The conflict in Sudan's Darfur region is presented to us in the U.S. as an unambiguous case of genocidal racism, worthy of a virtuous response from Americans. The Save Darfur Coalition, the foremost perveyors of this story, are backed by the bipartisan U.S. foreign policy establishment, from rabid end-of-the-world fundamentalists to supposed liberals and everyone else in between.
The truth, unfortunately , is more complex, more disturbing, and demands that we act as citizens rather than creatures seeking moral affirmation.
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon on November 7, 2007
, The star-studded hue and cry to "Save Darfur" and "stop the genocide" has gained enormous traction in U.S. media along with bipartisan support in Congress and the White House. But the Congo, with ten to twenty times as many African dead over the same period is not called a "genocide" and passes almost unnoticed. Sudan sits atop lakes of oil. It has large supplies of uranium, and other minerals, significant water resources, and a strategic location near still more African oil and resources. The unasked question is whether the nation's Republican and Democratic foreign policy elite are using claims of genocide, and appeals for "humanitarian intervention" to grease the way for the next oil and resource wars on the African continent.
"Out of Iraq - Into Darfur" cartoon by Mike Flugennock. Find more of his work at www.sinkers.org
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This article originally appeared in IslamOnline.net.
The picture of the conflict in Darfur as "Arab-on-black" or even "black on black" genocide tells more about the U.S. than it does about Darfur, Sudan, or Africa. It is a false picture, brought to us by the corporate U.S. media to justify one of Uncle Sam's (maybe even Uncle Barack's) oil and resource wars in Sudan. After all, Sudanese oil IS flowiing to China through Chinese companies, not Western ones, and that will not be tolerated.
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by Keith Harmon Snow on November 20, 2007
The Darfur region of Sudan possesses the third largest copper and the fourth largest uranium deposits on the planet, in addition to strategic location and significant oil resources of its own. Is the US-based "Save Darfur" movement snowing the US public on the fundamental nature of the conflict in Sudan? Are "Save Darfur" and the prevention of genocide the covers of convenience for the next round of US oil and resource wars on the African continent?
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by BAR executive editor Glen Ford on April 1, 2009
Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir had no choice but to expel the western "aid" organizations that had merged with the American propaganda machine aimed at regime change in Khartoum. Obama operatives like UN Ambassador Susan Rice have for years been "eager to blockade Sudan's ports" and to launch "selective" bombing raids against Sudan. When imperial doctrine claims the right to intervene whenever disasters overtake sovereign countries - and proceeds to create and exacerbate those disasters - then no government is safe against regime change. President Obama "appears to be fine-tuning a ‘humanitarian' interventionist doctrine that is applicable to any point on the planet."
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by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon on May 6, 2009
What does it mean for Africa when right wing end-of-the-world-is-near evangelical Christians join forces with the Robert F. Kennedy Center For Human Rights? What does it mean for African Americans when Bush, Obama, and nearly all last year's presidential candidates from both parties encourage the continuation of an African civil war rather than a political settlement between the parties? What does it mean when 21st century PR firms employ FaceBook, slick viral marketing and millions of dollars to create a simple, satisfying, feel-good excuse for military intervention on the African continent?
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by Mark P. Fancher on February 17, 2009
Despite resistance from virtually every nation in Africa, the U.S. continues to seek a home for its Africa Command, AFRICOM. The lure of African oil and other resources causes Washington to devise various schemes to dominate the continent - especially the recruitment of proxies to do the Americans' bidding. A central Washington political thrust in Africa revolves around the Darfur region of Sudan, where Colin Powell first charged that genocide was occurring. What the U.S. really wants is regime change in Sudan, and control of its oil resources. "AFRICOM is made to order - provided it can overcome the near unanimous opposition that it faces from Africans the world over."
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by Roger Howard
Some Black bodies are more worthy of attention than others. The three million dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where U.S. allies such as Rwanda keep the genocidal pot boiling and multinational corporations field private armies to guard their mineral extraction enterprises, get scant mention in corporate media. But Darfur, where 200,000 Black Sudanese lives have been lost, is cause for crocodile tears among right-wingers and Arab-haters. Genocide sensitivity is, apparently, an acquired, selective taste: it depends on who is doing the killing, and how much oil is in the mix.
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