The US’s War In Darfur

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?

The Darfur region of western Sudan has been a hotbed of clandestine activities, gunrunning and indiscriminate violence for decades.

“The humanitarian tragedy in Darfur revolves around natural resources… Given current realities, no intervention in Darfur will proceed, and if it did it would fail.”

So opined the authors of the September 2006 OPED “Keeping Peacekeepers out of Darfur” [GN1](DHG, 9/15/06). Now, over a year later, the situation in Sudan is grimmer than ever, the Darfur conflict remains widely mischaracterized, and many of the predictions of that OPED have come true. Meanwhile, the “Save Darfur” advocates pressing military intervention in Darfur as a “humanitarian” gesture have escalated pressure in the face of mounting failures, including allegations that millions of “Save Darfur” dollars fundraised on a sympathy for victims platform have been misappropriated.

The Darfur region of western Sudan has been a hotbed of clandestine activities, gunrunning and indiscriminate violence for decades. The Cold War era saw countless insurgencies launched from the remote deserts of Darfur. Throughout the 1990s, factions allied with or against Chad, Uganda, Ethiopia, Congo, Libya, Eritrea and the Central African Republic operated from bases in Darfur, and it was a regular landing strip for foreign military transport planes of mysterious origin. In 1990, Chad’s Idriss Deby launched a military blitzkrieg from Darfur and overthrew President Hissan Habre; Deby then allied with his own ethnic group against the Sudan government. Sudanese rebels today have bases in Chad, and Chadian rebels have bases in Darfur, with Khartoum’s backing.[GN2] When the regime of Ange-Félix Patassé collapsed in the Central African Republic in March 2003, soldiers fled to Darfur with their military equipment. Khartoum supported the West Nile Bank Front, a rebel army operating against Uganda from Eastern Congo, commanded by Taban Amin, the son of the infamous Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, who heads Uganda’s dreaded Internal Security Organization. Darfur is the epicenter of a modern-day international geopolitical scramble for Africa’s resources.

Conflict in Darfur escalated in 2003 after in parallel with negotiations “ending” the south Sudan war. The U.S.-backed insurgency by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the guerrilla force that fought the northern Khartoum government for 20 years, shifted to Darfur, even as the G.W. Bush government allied with Khartoum in the U.S. led “war on terror.” The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)—one of some 27 rebel factions mushrooming in Darfur—is allied with the SPLA and supported from Uganda. Andrew Natsios, former USAID chief and now US envoy to Sudan, said on October 6, 2007 that the atmosphere between the governments of north and south Sudan “had become poisonous.” This is no surprise given the magnitude of the resource war in Sudan and the involvement of international interests.

Darfur is reported to have the fourth largest copper and third largest uranium deposits in the world. Darfur produces two-thirds of the world’s best quality gum Arabic—a major ingredient in Coke and Pepsi. Contiguous petroleum reserves are driving warfare from the Red Sea, through Darfur, to the Great Lakes of Central Africa. Private military companies operate alongside petroleum contractors and “humanitarian” agencies. Sudan is China’s fourth biggest supplier of imported oil, and U.S. companies controlling the pipelines in Chad and Uganda seek to displace China through the US military alliance with “frontline” states hostile to Sudan: Uganda, Chad and Ethiopia.

Israel reportedly provides military training to Darfur rebels from bases in Eritrea, and has strengthened ties with the regime in Chad, from which more weapons and troops penetrate Darfur. The refugee camps have become increasingly militarized. There are reports that Israeli military intelligence operates from within the camps, as does U.S intelligence. Eritrea is about to explode into yet another war with Ethiopia.

African Union (AU) forces in Darfur include Nigerian and Rwandan troops responsible for atrocities in their own countries. While committing 5000 troops for a UN force in Darfur, Ethiopia is perpetrating genocidal atrocities in Somalia, and against Ethiopians in the Ogaden, Oromo and Anuak regions. Uganda has 2000 U.S.-trained troops in Somalia, also committing massive atrocities, and the genocide against the Acholi people in northern Uganda proceeds out of sight. Ethiopia is the largest recipient of U.S. “Aid” in Africa, with Rwanda and Uganda close on its heals. France is deeply committed to the Anglo-American strategy, which will benefit Total Oil Corp.

AU troops receive military-logistic support from NATO, and are widely hated. Early in October 2007, SLA rebels attacked an AU base killing ten troops. In a subsequent editorial sympathetic to rebel factions (“Darfur’s Bitter Ironies,” Guardian Online, 10/4/07), Smith College English professor Eric Reeves espoused the tired rhetoric of “Khartoum’s genocidal counter-insurgency war in Darfur,” a position counterproductive to any peaceful settlement. To minimize the damage this rebel attack has done to their credibility, Reeves and other “Save Darfur” advocates cast doubt about the rebels’ identities and mischaracterized the SLA attackers as “rogue commanders.” However, there is near unanimous agreement, internationally, that rebels are “out of control,” committing widespread rape and plundering with impunity, just as the SPLA did in South Sudan for over a decade.

Debunking the claims of a “genocide against blacks” or an “Islamic holy-war” against Christians, Darfur’s Arab and black African ethnic groups have intermarried for centuries, and nearly everyone is Muslim. The “Save Darfur” campaign is deeply aligned with Jewish and Christian faith-based organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel. These groups have relentlessly campaigned for Western military action, demonizing both Sudan and China, but they have never addressed Western military involvement—backing factions on all sides. By mobilizing constituencies sympathetic to the “genocide” label and the cries of “never again” they do a grave disservice to the cause of human rights.

There is growing dissent within the “Save Darfur” movement as more supporters question its motivations and the Jewish-Israeli link. “Save Darfur” leaders have been replaced after complaints surfaced about expenditures of funds. Many rebel leaders reportedly receive tens of thousands of dollars monthly, and rebels emboldened by the “Save Darfur” movement commit crimes with impunity. There is a growing demand to probe the accounts of “Save Darfur” to find out how the tens of millions collected are being spent due to allegations of arms-deals and bribery—rebel leaders provided with five-star hotel accommodations, prostitutes and sex parties.

“Save Darfur” is today the rallying cry for a broad coalition of special interests. Advocacy groups—from the local Massachusetts Congregation B’Nai Israel chapter to the International Crises Group and USAID—have fueled the conflict through a relentless, but selective, public relations campaign that disingenuously serves a narrow policy agenda. These interests offer no opportunity for corrective analyses, but stubbornly press their agenda, and they are widely criticized for inflaming tensions in Darfur. Rhetoric, aggression and propaganda do not make a strong foreign policy, and the African people suffering from this brutal international conflict involving China, Saudi Arabia, France, Britain, Canada, the United States and Israel cannot eat good intentions foolishly delivered under the banners of “humanitarian aid” and a poorly cloaked militarism.

The West is desperate to deploy a “robust peacekeeping” mission in Darfur, to press the Western agenda, but United Nations forces will only deepen the chaos. The UN forces will cost billions of dollars and will achieve nothing positive. Indeed, the results will be disastrous, creating another Iraq and Afghanistan—only increasing the chaos and devastation already apparent. The United States is hated for this kind of aggression and posturing, and the U.S. economy will continue to suffer.

This article was first published at Black Agenda Report.

Keith Harmon Snow is the 2009 Regent’s Lecturer in Law & Society at the University of California Santa Barbara, a former human rights and genocide investigator with the United Nations, and an award-winning journalist and war correspondent. You can visit his websites AllThingsPass and KeithHarmonSnow Read other articles by Keith.

43 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. sk said on November 23rd, 2007 at 8:05am #

    For anyone interested in not “being taken for a ride” by the Save Darfur chorus, this audio interview of an Africa specialist (and for a change, an African instead of a busybody do-gooder from global North) is quite worthwhile.

  2. Max Shields said on November 23rd, 2007 at 11:36am #

    Good piece.
    The allies for “Save Dafur” are many. Interesting that this piece was first published at Black Agenda Report (an excellent site). As I noted at the Tavis Smiley monitored Dem “African American” debate the ovation was loud and clear that all too many African Americans have an easy button to push on all things African with as little understanding of the history as the rest of Americans. Danny Glover is a wonderful exception to this claim of African decent with no understanding of Africa.

    US murderous policies are completely disconnected from the American consciousness.

    SK thanks once again for posting this interview. It’s lucid historial and cultural accounting of the context of Darfur must be repeated.

  3. John Greenwood said on November 23rd, 2007 at 11:38am #

    I must take exception to this statement: “Debunking the claims of a “genocide against blacks” or an “Islamic holy-war” against Christians, Darfur’s Arab and black African ethnic groups have intermarried for centuries, and nearly everyone is Muslim.”

    Has this all happened willingly?

    The BBC reported in March 2007 that slave raids “were a common feature of Sudan’s 21-year north-south war, which ended in 2005. A study by the Kenya-based Rift Institute reported some 11,000 young boys and girls were seized and taken across the internal border, many to the states South Darfur and West Kordofa. Most were forcibly converted to Islam, given Muslim names and told not to speak mother tongue.” One modern-day Sudanese Christian slave, Pareng Alier, was kidnapped and enslaved when he was twelve years old. Religion was a major element of his ordeal: “I was forced to learn the Koran and re-baptised “Ahmed.” They told me that Christianity was a bad religion. After a time we given military training and they told us we would be sent to fight.”

    Francis Bok in his autobiography Escape From Slavery describes how in 1986 when he was seven, watched the Sudanese militia storm his village in southern Sudan. While the men of his village were slaughtered, he found himself strapped to a donkey and taken to the North to Kirio, where for ten years he lived as a slave to a man named Giemma Abdullah. For those ten years he endured daily threats and beatings, and was forced to sleep with the cattle and eat rotten food. He was called abeed (black slave) and was given an Arabic name – Dut Giema Adbullah – and forced to perform Islamic prayers. At 17, he successfully escaped to a neighboring town of Matari. In Matari he was enslaved by the police officers to whom he reported his abuse. Later, in Khartoum, he was arrested and imprisoned by security forces for speaking openly with other refugees about his years of slavery. He was finally released in 1999. That same year, he escaped to Cairo, where he was granted UN Refugee Status and relocated to Fargo, North Dakota.

    Your comments please.

  4. Deadbeat said on November 23rd, 2007 at 12:14pm #

    As I noted at the Tavis Smiley monitored Dem “African American” debate the ovation was loud and clear that all too many African Americans have an easy button to push on all things African with as little understanding of the history as the rest of Americans.

    This is an excellent observation of the deleterious workings of identity politics. Group that have faced injustice can be easily swayed if they made to believe their advocacy protects another group they perceive as being threatened by the same form of injustice. This tactic has been effectively used to advance Zionism here in the U.S. The only difference with African Americans generally is their overall powerlessness as opposed to Zionist as they have been able to extend their agenda reflected by its influence in U.S. foreign policy.

    This is why it is important especially for the left to be intolerant of all forms of racism and other divide and rule tactics. The left must bridge identity politics by building solidarity among disparate group. That can only be achieved by the left must speaking out and truthfully deliver accurate analysis against all forms of injustice.

  5. Max Shields said on November 23rd, 2007 at 2:32pm #

    What is still unclear to me is how you can explain Darfur as a Zionist beach head without explaining modern day zionism’s world view.

    At this juncture (evolution?) that view is a clear extention of Western Imperialism.

    In the context of Zionism = Imperialism, than Israel’s (as it is represented by Zionism and US as represented by neo-conservatism/liberalism) policies whether toward its neighbors or South Africa (during apartheid), Somalia, Rwanda, and various African regions, in particular Sudan’s Darfur, are clear; it is about modern day colonialism and supplier nations subservience to the West (Israel being a front for the West in the ME and Africa). There is no end game beyond a warped creative destructionism.

    So it seems this is theme that is central to US, Europe (to a lesser extent) and Israel relationships. In other words this is the predominate relationship. Propaganda, appeal to anti-semitic manipulations, etc. are all with this purpose of economic domination, and hegemonic control of key natural resources – in this case Darfur’s uranium, copper and oil.

    Than there’s Samantha Powers (A Problem from Hell) and her ilk (and the emotionally obsessed Mia Farrow) all pawns of one sort or another – assaulting the consciousness with little more than pictures and numbers without historical context.

    Only Mahmood Mamdani speaks (sk’s link) to the compexity of the region. The humanitarian pretext is left to be pieced together, and I think an adirmable attempt was made here by Mr. Snow.

  6. sk said on November 23rd, 2007 at 2:56pm #

    John, you might benefit from a warning of misguided altruism given by James Paul of Global Policy Forum between minutes 18-22 of this audio interview.

    Here are a few (out of many) extracts that go over the hoary legend of “Arab slave-traders” and their political use in the West from Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost:

    Significantly, most British and French antislavery fervor in the 1860s was directed not at Spain and Portugal, which allowed slavery in their colonies, or at Brazil, with its millions of slaves. Instead, righteous denunciations poured down on a distant, weak, and safely nonwhite target: the so-called Arab slave-traders raiding Africa from the east. In the slave markets of Zanzibar, traders sold their human booty to Arab plantation owners on the island itself, and to other buyers in Persia, Madagascar, and the various sultanates and principalities of the Arabian peninsula. For Europeans, here was an ideal target for disapproval: one “uncivilized” race enslaving another…

    Arab was a misnomer; Afro-Arab would have been more accurate. Although their captives often ended up in the Arab world, the traders on the African mainland were largely Swahili-speaking Africans from territory that today is Kenya and Tanzania. Many had adopted Arab dress and Islam, but only some of them were of even partly Arab descent. Nonetheless, from Edinburgh to Rome, indignant books and speeches and sermons denounced the vicious “Arab” slavers–and with them, by implication, the idea that any part of Africa might be colonized by someone other than Europeans.

    During the nineteenth-century European drive for possessions in Africa and Asia, people justified colonialism in various ways, claiming that it Christianized the heathen or civilized the savage races or brought everyone the miraculous benefits of free trade. Now, with Africa, a new rationalization had emerged: smashing the “Arab” slave trade…

    …Ambitious white state officials in the eastern Congo, without the approval of their superiors in Brussels, then fought several victorious battles against some of the Afro-Arab warlords in the region, fighting that after the fact was converted into a noble campaign against the dastardly “Arab” slave-traders.

    In case anyone’s interested, here is an audio interview of Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost.

  7. keith harmon snow said on November 23rd, 2007 at 3:33pm #

    Hello

    I will comment on the comments above, but first:

    *

    I am appreciative that this article was published. It is however, a glossing over. The real meet is in these two articles, which have been described elsewhere as “shredding the credibility of the SAVE DARFUR movement and their spokespeople.” Both can be found on this link, and elsewhere, but the ALL THINGS PASS postings are a bit more comprehensive, expanded and complete.
    http://www.allthingspass.com/journalism.php?catid=24

    [1] DARFURISM, UGANDA, AND THE U.S. WAR IN AFRICA
    The Spectre of Continental Genocide

    [2] OIL IN DARFUR? COVERT OPS IN SOMALIA?
    The New Old “Humanitarian” Warfare in Africa

    *

    MAX: I am, indeed, [yet another] “busybody do-gooder from global North.” However, I do talk about white supremacy, and I do name names, and what I attack most of all is whiteness and white power. Check my web site in a week for my paper to be presented Nov 29 at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting:

    TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF WHITE MAN IN AFRICA
    A Call to Explore the Militarized White Project of “Dark Continentalism”
    http://www.aaanet.org/mtgs/2007/preliminary_thurs.pdf

    On the 4-5:30 panel: AAA Presidential Session: The Anthropology
    of Contemporary White Supremacy

    Further, many African Americans are hopelessly lost about Africa, and many, many Africans are deeply misinformed.

    *

    Max:

    On Israel: Read my Darfurism about Israel, and also see my upcoming article at Toward Freedom (soon I hope)
    MEET DAN THE MAN, KING OF THE CONGO
    Israel, Blood Minerals, and Mining Cartels

    Philip Gourevitch and the New Yorker peddled the “JEWS OF AFRICA” theme about Rwanda. This is exactly what you are talking about, and it set the stage for Darfur. Read my HOTEL RWANDA.

    On Mahmood Mamdani, be careful where you put your faith and trust. There is nothing radical about Mamdani’s work, its just that next to everything else on the spectrum of allowed (and encouraged) debate, Mamdani looks “progressive.” He is not. If you follow my writings you will learn more about this later. I am, of corse, not on the spectrum of allowed debate. That is why Mamdani can get published in, say, some major academic or popular journal and I can’t.

    *
    Deadbeat:

    What kind of a name is that? Why are you afraid to use your name? What are you hiding from?

    You wrote:

    “I must take exception to this statement: … ” etc.

    Why do you then cite the BBC as some sort of honest truth teller? The BBC upholds British and US (white power) interests. So you defeat your own argument by beginning with citations or facts produced (and re-produced…etc) by white propaganda for the militant capitalist project in Sudan (Africa).

    While there are certainly cases of “slavery” in Sudan, much of the “slave” awarness you are reacting to, responding to, etc, — your sensitivity to teh issue and your sense of “outrage” — has been manufactured by the Western Christian and Jewish lobby, and USAID, and the entire enterprise behind them, including major organizations operating in Sudan. Most of the “slavery” in Sudan issue is completely discredited, but not by the BBC or New York Times, or course. Read OIL IN DARFUR? earmarked above. I only touch on it there but I go in detail into the Christian orgs (NGOs described as “humanitarian” and “non-government”) involved in this masquerade. Do your homework on line, and look behind teh mainstream, and you find the creation of an economy of slavery which feeds the issue and offers justification of “humanitarian” interventions by God-fearing whites (delivering bibles in the desert when people need food and medicine.)

    You can’t eat the propaganda and expect not to be sick — stop eating it. Onward Christian soldiers….

    blessings
    keith harmon snow

    “Debunking the claims of a “genocide against blacks” or an “Islamic holy-war” against Christians, Darfur’s Arab and black African ethnic groups have intermarried for centuries, and nearly everyone is Muslim.”

  8. Max Shields said on November 23rd, 2007 at 4:02pm #

    To attempt clarity on my last point. Darfur’s conflict is multilayered. There is the one Mamdani speaks to which entails the regional and tribal history and then the larger geopolitical context that Mr. Snow attempts to address. Together they uncover the dynamics of what is happening 9and repeats itself in various forms through the globe.

  9. keith harmon snow said on November 23rd, 2007 at 6:30pm #

    HI

    On Mamdani, I am suggesting that Mamdani — while studiously decrying “silences” (esp. as in his book WHEN VICTIMS BECOME KILLERS) he is clearly upholding teh silence of, for example, Uganda’s role in all this. Why? Hmmm… email Mr. Mamdani and ask him where he was, and what he was doing, in the mid 1980’s.

    Also, Mr. Hochschild. Mr. Adam Hochschild. Indeed, he goes into events at the turn of the 19th century, I go into events in Congo at the turn of the LAST century. Anyone ever heard of AMAX? American Metals Company? Harold K. Hochschild? It’s very interesting to note the connection of Mr. Harold K. Hochschild to, for example those who killed a man named Lumumba.

    blessings
    keith

  10. John Greenwood said on November 23rd, 2007 at 8:26pm #

    Mr. Snow,
    You belittle BBC, but you offer no evidence that their report is wrong. OK, so you don’t trust the BBC, I’ll accept that. What about the story of Francis Bok? You made no comment about him.

    Here are some different voices I would like to see your comments

    Excerpts from:
    PAMBAZUKA NEWS
    The politics of apologetics: genocide denial, Darfur version
    Kwesi Kwaa Prah (2007-05-22)

    Kwesi Kwaa Prah critiques Mahmood Mamdani’s writings on Darfur. He posits: ‘Mamdani indulges in technicist sophistry, tip-toeing nimbly around the real issues in Darfur and effectively providing solace to the Khartoum regime.’

    “In Darfur, the vigilantes, sectarian militia, and paramilitaries are Arabised or Arab groups. The Sudanese government is supporting these groups with weapons and aerial bombardment to effect scorched earth policies of ethnic cleansing. In a recent article in the Al Ahram Weekly, Gamal Nkrumah quoting Sudanese First Vice-President Salva Kiir, a Southern Sudanese, writes that: ‘Khartoum’s proxy militia, the ethnic Arab Janjaweed are wreaking havoc on the hapless indigenous non-Arab population of Darfur. ”

    “In the history of the relations between Arabs and Africans, from time immemorial, Arabs have been masters, and Africans slaves. Indeed, ‘black’ in much of the Arab world is equated with slave. Until today in Egypt, the so-called bawab (doorman, gate-keeper) is invariably a dark-skinned Nubian from Egypt or the Sudan. We are reminded that ‘the bawab class is the lowest of the low.”

    “Additionally, one must not forget that Arabism in Africa came largely through conquest and cultural domination. Therefore, even today, Arabisation and Arabism for Africans represent instruments of thralldom in a tradition, which precedes Western colonialism by a millennium. ”

    Excerpts from:
    RAPE OF A CONTINENT
    BY CHIKA ONYEANI, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
    AFRICAN SUN TIMES
    moc.loanull@-srfA

    Mortally Afraid of their Arab Masters, Black African leaders fear bringing up the issue of slavery in the Sudan; and with only 5 in number, Arab Africa dictates course of events in the Continent

    The date was October 6, 1973…Thet ime that day was 2:00 p.m., and that was when the mighty armies of Egypt and Syria launched “Operation Badr” to retake the land that Israel had taken from the Arab countries in their 1967 war. Egypt, the mighty country in
    north-eastern Africa, never consulted any of the black African countries before launching its attack, but as the outcome would later indicate, Black African leaders would become pawns in the Arab war with Israel.

    With the zeal of anti-imperialism still in the air, and racist apartheid in South Africa and Rhodesia waxing strong, Arab leaders would employ the fervent of Africa’s angst on these issues to manipulate the leaders into breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel. But when the Black African leaders balked at a meeting in Tripoli, Libya, fearing that their action would invite retaliation from Western nations which would cut off financial aid to Africans, one after the other of the Arab countries rose to pledge more than $1 billion. Most of the African countries went on to break off diplomatic relations with Israel, and none would receive a cent of the promised $1 billion from the Arab countries.

    But the most important thing is Egypt as the leader of the Arab world, and the immediate neighbor to Sudan, has never done anything to stop the slavery of Black Africans in the Sudan. Egypt is more interested in what happens to Palestinians than what happens to Black Africans in the Sudan. If the Arab countries were to employ just 1% of the same zeal they have employed on the Palestinian issue, slavery of black Africans in the Sudan would be a thing of the past.

    The question then is why, with African leaders clamoring for reparation from the Western nations for the slavery of millions of black Africans, have they allowed this ugly stench to continue to exist in this 21st century, years after the Europeans, particularly Britain, enforced its ban on the carting of millions of Africans to the new world?

    With the discovery of oil in the Sudan, which has impacted greatly on incrementally escalating the abductions of Black Africans in the south
    by the Arab-based government in Khartoum, most east African countries have become increasingly dependent on cheap oil supply from the Sudan. It raises the issue of responbility of guilt, of Africans selling their own brothers and sisters for a necklace of beads or a mirror. Now, unlike 500 years ago, it is no longer beads, mirrors, or machetes, but Africans are now settling for the supply of oil in exchange for the continuance of slavery in the African continent.

    Excerpt From Silent Terror: A Journey into Contemporary African Slavery by: Kwasi Akyeampong
    Whenever and wherever the African met the Arab, slavery became and remained his legacy. Nothing that we have experienced in the Americans can compare to the unbroken centuries on chattel slavery in Mauritania. Not many slaves in the Americas as is the case under Islam accepted their lot as being virtually ordained by God/Allah

  11. sk said on November 23rd, 2007 at 9:40pm #

    John, you’re dragging your religious baggage into the debate (or via proxies with like Kwasi Akyeampong whose website has a prominent link to ‘Christian Dating’). Let’s try to keep the debate civil and not degenerate into religious polemics based on scripture quoting and statements like “as is the case under Islam accepted their lot”–whatever that means. Here’s the first paragraph of an article published a few days ago. Notice anything amiss?

    What do you make of the following statement: “Asians are gaining on us demographically at a huge rate. A quarter of humanity now and by 2025 they’ll be a third. Italy’s down to 1.1 child per woman. We’re just going to be outnumbered.” While we’re at it, what do you think of this, incidentally from the same speaker: “The Black community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.” Or this, the same speaker again: “I just don’t hear from moderate Judaism, do you?” And (yes, same speaker): “Strip-searching Irish people. Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole Irish community and they start getting tough with their children.”

  12. keith harmon snow said on November 24th, 2007 at 4:27am #

    Hello

    Oh, did I “belittle” BBC? I rather prefer to shred them as well, for what they are. Corporate white trash (competing interests to North American corporate white trash).

    Blame the Arabs. Blame Islam. I offered several of my own writings which give a glimpse of the depth of deception manufactured and perpetuated by the Judeo-Christian camp. I see no reason to argue.

    What is curious, given all this talk about slavery, is the oby complains about slavery you see in the world are dark-skinned people slaving other dark-skinned people. If its Nike, its never slavery is it? Its globalization. If its chocolate producers in Africa, its often black-on-black. Just as it is Arab-on-black in Sudan. While I admitted that Arab on black slavery exists, and has existed, it must be unpacked and appropriately contextualized. There is almost nothing on slavery on Sudan where this is done.

    Zionist groups in the United States have been purveying anti-Arab propaganda regarding Sudan for many years before the Darfur war, making false claims about “slavery” in Sudan. Slave redemption efforts in Sudan have been shown to be a hoax. Divesting from Sudan is a Zionist anti-Arab counter-proposal to the idea of divesting from Israel. Lies about Arabs divert attention from efforts to end Israeli apartheid in Palestine. Now we have massive Israeli penetration in Congo, Angola and Liberia.

    Nicholas Kristof, Eric Reeves, Mel Middleton– these are the purveyors of the Slavery narratives and they are rewarded for their lies.

    This criticism of Mahmood Mamdani:
    ‘Mamdani indulges in technicist sophistry, tip-toeing nimbly around the real issues in Darfur and effectively providing solace to the Khartoum regime.’

    The first half of the sentence I agree with. The second half is just DARFURISM lashing out at a perceived (but not actual) critic.

    Again I encourage people to read DARFURISM (first) and OIL IN DARFUR? COVERT OPS IN SOMALIA? (second).

    Ah Salaam Alikum

  13. Max Shields said on November 24th, 2007 at 5:56am #

    Mr. Snow, no doubt you have a bone (legitimate?) to pick with Mahmood Mamdani. With the relative paucity of analysis on Darfur, it is Mamdani who at least provides a turn in the road.

    I am not a Mamdani devotee, but found his view about conflict one that jibes with non-ideological conflict – tribal and resource motivated. That the US/Israel role is more or less significant I’ll leave to those who can provide further insights. My initial skepticism about the “Save Darfur” came from the manipulative propagandizing and the desire to turn the subject away from Israel/Palistine (on the part of Israeli supporters) to Darfur; and my ignorance about the colonial history and outcome of Sudan and its internal and contextual striff. On the latter,Mamdani moved the conversation forward, when as I said, no one else was there to do so.

    I see you’ve posted another article and will read.

  14. keith harmon snow said on November 24th, 2007 at 6:24am #

    Hi
    Beating a dead horse…. No offense, really, but I will have to laugh out loud (so that I don’t break something) at the last sentence: “Mamdani moved the conversation forward, when…no one else was there to do so. ”

    I was four years ahead of Mamdani, and you actually make my point better than I could possibly hope to do. When one is eating at the mainstream trough, in the middle of a (manufactured, proscribed, controlled) proverbial information desert (or garbage overload, depending on how you look at it), and starving for insights, one is bound it gobble up the goop, without looking off, beyond the false horizons.

    Listen to the interview with Mamdani which is posted linked above. At the very start they say: MM …. “is from Uganda” and “fled the regime of Idi Amin” and “retunred to teach …blahblablah.. at university in Tanzania and Uganda and…

    Mamdani “fled the Idid Amin regime” and his article was published by the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. Amin was backed by powerful Britis, US and European inetersts and so was Obote and so was/is Museveni. Its no accident that the London review of Books will propagate Mamdani’s non-scholarship on the region: Mamdani says nothing about the Acholi genocide today in Uganda and he defends the RPF/RDF/Kagame regime of terror in Rwanda.

    In the 1980’s when Museveni seized power his director of military intelligence — now this is a terrorist agent of blood and horror — was Paul Kagame. Mamdani was prof at U of Dar Es Salaam in the 1970’s and his students were Paul Kagame, Yoweri Museveni, John Garang, Wamba dia Wamba (see Ota Benga Alliance)… When Mamdani opens his book “When Victims Become Killers” he says he arrived in rwanda and voila! much to his surprise he found his old students there! Paul Kagame and the RPF. There was no surprise about it. Mamdani has a problem.

    Blessings
    keith

  15. John Greenwood said on November 24th, 2007 at 9:06am #

    SK, you stated:
    “John, you’re dragging your religious baggage into the debate (or via proxies with like Kwasi Akyeampong whose website has a prominent link to ‘Christian Dating’). Let’s try to keep the debate civil and not degenerate into religious polemics based on scripture….”

    What would you know about my religious baggage? I am neither Christian or Jewish. If I were to categorize myself it would be agnostic.

    If you want the debate to be civil and not degenerate into polemics, don’t make unfounded assumptions about whom you are debating with and don’t throw in non sequiturs like a source having a link to a Christian dating site. The focus should be on weather a source is truthful or not.

    My original posting to Mr. Snow’s article was to object to what I viewed as a blanket dismissal of Arabs enslaving and killing Blacks, that’s all.

    Mr. Snow & SK., please answer the following:

    Are there absolutely no incidents of slavery by Arabs and coerced conversions to Islam?

    Are all the sources, corprorate, Christian, Jewish, UN, do-gooder, etc, wrong in their reporting of slavery by Arabs and coerced conversions to Islam?

    Is Francis Bok a liar? If not, is his only an isolated experience?

  16. Michael Pugliese said on November 24th, 2007 at 9:36am #

    Re: Mamdani, not radical? He was a Maoist in the 80’s. But, heh, so was Savimbi in the 70’s. See Mamdani’s article recently in Pat Buchanan’s rag, The American Conservative?
    Re: Hochschild, um, you know he wrote a book about his relationship with his Father and the Profits of Imperialism? At a Socialist Action forum in San Francisco, that he addressed a loony Trot tried to bait him about this. Not radical? writer for Ramparts in the 60’s.
    Cue to KHS, saying Horowitz edited Ramparts?

  17. keith harmon snow said on November 24th, 2007 at 2:22pm #

    Hello

    Yes, I would say that Mamdani is not radical. ( I worked for GE Aerospace in the 1980’s, but that doesn’t mean that I am (still) a conservative right-wing fascist. Some would say I am a radical left-wing fascist… lol.) It’s interesting that Mamdani is published in Pat Buchanan’s “rag”.

    Has anyone read that book by Adam about his father?

    HALF THE WAY HOME: A MEMOIR OF FATHER AND SON” ?

    My point with both Mamdani and Hochschild is about INTERESTS, and, more penetratingly, white supremacy. And that is what I am interested in. So when I offer clues, as I have done here, it is an opportunity to ask oneself, now, why did he offer me that clue? So for the post above I would ask: Are you suggesting that Adam Hochschild [1] does not enjoy the benefits from his elite familial pedigree; [2] acts as an uncensoring proponent of truth? [3] has provided an open, honest, accounting of his families involvement in bloodletting in Congo?

    How does white supremacy and whiteness perpetuate the enslavement, deracination and control of people of color? (We are talking hear about a professor of Journalism at Berkeley.) Why is Congo worse off today than it was under Leopold? What is the relationship of these white men hovering around in the shadows (little glitter of diamonds gives them away now and then) behind these black men with names like Lumumba?

    Reading KING LEOPOLD’S GHOST doesn’t give me faith — as much as I like the book, and I do — that the perspective of Congolese people is represented by this affluent American white. Same with the book INTO TEH WILD — reading it doesnt give me faith that the author has represented accurately the views, the life, the ideology or the actions of some kid who walked off and starved to death in the wilderness of Alaska. It tells me that the book supports white privilege, and it has themes that white public space (Page, 1997) wants to perpetuate.

    Reading Hochschild’s KLG makes me want to go back and read the archival sources for myself. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to do that. And neither is my professor friend who lives in Kisangani — the heart of Stanley’s blood rubber enterprise. But Adam Hocschild can do that. And, you know, its not just a matter of flying to Brussels. Hochschild has something called “status” which opens doors and vaults and allows him to peruse at his leisure cherished , coveted documents. Now, if you will kindly show me how we can requisition some of those resources for the cause….

    lol.

    Do people think Mother Jones is a radical project? (Foundation for NATIONAL PROGRESS?) sounds a bit nationalistic eh?

    John Greenwood — your questions to me above suggest you didnt even read what I wrote in the post before yours.

    >>Are all the sources, corprorate, Christian, Jewish, UN, do-gooder, etc, wrong in their reporting of slavery by Arabs and coerced conversions to Islam?<<

    The question is irrelevant to me, and I am not interested in this guy named Frances Bok (at least not right now — however, fyi, I opened it on Google and looked at the cover and feel even more certain it is just another Hotel Rwanda, Black Hawk Down, WHEN VICTIMS BECOME KILLERS kind of production). The question above is like asking: Did or did not the SS at Buchenwald set aside a special “zoo” for animals and decree that anyone who harms the animals will face serious punishment? The question stems from a (un) consciousness which has been inculcated by a massive propaganda campaign. You are attached to getting an answer, I am attached to informing your understanding of the question. And that question should be: How did Christian AID support (back, arm, fund, propagandize, cover-up) the war in South Sudan with their partnership with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Oil in Darfur? Covert Ops in Somalia? Seeks to invite a new understanding of what the questions should be.

    bless
    k

  18. sk said on November 24th, 2007 at 2:29pm #

    John, I’ve met Kevin Bales, “the world’s leading expert on modern slavery and President of Free the Slaves” several times. Upto 75% of the world’s 27 million slaves (a precise definition of which means people put to work against their will under actual threat of violence) are in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh doing menial agricultural and brick kiln labor. There is very little large-scale organized slavery that meets the criteria of Bales’s definition in Africa. Which isn’t to say that in recent instances of famine, war, and dislocation in African countries, terrible things including slavery and forced prostitution haven’t happened, perpetrated, among others, by Arabs and Muslims.

    At any rate, I find it intriguing that you’d get wrapped around the axle over wrongdoing, real or imagined, by a demonized ethnic group (91% of media stories about Muslims/Arabs in UK are negative according to this recent survey). Helena Cobban make a very relevant observation in this audio interview relevant to what Keith has called “Darfurism” (around minute 9):

    …also divert people’s attention from what’s happening in Iraq which, of course, is where we have direct, absolutely direct, American responsibility of the really atrocious situation of life that the Iraqi people have been suffering…we’ll all be so busy worrying about Sudan that we won’t notice that they’re gonna go over and bomb Iran and I think it’s important that we actually seek to control what our government does as Americans than we start gratutiously pointing fingers of blame at what a very poor and hard-pressed government in a distant place like Sudan is doing.

  19. keith harmon snow said on November 24th, 2007 at 5:14pm #

    I apologize for apparently mixing up names of people who made posts (because I mistakenly thought the name appeared after the post)..

  20. John Greenwood said on November 24th, 2007 at 10:50pm #

    Mr. Snow, you are truly remarkable. I stand in awe of your powers and abilities beyond mere mortals such as myself. I wish I could just look at the cover of a book and know all about it in a few seconds. How could I be such a moron to ask such stupid questions? How could I be such an ill-mannered simpleton to question one of my betters. Clearly, you know all the right questions and answers to these same questions. My humble apologies sir. I prostrate myself before your magnificence.

    SK: Demonization doesn’t seem to be restricted to just one ethnic group.

  21. keith harmon snow said on November 25th, 2007 at 3:18am #

    John
    I offer an apprenticeship program you may be interested in. Part of the offerings of the apprenticeship program are how to negotiate this world without resorting to nastiness. Sarcasm, snide remarks, energy that serves no positive or helpful purpose at all. But it is also dedicated to sorting through and understanding propaganda, and putting one’s energy to positive action.
    blessings

  22. Marcelle Cendra said on November 25th, 2007 at 7:57am #

    Keith deserves a lot of respect. For one, he’s been on the ground, risking his life in Africa, trying to make a difference. His ability to connect the atrocities in Africa to U.S. abominations elsewhere should be of great value to anyone who wants to understand what the average U.S. citizen is up against…regardless of what particular focus they’re on at a given moment. — Marcelle

  23. John Greenwood said on November 25th, 2007 at 9:53am #

    Mr Snow, you stated “I opened it on Google and looked at the cover and feel even more certain it is just another Hotel Rwanda, Black Hawk Down, WHEN VICTIMS BECOME KILLERS kind of production). ” How is one supposed to respond to such an obviously ignorant statement to someone who has read the book. How do you expect to persuade someone like me with this type of dismissal. How does that demonstrate respect for your reader’s intellect and seriousness? Maybe you could negotiate the world better if you didn’t resort to this technique. Is no one allowed to question you? Can you look at your own prejudices? Are you too sensitive to being questioned?

    Again, my original posting to your article was to object to what I viewed as a blanket dismissal of Arabs enslaving and killing Blacks, that’s all. You don’t seem to view it as a big problem, if it is a problem at all and/or you are not interested in it. Fine, I get it. I think many would be more inclined to listen to you if you dropped the dismissiveness.

    Marcelle: I respect Mr. Snow. I think he should return the favor.

  24. keith harmon snow said on November 25th, 2007 at 10:31am #

    Hello

    In reviewing my posts I have to agree with you John that I expressed contempt that comes across as directed at you. It is not. My apologies. Your questions are perfectly reasonable.

    I have a lot of contempt for the propaganda, and for the lying liars that lie it. Frances Bok falls in this category for me. It’s like (someone) asking me how I like, or if I disagree with the book “We Regret to INform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families”… its so totally one-sided it takes on so much fiction we can’t begin to trust any of it. Same with Mr. Bok.

    On Nov 23 I posted: “While there are certainly cases of “slavery” in Sudan,” and I reiterate here that I do not deny that slavery has occurred in Sudan. what I have tried so badly to say is that its not approrpiate,, in the context of U.S. genocide and covert operations in Africa, to focus our attention in that without at least offering the evidence of the militant white (Judeo-Christian) project behind it.

    So, John, please accept my sincere apologies. I will not post again. I have already taken on the role of white man who can’t shut up (which I so detest).

    blessings
    keith

  25. Max Shields said on November 25th, 2007 at 10:45am #

    SK, I’m surprised you are not jumping in on the issue raised by Mr. Snow regarding Mamdani. You have cited Mamdani a number of times on DV as a source for understanding Sudan/Darfur.

    Personally, I find this connection of radicalism (or not) to be totally irrelvent regarding Mamdani; whether someone was once a maoist or aligned with someother ism isn’t the point. Mamdani wrote, and yes it was published in London Review of Books. Mr. Snow, while I won’t quibble with your accounting of US/Irael involvement in Africa and specifically Darfur, your attack on Mamdani seems all too ideosyncratic and beside the point. What has he said, specifically in the LRoB or the interview that you find false (or misleading)?

    Do you disagree with his overall assertion: that Darfur is not an example of genocide; that to claim such is to invite the kind of imperialistic interventionism that we’ve seen since the dawn Western Empire. That is, after all, the thrust of his piece.

    Otherwise your “attack on” him sounds stikingly like an ad hominem.

    Beyond this point Mr. Snow I still find you original post valuable.

  26. keith harmon snow said on November 25th, 2007 at 11:34am #

    hello

    Mahmood Mamdani decries all these “silences” and yet he perpetuates them. There must be some subliminal current informing his work.

    First there was “Imperialism and Fascism in Uganda” 1983- published while Mamdani was comfortably living in Uganda with his buddies Museveni and Kagame. But even before that, we find Mamdani teaching at Univ of Dar Es Salaam — a “marxist” university in the 1970’s — and his students ae a remarkablly motley crew who, unremarkably, end up in all these key positions of power. Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame, John Garang (assassinated), Laurent Desire Kabila (assassinated), Wamba Dia Wamba. Wayne Madsen (in his important book: Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999) I believe also includes Meles Zenawi in this motley crew.

    Museveni is the savior who ousts the regime (Obote) who exiled Mamdani the second time. (His Imperialsim and Fascism is about Idi Amin who exiled Mamdani the first time.) Mamdani takes on positions of power in Uganda in parallel with the rise of power of Museveni and the massive bloodletting that occurs in consolidation of the NRM project 1981-1989. Mamdani seems to continue working with Museveni through the 1990’s. he has a house in Kampala… meanwhile Museveni is perpetrating genocide in Northern Uganda and backing the invasions of Rwanda (1990-1995) and Congo (1996-1997, and 1998-present) and ongoing war in Congo.

    When Mamdani talks about “silences” it strikes me as a little close to the (untold) truth. WHEN VICTIMS BECOME KILLERS says nothing, and supports his former students Kagame and Museveni.

    If Mamdani is honest his veracity is subordinated to the very real probability that he would be silenced himself if he were to honestly expose what he knows to in fact be true. So Mamdani then has to be seen in the white supremacist construct of “embraceable” black men: as long as he doesnt cross a certain line, or enter into the terrain that does not reside on the spectrum of allowed and encouraged — even radical — debate (remember “radicals” are necessary to the facade of free speech) then he can enjoy all the perks of the white project. And he does. Herbert blah blah blah Lehman professor of Anthropology at Columbia — a hotbed of CIA activity.

    So, no, I don’t disagree with mamdani’s overall assertion about Darfur. It’s just that, given the really heavy involvement of all these wetsren covert forces and “humanitarian” (quite literally shipping weapons) armies…. Mamdani is not radical.

    Is this ad hominem? I never understood the term.

    Now check out this little nugget:
    Harold K. Hochschild Foundation directors’ link to Sullivan and Cromwell.

    See, white males just don’t know when to stop…! lol.

    blessings
    keith

  27. sk said on November 25th, 2007 at 12:08pm #

    Max, I agree Mamdani’s or anyone else’s youthful past is beside the point.
    What’s more relevant is the instrumentalization of conflicts (labeled “genocides” at the drop of a hat by well heeled and establishment friendly NGOs) like Darfur, Rwanda, or the forerunner of them all, Biafra–as analyzed recently by Diana Johnstone–for the sake of quelling (more like diverting) public opinion right here at home.

    Dr. Gino Strada, founder of the NGO Emergency and someone who’s painfully familiar with the reality of Darfur–yet, unusually for an aid worker, doesn’t mince his words when speaking of harsh realities that cut the wrong way with funding foundations and donors–put it like this in an audio interview (transcript here):

    All of this business of genocide in Sudan, for instance, I think has come up as an idea to sort of pave the ground for a possible military intervention. And next door there is the Federal Republic–Democratic Republic of Congo, where four million people have died because of the conflict, and no one has ever thought about mentioning genocide. So I think that, you know, we should try to get media attention to the real problems. Humanitarian problems cannot be, you know, submitted to politics basically, and this is what happens regularly. A country comes to the light of the media when there are some political agendas from very powerful nations behind them. Think about Afghanistan. Who speaks about Afghanistan now?

    To summarize, if you don’t want to become an “unwitting shill” for ulterior agendas, you’d do well to pay attention to the politics behind portrayal of these undoutedly terrible situations.

  28. gerald spezio said on November 25th, 2007 at 1:30pm #

    Keith, I checked out the Hochschild link to superlawyers Sullivan & Cromwell.
    Super manipulation and murder requires super lawyering.

  29. Max Shields said on November 25th, 2007 at 8:16pm #

    sk it still seems to me that we are witnessing the vesitges of post-colonialism coupled with the intrusion of hegemony for African resources. I’ve mentioned the bit players like Samantha Powers whose motives come god knows where inclusive of the talking points spouted on cue by Dershowitz. The vested interests layer the situation with complexities. So, we have the insights of Mr. Snow connecting the geopolitical dots; but we also have conflict which does not completely originate from the outside but in any case is based on resources – water and farm/food. The latter may be sustained through the likes of the CIA and it’s Israeli counterparts. And then there’s China…

    [An aside: Is Dershowitz such a believer tha he shuts his brain down? I mean does he ever ask himself: “why to they want me to mouth this crap?” I doubt it because there is no need to think beyond the simplicity of “genocide” or “anti-semitism”; words that explain all to those so inclined.]

  30. Shabnam said on November 25th, 2007 at 8:56pm #

    Many thanks to Mr. Keith Harmon Snow for his work which is very important to everyone including some of the “left” such as PLP where some of its members believe there is “genocide” in Darfur especially those members who are coming from African-American background. These people are misguided by strong propaganda campaign coming from the imperialist/Zionist forces including the servant of the Zionism and empire builder Samantha Power from Harvard University where many war criminals are trained. These forces want Sudan, the biggest country in the African continent with a lot of natural resources, to be divided, such as countries in the middle east so they can control the land by divide and rule – to eliminate Israel enemies and to provide the illegitimate racist state of Israel with WATER of the red sea, which is going to be more important than OIL in the near future. The Zionist’s plan is to manufacture “minorities” and creates terms such as “Black African” and “White Arab” where Arabs are killing the Africans. The same is done in Iran by the Zionists and their specialists, creating
    “Persian” and “non-Persian” while “Persian” is the enemy in Iran, the
    “Arab” is the enemy in Sudan. They hope this propaganda creates hatred among African-American against Arabs since Blacks have supported Palestinian in the past.
    Since Sudanese independence from Britain in 1956, there has been civil war between the north and the south that is directed and influenced by the colonial and imperial powers such as Britain and US. Britain was not successful to control the whole country, therefore, in 1920s Britain almost separated the South, where many Pagan/Animist lived, and prevented them from even wearing “Islamic clothing”. They started Christianization of the Pagan/Animist.
    The United States and Israel policy is to destabilize and divide Muslim countries of the Middle East and Africa such as Sudan to make sure that there are no strong independent nations opposing the United States and Israeli interest, and to secure control over the natural resources of the region including water and elimination of Israel enemies. Sudan supports the Palestinian struggle. Israel treats Sudan and Iran like Ottoman Empire and wants to be partitioned into microscopic states and put one against the other.
    South of Sudan has been removed from the government control during Clinton administration by supporting one side of the conflict and sending money and arm under “humanitarian” aids to “rebel” with leadership of John Garang, who was trained in US and Israel and died in July 2005 in helicopter crash after he secured a semi-autonomous South in Sudan. His widow, Rebecca Garang, met with George Bush in Washington D.C. in 2006 to discuss diplomatic relations between the USA and Canada and South Sudan, similar to tribe of Kurdistan where are making oil deals with US and Europe against the objections of the central government in Iraq.
    Pro-Imperialist “human rights” organization such as “human Rights Watch” where is controlled by billionaire George Soros has labeled the conflict in Darfur as ‘genocide’. The war in Darfur is not a religious war of Muslim against non-Muslim, or a racial war of white Arabs against Black Africans. Everyone in Darfur is a Black African. It’s not even a war of Arabs against non-Arabs since Arabic is the national language and language of education. The war is about access to water and resources which have been worsen due to sanction and policy of the Zionist/imperialist of destabilization. But US and Israel have spread lies about the root causes of the conflict and are supporting one side against the others which has caused a lot of deaths in Darfur. Manufacturing “genocide” has an intention to divert attention of the people, including Jessie Jackson, away from Palestine and Iraq to ‘genocide’ in Sudan. Situation in Congo is far worse than Darfur but since Congo is a Christian country has not been targeted.
    In early 1990s Zionists spread lies and deception against Sudan through propaganda campaign which was called “American Anti-Slavery Group” (AASG) which was directed by the Zionist anti Palestinian Charles Jacobs. Charles Jacobs is the founder of the pro-Israel propaganda group CAMERA and the DAVID PROJECT. This group exists to spread false allegations of slavery against Sudan and Mauritania to demonize these countries. This campaign also helps the realization of “The Greater Israel” which its geography is from Mauritania to Afghanistan. In AASG the empire builder, Samantha Power, also was involved.
    The ‘genocide’ in Darfur which is a piece of foreign policy of the empire gets strong support from universities such as Harvard where Samantha Power teaches.
    The AASG was part of the pressure group to bring an autonomous South in Sudan through destabilization and set the environment friendly for divide and rule policy throughout Sudan by Zionist/Imperialist disinformation propaganda campaign. The Child Slavery in Sudan was disappeared overnight when Garang and the Sudanese Government reached an agreement favorable to the South.
    I invite everyone to read the following article by Mr. Snow which gives a lot of information regarding this issue. Thanks again for your work.

    http://hadiclippinge.blogspot.com/2006/10/wake-up-and-smell-oil-true-agenda.html

  31. sk said on November 25th, 2007 at 11:10pm #

    Max, there is an oil related “scramble for Africa” going on, but, imho, the Darfur “genocide” narrative is more of an ideological “weapon of mass deception”. Of course, the exact proportion of motives of those peddling this line can only be guessed at, but there are plenty of “alternative” links available just within the two recent articles by Keith and following comments sections for you to reach a decent “ball-park” conclusion yourself.

  32. Max Shields said on November 26th, 2007 at 8:20am #

    sk, I think Keith has made it abundantly clear that he sees the root cause (and there are a number of actors) as resource driven. Whether those resources are land, water, oil, copper, uranium is not the issue; but that they are valued by outside interest is.

    Ideology is central to the narrative (the stories told to foster a particular world view). And that narrative is built on dominance. And dominance is about turning large portions of the globe into (or maintaining them) as supplier region/nations (of said resources) and controlling the distribution channels – i.e., hegeomy.

    That does not mean that there has not been continued civil conflict which pre-dates US/West/Israel desire to dominate the region.

  33. AJ Nasreddin said on November 26th, 2007 at 9:31am #

    OK, here’s my two bits:

    Bit number one: I remember reading about the New American Century and that one of their goals was to acquire control over resources in the world while most people still don’t realize how limited those resources are in the world (and I think they mean oil in particular here). The New American Century believes in using any means needed in order to “secure” America’s future as number one.

    Bit number two: Travelling about, I have met a number of Sudanese – Muslim, Christian, and otherwise. I have always made it a point to get their stories if possible. Naturally, each has his or her own ideas about what is going on – but none has a story about slavery (not to say it doesn’t happen, but some of the Christians seemed surprised to hear about it when I mentioned it) – John: “abeed” is Arabic for “slave”; why you need to say “black slave” shows a bit of ignorance or misinformation. Also, this idea of stealing children and then employing them as soldiers or sex slaves happens across Africa and is not just a “Sudan” or “Darfur” problem.

    Bottom line is that everyone agrees, for better or worse, that the Americans have kept this problem going for decades – and not just in Darfur. Most American help has come through Christian charities (who claim to be buying back slaves!). Oddly, some have mentioned “Christian charities” providing arms. Many have said that it was totally unclear who the thugs were that came through and destroyed a village or even why.

    Last note on the slavery thing: From a few that I have met I have heard of families taking in orphaned children and bringing them up as Muslim or Christian – and even those “Christian charities” coming to take Christian children out of Muslim homes after giving a “gift” of dollars to the villagers. While the treatment of these children is horrible in our eyes, uneducated villagers cannot be expected to hold the “lofty moral ideas” we have in the West. We might “respect” a child to retain their family’s culture and religion, but in a villager’s eyes the way he lives is best. But then again, I saw a Colorado Springs based “Christian charity” asking for money once to “buy” orphaned Muslim kids so that they could be brought up proper Christians.

  34. Shabnam said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:53am #

    Max Shields is wrong when writes:

    “sk, I think Keith has made it abundantly clear that he sees the root cause (and there are a number of actors) as resource driven.”

    Mr. Snow may believe the end game is for resources of these countries but he repeatedly reminds us that these atrocities and propaganda campaign for destabilization is directed against another ISLAMIC COUNTRY which is happened to be an enemy of Israel and supporter of Palestinians. If it is only for resources why not go to Congo which is equally, if not more, rich in resources and the conflict in Congo is much worse compare to Darfur. Congo is a Christian country and is not pro Palestinian struggle. If it is only for resources why not go into Ethiopia which is stronghold of Israel, instead US and Israel wage a war against Muslims in Somalia and are involved in killing of Muslim population with the help of a puppet state of Israel, Ethiopia.

    Snow writes in another article:
    ”The Judeo-Christian front against Sudan is linked to right-wing think tanks and policy institutes in the USA, including Zionist groups and the Christian Coalition, and the “genocide” theme has its origins in these institutions, not in the realities on the ground Sudan. These religious groups, with backing from the Holocaust industry in the US and the Jewish Affairs Council, from Henry Kissinger and Samantha Power, have today constituted a massive public relations campaign in an ongoing Holy War against the Islamist government of Khartoum, and Islamic people more generally. This is an affront to Holocaust victims and survivors, and it is all about money, power and it is founded on the fear and manipulation of Holy war.”

    From the above quote is obvious that the Zionists are deeply involved in destabilization of Sudan, another Islamic country, through different organization such as “Save Darfur”, “American Anti-Slavery Group” with the Zionist anti Palestinian as its director, Charles Jacobs, Holocaust Museum, or Holocaust industry, Jewish Affairs Council, and…. Many other Zionist organizations and with spurious charge of “genocide” to divide Sudan into microscopic states to create puppet states such as Ethiopia to control the resources including WATER of the RED SEA to support the fantasy of the Zionist plan “greater
    Israel”, going from Mauritania to Afghanistan, a colonial project.

  35. Max Shields said on November 26th, 2007 at 12:35pm #

    Shabnam said on November 25th, 2007 at 8:56 pm says:
    “…to provide the illegitimate racist state of Israel with WATER of the red sea, which is going to be more important than OIL in the near future.”
    Then…
    Shabnam said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:53 am say:
    “Max Shields is wrong when writes:
    “sk, I think Keith has made it abundantly clear that he sees the root cause (and there are a number of actors) as resource driven.”

    Shabnam, maybe you just don’t think water is a resource(?)

    Mr. Snow can obviously speak for himself, but I see absolutely no contradiction between what I said and what he is saying here and else where. Since I agree with Snow, I really think you’ve wasted a whole lot of venom on the wrong guy. Perhaps you disagree with Keith(?)

  36. keith harmon snow said on November 26th, 2007 at 12:36pm #

    Hello

    RE: Samantha Power — Have any of you folks seen this?
    HOTEL RWANDA: Hollywood and the Holocaust in Central Africa
    http://www.allthingspass.com/journalism.php?catid=47

    On the points by Shabnam above: the US/Israel are all over Ethiopia and Congo. In Cong you’ve got extremely deep Israeli involvement but also a Lebanese middleman in, for example, the diamonds trade, and this creates interesting currents/tensions/competitions/alliances. One sees in the, and I may be wrong, that it is all about doing business. This is why Dan Gertler –the new Israeli-American “king of the congo” — doesn’t mind working with the German Krupps firm.

    Also, I have to say, whether it is “resources” or a “zionist” project — I am no expert on the deeper ideological nuances. I just write what I see. I’m a self-educated former red-neck lower middle class farmer. big gaps in my (self) “education”. sorry.
    keith

    blessings

  37. Kanuri said on December 2nd, 2007 at 11:47pm #

    For those of you interest in the rhetoric surrounding this tragedy, this is without a doubt the finest analysis of the politics of the save darfur coalition in the united states – written in early 2005:

    http://www.merip.org/mer/mer234/aidi.html

    Slavery, Genocide and the Politics of Outrage: Understanding the New “Racial Olympics”

    Hishaam D. Aidi

    Hishaam D. Aidi is a researcher at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.

    In October 1999, PBS aired TheWonders of the African World, a six-part documentary produced by the renowned African-American intellectual, Henry Louis Gates, wherein the Harvard educator travels from Egypt to Sudan and down the Swahili coast of East Africa and up though parts of West Africa examining the encounter between Africa and Arab civilization and the role of Africans and Arabs in the enslavement of Africans. In Egypt, Gates reflects on the “facial features” of monuments in Aswan, noting the “blackness” of the pharaohs and pondering whether construction of the Aswan Dam that inundated ancient Nubia was an act of Arab racism. In the coastal Kenyan cities of Lamu and Mombasa, and on the island of Zanzibar, he talks to a number of natives who, to his dismay, define themselves as being of “Arab” or “Persian” descent. “To me, people here look about as Persian as Mike Tyson,” Gates remarks, “It’s taken my people 50 years to move from Negro to black to African-American. I wonder how long it will take the Swahili to call themselves African.”

    Comedian Drew Carey has joked that “Arabs in America should just say they’re Mexican and they’ll be fine,” but Hispanic intellectuals who have reflected on the “Arab-Latino resemblance” find it no laughing matter. Sociologist Ramon Grosfoguel, who studies how different “looks” and identities are racialized in the West, notes that in France he is often harassed and prevented from entering different venues because he’s mistaken for Algerian (“le look beur”), but when he tells his harassers that he is Puerto Rican, he is allowed to enter. In the US, by contrast, when waylaid by a gang of anti-Latino white supremacists, he said he was Algerian and the confused youths let him go.[81] After September 11, however, few Latinos would try the same ruse. When the Pentagon began targeting Latinos for higher recruitment in the military, conspiracy theories abounded that Hispanics were being sent to Iraq because they can “pass” for Arab. As one blogger put it, “The enemy is brown. We need brown troops. [Hispanics] blend in better.” While some Latinos and African-Americans may embrace a position of pro-Arab solidarity, others try to signal that they are not Arab or Muslim, most often by vociferously adopting anti-Arab positions.

    The “looking Arab” phenomenon is further complicated by the fact that, since September 11, many Arab- and Muslim-Americans are trying to “pass” for black or Hispanic. “After September 11, shave your head, grow a goatee, that’s it—you’re Dominican,” said one Yemeni grocer in Harlem.[82] The sudden interest of Arab-Americans, who have long dissociated themselves from minorities, in racial politics and black and Latino identity has annoyed more than a few observers. “Arabs and black Americans have had a quiet disdain for each other…and it has been brewing unabated for a decade or better,” commented one African-American writer. “Why did whites have to come for you, before you sought my friendship, before you realized you were from Africa

  38. danny eaton said on December 18th, 2007 at 12:55pm #

    I believe that all your views are wrong. I don’t know what you guys are thinking by saying that we should stop a war for people that people that run plains into buildings and kill people say we should just now retaliate. you guys are just a bunch of left wing radical scum.

  39. Mike McNiven said on December 20th, 2007 at 8:30pm #

    Nelson Mandela, no puppet of the US/UK/Israeli lobby, believes that the international community should get involved to protect the people of Sudan against the reactionary Khartoum regime! He has already formed an international commission to that effect! All power to him!

  40. keith harmon snow said on December 21st, 2007 at 10:47am #

    Hello:

    Nelson Mandela’s action os perfectly in line with his status as an embraceable black African “leader” who has put a black face on white supremacy in South Africa. MAndela and teh ANC sold out, how else do you suppose they came to power? If you believe that Mandela is a peoples leader, all you have to do is investigate a bit to find out how he supportes and has supported multinational corporations in the mining sector, their interests in Congo (DRC) being a very poignant example of Mandela’s taking teh corporate line and pressing the corporate agenda against the Congolese. But there are plenty of examples for anyone willing to look behind tyhe propaganda. The other way to tell that Mandela is doing what the white system wants is to point to all the bad press he is getting…..zero.

    Mugabe is another Mandela who turned rotten and so teh system attacks Mugabe now. Just as they will likely attack MAndela one day, unless he dies peddling the white agenda, as he is now.

    blessings
    keith

  41. maha said on January 4th, 2008 at 4:07pm #

    Just to put the record straight…
    John Greenwood says: “In a recent article in the Al Ahram Weekly, Gamal Nkrumah quoting Sudanese First Vice-President Salva Kiir, “etc etc etc ..”

    No, John, that is a lie, there is no such quote from Kiir. Those were Nkrumah’s own words NOT the words of Kiir.
    As for your Francis Bok and the rest of it, all very selective and emotive, you seem totally blind to the state of our world — you’ll find millions of stories of enslavement and torture across the world far worse than his including in Europe, the US (and by the US), and Israel.

  42. dancer said on July 15th, 2009 at 10:05am #

    “Oh, did I “belittle” BBC? I rather prefer to shred them as well, for what they are. Corporate white trash (competing interests to North American corporate white trash).” khs

    i agree totally. all i want to say.

  43. Finious said on November 14th, 2009 at 9:22pm #

    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