Note cards

It's a really, really rough draft of my note cards.. the notes are basically me summarizing what I plan on writing in correlation to that note. I still got more notes to go but I found that some of my sources aren't all that great, so I have to go back and find some more sources so I can have more information.. but here is what I have for now.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/03/20/sudan.report/index.html

- Sometimes, buildings were burned with people inside.
o Use as a pro to convince people that the United States needs to get involved. That we cannot ignore these problems if innocent lives are being taken

- The attacks “amount to violations of international humanitarian and human rights law,” they said.
o Again, another reason why the United States should get involved. If laws are being broken, action should be taken.

- Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir accused the international media of "exaggerating" the situation in Darfur to detract from atrocities in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Somalia.
o This could be a Con. Journalism has always interfered in national affairs, controlling public opinion. It happened with “Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain” (Spanish-American War). Perhaps the media or other sources are over hyping it trying to convince the American public to want to take action.

- He said the crisis in Darfur is a "media fabrication" and that in most of the region there is little or no conflict and people are living normal lives, he said. Citing Sudanese government statistics, el-Bashir said fewer than 10,000 people have died in the conflict and fewer than 500,000 have been displaced.
o Again, the government giving their opinion on what has happened. This could be a con and a pro. A pro for saying that the government is lying and it could be a con, showing that our media may be over hyping it. … then I’ll show the next quote to counter act these points, proving that the Sudan government is indeed committing genocide and action needs to be taken.

- International figures, including U.N. data, put the death toll in Darfur at 200,000, with another 2.5 million people displaced.
o This is the quote previously referred to. This proves that the government of Sudan is trying to hid the number effected by the genocide to prevent international involvement.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20765-2004Jul1.html

- As many as 405 villages have been destroyed and and more than 100 others significantly damaged.
o Another figure I can use to prove my point that people are dying and being relocated and that action needs to be taken.

- A State Department report issued Sept. 9 says that 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes in Sudan while at least 200,000 have fled to neighboring Chad.
o Our own government is taking poll on these figures and distributing them to the public, how can they not take action against them?

- The 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide requires signatories, including the United States, to prevent and punish genocide. Some in the U.S. government argued that the explicit use of the word genocide might alienate the Sudanese government and limit the United States’s ability to pressure leaders to stop the Janjaweed. Human rights officials counter that the U.S. declaration will draw attention to the crisis and prompt action by the U.N. Security Council.
o Pretty self-explanatory. It is the governments excuse for not taking action.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E4D71631F931A1575BC0A9679C8B63

- Newly declassified government documents show that several senior United States officials were aware of the dimensions of the genocide in Rwanda in early 1994, even as some sought ways to avoid getting involved.
o The Clinton administration tried to avoid the situation in Rwanda in order to keep a “good” record on foreign policy. He did not want to fail or risk American lives like they did in Somalia. **Find more resources on the Somalia genocide and use this as a con for the United States getting involved.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/rwanda.htm

- Back at U.N headquarters in New York, the killings were initially categorized as a breakdown in the cease-fire between the Tutsi and Hutu. Throughout the massacre, both the U.N. and the U.S. carefully refrained from labeling the killings as genocide, which would have necessitated some kind of emergency intervention.
o The government did not want to get involved, so they didn’t tell the public everything that was going on so they didn’t have to get involved. They didn’t want to put American lives at stake

- Confronted with international TV news reports depicting genocide, the U.N. Security Council voted to send up to 5,000 soldiers to Rwanda. However, the Security Council failed to establish any timetable and thus never sent the troops in time to stop the massacre.
o The UN never came up with a time line so they never “got around” to sending troops. 800,000 people died from the Rwanda genocide, and they never “got around” to it? What does this say about our country and other countries priorities?

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames/1353

- Four years after the killings, Clinton told the Rwandans (and the world) that he had not tried to stop the genocide because he had not known what was truly occurring. Ignorance was not the reason. It had been a political decision. Clinton was fibbing to the survivors of genocide. And this deceptive remark sparked practically no outrage. Today, ten years after the Rwanda massacre, the inaction of the United States and the world community should not be forgotten, nor should Clinton's untruthful excuse.
o The Clinton administration realized later on that ignoring the problems in Rwanda was not the best choice, putting a black mark on Clinton’s foreign policy records. Rather than receive bad public critics, Clinton let the public remain uninformed and had his office turn a blind eye, thus leaving them unaccountable for not reacting towards the Rwanda genocide. Clinton did not want to make the executive decision on whether or not the United States should interfere in the Rwanda genocide.

What Is the What

- “I speak to these people, and I speak to you because I can not help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength, to know that you are there. I covet your eyes, your ears, the collapsible space between us. How blessed are we to have each other? I am alive and you are alive so we must fill the air with out words. I will fill today, tomorrow, every day until I am taken back to God. I will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don’t want to listen, to people who seek me out and to those who run. All the while I will know that you are there. How can I pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as you pretending that I do not exist” (535).
o I will probably break this up and use different parts of the paragraph in the essay. Talk about the author and the message he is trying to convey. Even Eggars is saying that we cannot ignore the things happening in Sudan. They are so plainly in front of our eyes yet we continue to do nothing. The point of this book was to spread Valentino’s message to a larger venue of Americans.

American Foreign Policy Since World War II

- “300,000 Somalis died of starvation; another two million were in immediate danger”
o just a fact.. giving information to people on why the US intervened.

- For months, the world looked the other way. Media attention finally compelled a Western response through the United Nation. More than 27,000 troops, at first mainly American, were dispatched in late 1992 to provide order and food. After they had accomplished the mission of Operation Restore Hope, the U.S. forces were to be withdrawn and replaced by a temporary contingent of UN forces. Saved by the foreign intervention, a “restored” Somalia would then be able to chart its own course
o Again, just facts telling what happened. So people understand the situation.

- Somalia warlords would resume their struggle for power, leading to renewed killing and hunger. In 1993 the UN changed its mission from one of humanitarian relief to one of rebuilding Somalia’s political and economic structures. But the country’s principal warlord, Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, who controlled Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, resisted the enlarged UN mission, because it called for his own removal and disarmament. In fighting that followed, 24 Pakistani peacekeepers where ambushed and killed. Later, more Un troops were killed including U.S. soldiers who were deployed to capture the elusive general. As the number of U.S. casualties mounted- and after a slain U.S. soldier was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu before cheering crowds and television cameras- demands began for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Clinton responded by accelerating their departure, and the United Nations suspended the mission in the spring of 1995
o This is possibly a reason why the United States government doesn’t want to get involved. Is it worth saving these people if it puts U.S. citizens’ lives at risk? Also, things went so horribly wrong in Somalia, what if this happens in Sudan, or what if this had happened in Rwanda? The government’s first job is to protect the people of the Unites States; by sending out troops to die for no physical reason, is it worth it?

- Because the multilateral response had proved unworkable in Somalia, a concerted peacekeeping effort in Rwanda was out of the question. For this reason, the UN was largely silent in the face of the Rwandan tragedy.
o The government was afraid of failure, like in Somalia, so they chose not to react towards the genocide in Rwanda. They were afraid that if they reacted to the genocide in Rwanda, that the public would react negatively because of the recent events in Somalia.

- Personal apologies by Present Clinton in 1998 for the lack of a US response did nothing to relieve the suffering of the Rwandans. Nor did the UN’s admission in December 1999 that it made “serious mistakes” in failing to prevent the catastrophe. But for all of their admissions of guilt and pledges to act more decisively in the future, the United States and the Un could not escape the central reality: Rwanda had been deemed irrelevant by most non-African countries and unworthy of their sacrifice. Under the spell of the “Somalia syndrome” Clinton had signed a presidential directive in May 1994 that had placed strict conditions on US support for Un peacekeeping. These conditions included a clear threat to US security, substantial public support for intervention, participation by other countries under Un supervision, and an assurance that long-term “nation building” would not be necessary. Because of these restrictions, a repeat of the Rwandan episode would likely elicit the same nonresponse by the United States.
o In short this explains why the United States hasn’t done anything since the Somalian genocide. There are too many prerequisites that the genocide has to meet before the United States can intervene, which is exactly what the government wants. The government only was to interfere when there is something in the country of our interest, like oil.