Never Again. Again. A Slow Genocide In Darfur

Hey everybody. Looks like Anderson is heading back to safety-unless he's sneaking over the border to Iran. Kidding. Kidding...I hope. We've had some really good shows lately. Anyway, we're back with John Roberts tonight and he leads us off with some stats from Iraq. So far we've had 20,000 troops wounded, 9,000 of which were hurt seriously enough that they were unable to return to duty. The death toll at broadcast was 2,678 American troops killed in Iraq. And we shouldn't even be there. From there we go into a Cal Perry piece on a combat hospital in Iraq. Um, who is Cal Perry? I wonder how long he's been there. Anyway, while Cal and crew are at the hospital, 25 casualties are brought in from a truck bomb. The troop's faces are blurred (as they should be), but we see some of them being rushed in. We would never have even seen that a year and a half ago.

On now to Michael Ware live from Baghdad and things are not good, people. Things are pretty much spiraling out of control. Michael says there are simply not enough troops to win this. Over the last three days there have been about 100 executed bodies found in the streets of the capital. John then asks Michael about the reaction since the #2 man, which I blogged about, has been caught. Michael reminds John that he was the #2 according to intelligence reports, but it's hard to know who this guy really was. God I love Michael. He also says that Al Qaeda usually announces big losses and after the capture there was nothing. Also noted is that the violence barely even skipped a beat after the death of Zarqawi.

We then leave Micheal and John says, "I was talking to George Clooney today. Got your attention?" Well, uh, yes you do. George recently testified in front of a special session of the UN security council to plead with them for help for Darfur. He implores to them that Darfur will be "Your Rwanda. Your Auschwitz." We then get a taped interview with George and his father Nick who both urge for sanctions, not just against the country, but against president Omar al-Bashir himself. George explains that this story is hard to get out because the first thing they do is get rid of the reporters and he cites the recent arrest there of a Chicago Tribune reporter whose release had to be negotiated by Governor Bill Richardson. John then explains that on September 30th the peace keeper mission currently operating in Darfur will expire. UN peacekeepers are ready to go in to replace them, but al-Bashir has threatened to fight them. Without peacekeepers and nongovermental organizations (NGO's) the people of Darfur will be lost.

Next we get a background piece on the conflict from Anderson. Yes, Anderson. But don't get too excited. It seems they've gone into the vault because regular viewers of 360 will recognize this as months old. I'm not complaining though because it holds up and anything to shed more light on this. Anderson tells us that the terror is inflicted by the Janjaweed, a government backed militia, by means of slaughter and rape over a country that is half the size of Texas. After commercial we come back to George and Nick and George tells us that he knows he can't make real change with policy, but when someone is speaking about this stuff he can be there to make sure that cameras catch it. He acknowledges that Bush has taken the lead on this, but there is so much more he could do, such as making a special envoy. When John asks how testifying in front of the security council was, George very sarcastically says, "real fun." Heh. Nick pipes up to say that, "All they have is us," and the people of Darfur are the loneliest people in the world. When asked about his movies, George says that the Ocean's 11's pay him and are great fun, but he loves doing the other more serious films too. He says he only gets paid $1 for those and I don't know whether or not to believe him. I guess if he forfeited his pay he may have had to take $1 for legal/union reasons, so I guess it's plausable. George thinks if he doesn't do something about this he is a failure as a human being. I agree and I'm not just talking about him. That's the end of the Darfur coverage. I hope to do some extra blogging about the subject this weekend. For now, go to the 360 blog for links on how to help.

On now to some breaking news. First off, Bob Ney pleads guilty to conspiracy and making false statements regarding his relationship with Abramoff. Yay! Another one bites the dust. Our other bit of breaking news is DON'T EAT BAGGED SPINACH! Seriously, don't. Big E Coli outbreak affecting 50 people in nine states. What will Popeye do?! Oh yeah, he eats out of can. Whew. Close one.

Big transition now to an Allan Chernoff piece on the Montreal shooting. It turns out the guy was obsessed with Columbine and he killed himself after his rampage. Hey, remember yesterday when I praised 360 for just giving us the facts on this and not going all sensational? Yeah, well, they were saving it for today. Up next we've got a piece from Randi Kaye on what are dubbed the Zombie-Rave killings. If that's not the title of a really bad made for tv movie I don't know what is. Randi interviews this criminologist who wants to understand this gruesome crime. Look, I'll all for nuanced study and understanding, but something tells me that's not what we're about to get. So anyway, this unemployed pizza delivery guy shoots a bunch of party guests because he hates their sexualized raving. Oh and CNN is having a fun old time with the raving. They've got the shakey rave cam going with the rave music. Woohoo! Partay! My eyes are rolling out of their sockets, people. Lame squared. Like I said, if you actually want to cover this stuff responsibly, do it, but save the sensational presentation for someone who doesn't call themselves the most trusted name in news.

We end the night with The Shot, which is a calender of cops. Male cops. Sexy male cops. Oh my. I have no idea why this qualifies as the shot. Maybe they forgot to do the segment and pulled it off somebody's wall before the show? Heh. I didn't say whose wall. Anyway, check out these two quotes from John, "They aren't really shy about showing their walkie talkies," and "I wonder how many of our female viewers just said (gasp) arrest me please." Bwah. So, so cheesy. Erica was a good sport. Well that's all. Second hour was a special from Anderson full of stuff we've already seen. Tomorrow will be a special too, but I'll probably blog it. We'll see. Tonight gets a B

Photos: (top to bottom) REUTERS/Antony Njuguna; Lynsey Addario/Corbis; REUTERS/Luc Gnago