, and human rights around the world.” Inconveniently for Carter, the center has since become famous for a different reason: It has repeatedly played host to anti-Semitic speakers who have denied the Holocaust, supported terrorism, and alleged an international conspiracy of Jews and Zionists to dominate the world."(1)

"On its face, there is nothing objectionable about these contacts. What has raised critics’ eyebrows is Carter’s immense chutzpah: In securing the financial support of assorted Arab leaders, Carter has gradually come to parrot their anti-Israel political agenda -- even as he styles himself as a dispassionate mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." (1)

"This was nowhere more evident than in Carter’s credulous support for the late Yasir Arafat. Although Carter had championed Araft as a committed peacemaker since his presidency, in the face of ample evidence to the contrary, his apologies for the terrorist chieftain became particularly shameless in the 1990s. When Arafat and his PLO backed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, thereby loosing the support and -- more important for the corrupt Arafat -- the funding of neighboring Sunni Arab powers, Carter embarked on a Middle East publicity tour to revive Arafat’s diminishing fortunes. As recorded by Carter biographer Douglas Brinkley, “together [Carter and Arafat] strategized on how to recover the PLO’s standing in the United States.” In desperation, Carter turned up in Saudi Arabia on what Brinkley called “essentially a fund-raising mission for the PLO,” pleading with King Fahd to restore Arafat to the Saudi dole.



Now that Arafat’s Fatah has been replaced with Hamas, Carter has again proven himself a reliable ally of Palestinian extremism. Scarcely had the terrorist group ascended to power last January than Carter launched a media blitz urging the United States to circumvent its own laws against financing terrorism in order to fund Hamas. As the New York Times put with exquisite finesse, Carter called on Western nations to "redirect their relief aid to United Nations organizations and nongovernmental organizations to skirt legal restrictions” -- that is, to launder money to a terrorist group. When American policymakers declined to heed his advice, and Israel proved unwilling to bankroll the enemy seeking its destruction, Carter promptly denounced the both countries for their “common commitment to eviscerate the government of elected Hamas.”" (1)



What of Lakhdar Brahimi, he is described as a "former UN envoy" as though that makes him immune from criticism and indeed he is a former UN envoy. "Before coming to the U.N., Brahimi, who represented the National Liberation Front in Jakarta during Algeria's 1956–1961 independence movement, was an Arab League official (1984-1991) and the Algerian Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1991 until 1993."(2)

"Most prominently, his criticism of Ahmed Chalabi has led to Chalabi's claim that Brahimi is an Arab nationalist who should have no role in determining the future of Iraq. At the same time, close allies of Chalabi have been pushing claims that various world leaders and the UN took bribes from Saddam Hussein under the Oil for Food program."(2)


Anyway, to return to Brahimi and Carter in Darfur, laying down the law. Reuters reports that Carter called Washington's use of the term "genocide" was both legally inaccurate and "unhelpful." "There is a legal definition of genocide and Darfur does not meet that legal standard. The atrocities were horrible but I don't think it qualifies to be called genocide," he said. Washington is almost alone in branding the 4 1/2 years of violence in Darfur genocide. Khartoum rejects the term, European governments are reluctant to use it and a U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry found no genocide, but that some individuals may have acted with genocidal intent. Carter, whose charitable foundation, the Carter Center, worked to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC), said: "If you read the law textbooks ... you'll see very clearly that it's not genocide and to call it genocide falsely just to exaggerate a horrible situation I don't think it helps."" (3)



(1) http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={D7B261EF-A52C-428E-9E5F-D6BBF5C49132}

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakhdar_Brahimi

(3) http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1005/p99s01-duts.html