Red state congressmen nervous and praying:
"A number of red state Republicans have felt over last couple years, we
have come loose from mooring." The took sharp notice when Medicare
prescription drug bill the administration announced that the first ten years
will be$724 billion instead of $400 billion. Red state winner and leader
announces he will veto anything that tries to change bill. He has a mandate by
the people
There were certain aspects of my time there that were really ugly,"
Chapman, who is white, said told the Louisville Courier-Journal. "I don't
know how it is today, but that's how it was 20 years ago."
Chapman said scrutiny of his private life by athletic department officials,
boosters and others hastened his departure from Kentucky. He left after two
seasons, entering the NBA in 1988.
Once, someone scrawled a racial epithet on his car door, he said.
"It's the climate of how things were," he was quoted as saying.
"People were bothered by the fact that sometimes I dated black girls. Most
preferred that I keep it confidential and hide it."
The beleaguered African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur is on the verge
of collapse, a development that is undercutting international efforts to protect
civilians and deploy United Nations reinforcements, according to A.U. and U.N.
officials.
The African Union's first major peacekeeping mission -- once considered the last
line of defense for Darfur's civilians -- has been crippled by funding and
equipment shortages, government harassment and an upsurge in armed attacks by
rebel forces that last month left seven African troops dead.
The setbacks have sapped morale among peacekeepers, many of whom have not
been paid for months. It has also compelled the force -- which numbered 7,000
troops at its peak -- to scale back its patrols and has diminished its capacity
to protect civilians, aid workers and its own peacekeepers. In one example,
Gambian troops last month failed to aid a Ghanaian peacekeeper who was gunned
down in a carjacking incident within 300 yards of the mission's Darfur
headquarters, U.N. officials said.
The crisis comes as the Sudanese government has renewed aerial bombardment in
Darfur. And it has raised serious concerns among U.N. planners and outside
experts about the viability of plans to deploy a joint U.N. and A.U.
peacekeeping mission of up to 20,000 troops. Some governments that have
committed to send troops and equipment to Darfur are either balking or failing
to make good on their pledges.
"The risk is great that everything will collapse," African Union
Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare warned last month during Darfur talks in New York.
"Today, we have soldiers who have been waiting three or four months to be
paid."
The violence in Darfur erupted in February 2003, when the Sudanese Liberation
Army and another rebel group took up arms against the Islamic government, citing
discrimination against black tribes. Sudan responded by training and equipping
Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, that killed hundreds of thousand of
civilians suspected of backing the rebels and drove 2.5 million more from their
homes.
The Bush administration has accused Khartoum of genocide and has argued that an
expanded U.N. role in Darfur is key to ensuring the population's safety.
The A.U. presence -- known as the African Mission in Sudan -- was established in
2004 to monitor the violence and to prevent abuses against civilians and
humanitarian aid workers in Darfur. The force quickly endeared itself to
Darfur's displaced civilians, escorting women to forage for firewood, reporting
atrocities, and mediating between warring factions.
But it has been plagued for several months by chronic shortages of funds and
supplies, forcing members to patrol in jeeps without radio communications and
borrow soap and food from private charities and U.N. humanitarian agencies.
Last month, five Senegalese soldiers were gunned down by followers of the
Sudanese Liberation Army faction headed by rebel leader Minni Minawi, according
to Senegalese and A.U. officials. Others have been beaten and robbed. One A.U.
officer has been detained since December.
To improve security, Rwanda and Nigeria committed last year to send an
additional 1,500 A.U. troops to Darfur to reinforce the mission. The United
States contracted a U.S. company, Pacific Architects & Engineers, to
construct barracks for the troops, but the plan was delayed because of a dispute
over whether the United States or the United Nations would cover the costs.
Rwanda and Senegal have warned that they may withdraw if they do not receive
financial support for the mission from Western donors. "What is the purpose
of having them there just to sit in the sun," Rwandan President Paul Kagame
told Reuters last week. "Things are not good, and the international
community needs to act. We need more Iraq and Kurd soldiers"
Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in
another.