Darfur and Genocide... but no oil

[Yosemite Joy]

Haven't heard of it?


Educate yourself on Sudan. It isn't your fault you don't know. The American evening news (ABC,NBC,CBS) gave just 24 minutes combined to the topic last year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3496731.stm

Terrible truths..
Babies being ripped from their mother's arms and thrown into fires...
Women being raped and their children raped...
3.4 million displaced and in fear..
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/sudan/thestory.html

http://www.savedarfur.org/go.php?q=home2.php



http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/dcccf85c7...c6a60261edcdaf1d.htm (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/dcccf85c7bf33decc6a60261edcdaf1d.htm)


http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-02...itorial-darfur_x.htm (http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-02-21-editorial-darfur_x.htm)


http://www.darfurinfo.org/

Do you attend church? Please consider approching your clergyman/woman with what you have learned and convince them to help.
http://www.savedarfurbanner.net/pages/1/index.htm

And lastly... a bush administration reach out to Sudan.

The Los Angeles Times has revealed that the U.S. has quietly forged a close intelligence partnership with Sudan despite the government's role in the mass killings in Darfur. We speak with Ken Silverstein, the reporter who broke the story, Salih Booker, the director of Africa Action as well as Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ). [includes rush transcript]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush issued an ultimatum to the world: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Three and half years later, it has been revealed that the Bush administration has allied itself with a government listed as a state sponsor of terrorism and one that the administration has accused of committing genocide against its own people - Sudan.
A major expose in the Los Angeles Times on Friday revealed that the U.S. has quietly forged a close intelligence partnership with Sudan despite the government's role in the mass killings in Darfur. The Sudanese government has since publicly confirmed it is working with the Bush administration and the CIA.

Eight months ago, former Secretary of State Colin Powell accused the Sudanese of carrying out a genocide in Darfur. Already 180,000 have died in the region from fighting or hunger. But relations appear to have since changed -- for the better. One senior Sudanese official the LA Times that the country had achieved "complete normalization" of relations with the CIA.

The Times reported that the CIA sent an executive jet last week to Khartoum to ferry the chief of Sudan's intelligence agency to Washington for secret meetings sealing Khartoum's sensitive and previously veiled partnership with the administration.

The Sudanese intelligence chief - Major General Salah Abdallah Gosh - has been accused by members of Congress of directing military attacks against civilians in Darfur. He also had regular contacts with Osama bin Laden during the 1990s.

Last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent a letter to the Sudanese government calling for steps to end the conflict in Darfur. But the letter, reviewed by the Times, also said the administration hoped to establish a "fruitful relationship" with Sudan and looked forward to continued "close cooperation" on terrorism.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/03/1357228

[John @ 3300ft.]

What do you propose? Sounds to me like the Bush Administration is doing what it can to further the security interests of the United States.
Which side should we take over the other? Which religious/ethnic group meets with your approval?
Do the other African Nations care to step in and work to solve
this problem? Not much.
Oil rich Nigeria has basically the same religious/class/political problems as Sudan. What do you propose we do there? Problems in Africa and around the world didn't just happen in the last six years.
But somehow, it's all Bush's fault..........?

From the PBS link you provided:
Costello points out that the United States has been brokering peace talks between the government and southern rebels (a preliminary peace accord was signed December 31, 2004), but that the violence in Darfur has overshadowed the process. Ghazi Atabani, a former government diplomat, warns that "if the United States is keen not to have another hotbed for terrorism, they have to realize that if the center of authority in Sudan collapses, that means the 'Somalization' of Sudan." Another failed state, especially in a country as large as Sudan, could unhinge that entire region of Africa.

[Coldwolf]

What do you propose? Sounds to me like the Bush Administration is doing what it can to further the security interests of the United States.


John, please read the post again, and then tell us how you came to that conclusion. Let me highlight some of the things YJ said in it.


U.S. has quietly forged a close intelligence partnership with Sudan despite the government's role in the mass killings in Darfur.

Bush administration has allied itself with a government listed as a state sponsor of terrorism and one that the administration has accused of committing genocide against its own people - Sudan.

U.S. has quietly forged a close intelligence partnership with Sudan despite the government's role in the mass killings in Darfur. The Sudanese government has since publicly confirmed it is working with the Bush administration and the CIA.

Eight months ago, former Secretary of State Colin Powell accused the Sudanese of carrying out a genocide in Darfur.

he Sudanese intelligence chief - Major General Salah Abdallah Gosh - has been accused by members of Congress of directing military attacks against civilians in Darfur. He also had regular contacts with Osama bin Laden during the 1990s.

Unfortunately, the neither the post or any of the links say the genocide has stopped. Also there is no mention that the links to terroism have been broken. I don't see YJ as saying that the turmoil in Sudan is Bushs fault. Of course it isn't. But forging an alliance with a government that even his own administration "accused the Sudanese of carrying out a genocide ". Thats absurd, don't you think?

I guess for that great intelligence its worth allying with even Satan himself. Maybe they are the ones that broke the news to Bush that the UAE sale of port operations was to an Arab run company.

[Yosemite Joy]

I don't think that anything I said has to do with Bush at all. I said it before... **** BUSH. I am talking about the genocide of people that no one knows about, and if they do they turn their heads.

What next? Going to deny the Holocaust (genocide) took place? I mean damn we should of stayed out of it. Who knows what side to take? We should of allowed the mass killings of Jews/Gypsies/non-blondes/elderly/disabled to go on until they were all dead! Maybe the Germans were on to something.

The fact that the international community wants to have a pissing match over who goes in, when they go in, and what to do for years while this goes on...

We have really learned nothing from the Holocaust, Bosnian, Kosovo, Rwandan Genocides....

Ignorance is strength. You are completely right. There is nothing we can do. I would rather not know about it if we aren't going in to Liberate the poor people of Sudan. I can't eat my dinner knowing that babies are thrown in fires while we eat steak. I like ignorance, it makes me stronger.

I can not wait to go back to school. I can't wait to have educated, knowledgeable conversations with people who care about something besides cars, commutes,having green grass, and pie.

[John @ 3300ft.]

So it's OK for Saddam to have children raped and tortured in front of their parents...
We shouldn't have invaded Iraq.
But now you're saying we should attack the Sudanese government for those reasons...
(even though it's not the Sudanese government doing it)
http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/bonk.gif

[John @ 3300ft.]

Originally posted by Coldwolf:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">What do you propose? Sounds to me like the Bush Administration is doing what it can to further the security interests of the United States.
John, please read the post again, and then tell us how you came to that conclusion. Let me highlight some of the things YJ said in it.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>
I don't need to read that **** again.
Why don't you go and read those articles.
The freakin' militia's are perpatrating the genocide. So the Sudanese government is giving them the wink and nod... I know that, but that isn't the same freakin' thing. Their government isn't straffing civilians with helicopter gunships or showering them with chemical weapons are they?

Like I said before, what do you propose?
Should we help the Sudanese Rebels with arms or attack the Sudanese government because they are in a civil war? What would be your justification for that? Have another Idea? Haven't seen it posted yet except it sounds to me like YJ wants the US to invade any country where genocide is or will be occuring now and in the future, for whatever reason... <span class="ev_code_RED">Whether or not there is any national security justification with regard to the United States.</span>

That's it then! Join the US Armed Forces... The World's Police Force... Paid for by the citizens of the US. (only the ones who pay taxes)
http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/bonk.gif

[Coldwolf]

Maybe the UN should impose economic sanctions against the Sudanese government, until they stop the genocide. I don't know John. I really don't. But forming an alliance with a government that gives the wink and nod just doesn't seem like the way to go. No, not another invasion. Unless its the UN peacekeeping force, with the full UN behind it. By allying ourselves with another oppressive government will just lead to more anti American sentiment in the world. Not that there isn't enough already, huh?
Geez, this world is a ****ed up place.

[Coldwolf]

So it's OK for Saddam to have children raped and tortured in front of their parents...
We shouldn't have invaded Iraq.


John thats what is classically called a strawman. You might want to look it up. We shouldn't have invaded Iraq. The invasion and subsequent war wasn't because Saddam had children raped and tortured in front of thier parents.

Was it?

That was one of those things that tossed out to us after the WMD ruse failed. After the, geez, what were the reasons given? I forget all of them.
But no one ever said Saddam was a nice guy. Except the first Bush administration. Remember GHW Bush, the guy that entrenched Saddam in power? OK, enough of that.

Point being, if there is something that can be done to halt the killing, it should be done.

Ya gotta stop the kneejerk reactions to the critcizm of the Bushies. I think there is an ointment for that.

[Yosemite Joy]

**** it.

[MadScot]

The UN should be taking the lead but have dragged their feet on this for some time. I think harsh sanctions can be effective but can also make things so much worse for the general population. I would also question if sanctions would have a timely effect. There are sanctions currently in place but they are from what I understand pretty ineffective. There is a too small UN backed African Union force in the country undertaking peacekeeping efforts but the UN for some reason has decided they can't go into the Darfur region. There is oil in Sudan but it doesn't figure much in this. It's yet another Christian Muslim thing in this case the Muslims are the ones doing the slaughtering.

I hate organized religion over and over again this same story repeats itself. Maybe there is a God maybe this is the plan. All the Christians and Muslims keep fighting until they kill each other off and the meek, that being all us atheist/agnostic types who don't want to kill anybody because my God is better than your God, really do inherit the earth. Maybe I've taken the wrong slant on all this killing. Onward Christian soldiers lets get it over with.