Political Quotes

“I wish to discuss the genocide in Darfur. While there have been many speeches given on this critical subject, I want to take a moment to talk about a subject that has all too often been overlooked--the efforts of the African Union, AU. At present, the Bush administration is helping to spearhead discussion on how to absorb the African Union force in Darfur into a larger U.N. contingent with a far greater capacity to protect civilians. I wholeheartedly agree with the administration that the current formula for combating brutality in Darfur is insufficient. In fact, in December, Senator Brownback and I wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post advocating this very course of action. At the same time, many government officials, and outside observers, have given little regard to the efforts of the African Union Mission in Sudan, AMIS. We must start reversing this trend. I tip my hat to AMIS for its strong efforts, under the most difficult of circumstances, over the course of the last 2 years. The AU leadership, along with individual troop contributing countries--such as Rwanda, Senegal, and Nigeria--made a decision to put African lives on the line when the campaign of terror waged against civilians was at its height. The AU leadership just as easily could have said ``its too difficult, its too dangerous, this is somebody else's problem.'' Instead, they took action.…”