Fresh from giving birth in Africa, movie star Angelina Jolie continues touring the continent and speaking about the horrors she witnesses such as a refugee camp in Sierra Leone.

"It was an amputee camp ... the worst camp I've ever seen ... It changed me for the better ... Suddenly you see these people who're really fighting something, who are really surviving, who have so much in pain and loss ... and you just feel like your own life just has been so sheltered and so spoiled... it just changed everything." 

Praising the UN for its work there she continued

"We certainly hear a lot about the negative things about the UN, you don't hear about the number of people who are kept alive on a daily basis by the UN.

"It's the closest thing we've got to a real international institution that represents us and can make certain kind of decisions. There's just a lot that people don't know about the UN and what it does."

Reading and hearing so much about UN personnel terrorizing those who they are legally and morally obliged to aid, Jolie's observations are good to learn about.  However if the UN did more pre emptive work and condemning the countries themselves for allowing these horrors instead of appeasement and condemning Israel perhaps all this wouldn't be necessary but of course this isn't Jolie's fault.

However, while her heart is probably in the right place and she does put her money where her mouth is, claiming she donates one third of her earnings to charity, there is no excuse for her ignorance of the generosity of the US and its taxpayers as she complains

"When you're in Washington to get money for AIDS orphans, the answer is often, we're at war right now," said the goodwill ambassador for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) who has visited refugee camps around the world.  

"Our priorities are quite strange," she said referring to the money Washington spends on war and not "dealing with situations that could end up in conflict if left unassisted, and then cost more."

"We're missing a lot of opportunities (to do) a lot of good that America used to do and has a history of doing ... You have to start to notice that there's something wrong with that," she added.

As pointed out here earlier, maybe there is something wrong with those European nations that allow these evils to occur in their former colonies and for which they bear a great responsibility and for the leaders of the countries themselves.

For instance in  the Sudan region of Darfur 

Nearly 200,000 people have died, many of them from hunger and disease, since members of ethnic African tribes rose in revolt against the Arab—led Khartoum government in early 2003. Some 2 million people have been displaced. The government is accused of responding by unleashing Arab militias known as the janjaweed who have been accused of the worst atrocities, but it denies any involvement.

In Europe President George Bush

has called for the United Nations to take over peacekeeping in Darfur, reiterated Wednesday that he viewed the government—backed attacks on civilians there as genocide.

"I declared Darfur to be a genocide because I care deeply about those who have been afflicted by these renegade bands of people who are raping and murdering," Bush said in Vienna at a news conference with Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel and European Union President Jose Manual Barroso.

So what is Sudan's President Omar al—Bashir's  reaction to Bush and his suggestion for UN peacekeepers to halt this well publicized horror?

"This shall never take place," al—Bashir told reporters at a news conference with South African President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday. "These are colonial forces and we will not accept colonial forces coming into the country," he said in his strongest rejection yet of a U.N. peacekeeping role in Darfur.

"They want to colonize Africa, starting with the first sub—Saharan country to gain its independence. If they want to start colonization in Africa, let them choose a different place."

A day earlier, al—Bashir said he would personally lead the "resistance" to such a force if it came. . . .

When journalists pressed al—Bashir on his objection to U.N. troops in Darfur, he replied: "It is clear that there is a purpose behind the heavy propaganda and media campaigns" for international intervention in Darfur.

"If we return to the last demonstrations in the United States, and the groups that organized the demonstrations, we find that they are all Jewish organizations."

OK, Angelina, speak up for those children and let the chips fall where they may.  Quit the Blame America First, Hate America First crowd and blame, well, you know what you have to do. This may be harder than giving birth but you can do it.

Ethel C. Fenig   6 23 06