Clooney’s Urgent Message to Obama

At last, the long-suffering people of Darfur should rest easy.  The International Criminal Court (ICC) has finally issued an unenforceable, meaningless arrest warrant to bring Sudan’s murderer of a president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, to justice.  In case you did not get a chance to read the fine print, the indictment actually exonerates al-Bashir from charges of genocide but does subject him to arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  This is the international community’s desperately awaited message that will send shivers down the spines of Sudanese thugs.  In fact, al-Bashir is already partying in public, mocking the ICC’s theatrics.  

Nonetheless, human rights groups and fashionable Darfur activists are heralding the development as a breakthrough.  And although I have yet to read any statements from actor George Clooney, he must be beaming with pride given his secret meeting with President Obama several weeks ago to discuss this issue.  While we do not know the exact contents of the Obama-Clooney discussion, al-Bashir’s indictment led me to speculate on how that conversation might have unfolded.  (more…)