"all against all"

Well, the five Democratic congressmen who were arrested today for protesting outside the Sudanese embassy probably should've attended today's Security Council briefing on Darfur by Rodolphe Adada, the Special Representative of UNAMID.

In his remarks, Adada stressed that:

"Darfur today is a conflict of all against all. Government forces clash with armed movements. The armed movements fight amongst each other, or violently purge their own members. Membvers of government security forces fight against one another, and the army clashes with the militias. There [are] inter-tribal conflicts. All parties have killed civilians. There is an endemic banditry and a breakdown of law and order."

The greatest problem in Darfur today is the ongoing conflict between the JEM and the Government of Sudan's armed forces, and the related poor relations between Chad and Sudan, according to Adada.

Which brings us to the question of what the congressmen were protesting outside the Sudanese embassy? Genocide? That bird has flown. Somehow I don't think members of Congress were demanding improved relations between Chad and Sudan. The Darfur conflict might have been a cause for sloganeering back in 2003-2004, during the worst of the government abuses. Now it's too complex for that. The sooner the US body politic realizes this, the better and smarter our Sudan policy can be.