5 Congress Members Arrested at Sudan Protest

McCain made no reference to family values in his commencement address, focusing instead on global concerns.

He drew applause when he said the United States should take up arms against the "awful human catastrophe" in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Osama bin Laden and his followers, he said, "have called on Muslims to rise up against any Westerner who dares intervene to stop the genocide."

[Are you actually incapable of recognizing the inanity of your comments?

50,000 dead over three years is undeniably more important that 100,000 dead over 35 years.

Only an ideologue would argue a distinction between the horrors of Iraq and the horrors of the Sudan.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

[Are you actually incapable of recognizing the inanity of your comments?

50,000 dead over three years is undeniably more important that 100,000 dead over 35 years.

Only an ideologue would argue a distinction between the horrors of Iraq and the horrors of the Sudan.

You're the one who is being inane, Finn, letting your partisan rage blind you to even the most basic of logic.

The three years in which 50,000 people have been massacred in Sudan are still continuing now. It is happening right now, Finn. We can still stop it.

Whereas the Iraq war couldn't stop the massacre of 100s of thousands over 35 years anymore by definition, because it wasn't taking place anymore.

Sure Saddam was still a brutal dictator, like Turkmenbashi, like Assad, like a dozen other dictators around the world - there were undoubtedly still thousands in his prisons, just like there are in the prisons of his peers. But the mass murder of Kurds and Shi'a that you so piously thrust forward as ad-hoc excuse for the invasion had taken place fifteen to twenty years ago.

That is that "detail" that you insist to blatantly and transparently ignore - because it doesnt suit the needs of the faux indignation you've worked yourself into. Because it would get in the way of your liberal-bashing.

Yes, you must be right nimh. Saddam and his boys were such good fellows for the fifteen or twenty years before the invasion. Merely thousands or even only hundreds were murdered. Hell, that ain't genocide so who the hell are we to get involved. And we all know that they would never have reverted to their "genocidal" ways. They were contained! Wasn't that your argument for not invading? They were contained and would be for all time to come!

In 2003, the main victims of those 100+,000 dead, the Kurds, had already had their own, Western-protected area for over a decade! Thats what makes your brandishing of their past suffering so sickening. Back when the Kurds WERE actually being gassed and slaughtered, the European Parliament spoke up, the Socialist International spoke up - while Rumsfeld and Cheney were busy rewarding Saddam with millions $ for being the enemy of their enemy, who cares about who he was gassing. Thats whats so nauseating about how they suddenly invoked it again fifteen years later, when those Kurds were actually in a safe place, to justify their pet war.

You sicken easily. Try pepto-bismol. The US is not without taint when it comes to Saddam and his evil. It is shameful how, after the first Gulf War, we left the southern Shia who rose up against the tyrant with confidence that we would support them to be torn to pieces by the Monster. It is simply absurd though that this perfidy should preclude us as a nation from ever again taking action agains Saddam. The sins of the father do not, in actuality, fall to the son.

Yes, Finn, when deciding which humanitarian intervention to undertake, 50,000 dead in a slaughter taking place right now is more important than 300,000 dead who were killed two decades ago. That's not exactly rocket science, is it?

And so you the international rocket scientist are able to first of tell us that Saddam's mass slaughtering ended 20 years before the invasion, and if so that it would never again rear its ugly head? Now who is being disingenuous?


I mean, what is even your argument here? That Saddam was as bad a guy as the Sudanese regimists? Well, yes, obviously - you've proven that point with the history sketch, as if it needed to be. But you don't invade countries because someone is a bad guy. At most, you invade a country because there's a massive slaughter going on now that we can still stop.

First of all you have laughably staked out a position that Saddam ceased to be a "bad guy" twenty years before the invasion. That is either ignorance or dishonesty. Secondly, your tortured attempts to frame the Sudan as somehow different from the rest of the horrible situations in the world is feeble, and finally, the single Super Power on earth should put it's muscles to some good use and stop evil everywhere and not just the evil that rises beyond nimh's sensibilities. Are you actually comfortable with drawing the line between what murders should be stopped and what should be tolerated? Spare me your sanctimonious crap because it is hollow. Either you are passionate about defending the weak wherever they are or you are a geo-political ghoul.

The invasion of Iraq has killed at least 35-40,000 civilians - within three years, Finn. Thats not the kind of thing you do just for historical retribution; just to avenge something a dictator did twenty years ago. It's something you do only if at least 40,000 people would have been killed if you hadn't intervened.

There was no sign of Saddam being on the verge of murdering another 40,000 of his countrymen. In between Kurdish autonomy, no-fly zones and sanctions, we had already emasculated him to the point that he was no longer able to do something like that. So what was your invasion for, from a humanitarian POV? Making a point? At 40,000 civilian dead alone - and counting - thats a hell of a point, Finn.

The degree of civilian deaths (and that I think your assessment of 40,000 is exaggerarated is somewhat immaterial) is evidence of the fact that America's efforts have not been perfect, and possibly quite imperfect. You would have this stand as evidence against the intent rather than the execution. You would also lay claim to precognition in that you would suggest that under no circumstances would Saddam have killed 40,000 of his citizens if the invasion had not gone down. This is a stupid assumption. Had the US been turned back from its aim or never embarked upon it, do you really think that a monster like Saddam would have remained tame (which only you think he ever was)?

The massacres in Sudan are taking place right now. Now, not fifteen years ago. Your use of the statistics is vapid and opportunistic. We had to overthrow Saddam in 2003, because back in 1982-1991, he massacred hundreds of thousands of people. How does that even make sense??

Read the preceding.

Well, that was a typical case of

An utter waste of time, of course, the above post.

I guess if someone is hellbent on seeing the devious duplicitly he's conjured up, rather than the actual argument you're forwarding, there's nothing you can do.

I'd say that the difference between the mass slaughter of entire populations taking place right now, on the one hand, and a brutal but emasculated dictatorship having, a decade ago, before you stopped it, after the previous war, done the same, on the other, is significant. You know, when you're having to choose where to send your soldiers.

Significant and rather bleedin' obvious.

But then acknowledging it, I guess, would get in the way of bashing any liberal who might <gasp> want to join your cause. Cant make it that easy. I mean, ongoing genocide is an interesting topic and all, but not half as inviting as the opportunity of more partisan baiting.

To the likes of Finn, if you oppose one war, you have to oppose all others too - or be a hypocrite.

Never mind that, at 40,000 civilian deaths alone - and counting - the war in question has caused more destruction than Saddam could have wrecked in those three years -- and predictably so.

Taking such considerations in mind - you know, will the intervention cause more deaths than the wrong you're trying to defeat?, that kind - is just inane liberal sophistry, I suppose.

In fact, trying to set a workable criterium "for intervening in one crisis but not another" makes you nothing less than a "despicable breed of intellectual"!

Not that Finn wants to send US soldiers to intervene in every single crisis, of course - to invade every single country that's ruled by a "power-mad schmuck" - that'd be some two dozen countries alone, after all.

But woe he who tries to define a standard on when to act. The opportunistic or pot-luck method - you know, the one that identifies Saddam Hussein's Iraq as part of "the axis of evil", but hails Muammar Gadafy's Lybia as, quoth Condoleezza Rice, "an important model" - is so much more ... moral, I suppose.

Well, whatever. There goes another thread.

Finn D"Abuzz- I can tell you one thing, Finn- If nimh was ever a Democrat, he is now an apostate.

He ignores the words of the most able policy wonk who ever served our country- WIlliam Jefferson Clinton

quote:

"Indeed, in the past, Saddam has intentionally placed Iraqi civilians in harm's way in a cynical bid to sway international opinion"

and

"If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond,we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people"

In Darfur, rapes and shootings go on, despite peace agreement

Xan Rice in Menawashie, South Darfur
Monday May 15, 2006
The Guardian

Isaac Ibrahim Muhammad winced as he showed where the bullet had ripped through his left shoulder. Hanan Ahmed Hussein pulled her blue blanket over her head as she exposed the fresh gunshot wounds to her knee and wrist. Her one-year-old daughter Menazir smiled, though she too had experienced the burn of a bullet that passed through her foot.

Fatouma Moussa, 18, wrapped in a red shawl, showed no wounds and no expression. Perhaps she was thinking of her 10,000 dinars (£23) - the proceeds of three months of firewood collection - that was stolen by the Arab raiders who forced the passenger truck travelling to Menawashie to pull over on Thursday night. Or perhaps she was trying not to think at all.

"We found the Janjaweed [government-backed militias]," she said in a tiny voice, as her mother watched over her. "I was raped."
Ten days ago in Abuja, Nigeria, the Sudanese government and the main rebel group in Darfur signed a peace agreement to end three years of fighting. A ceasefire was supposed to come into force 72 hours later. The deal, brokered by the African Union and international mediators, was hailed as a breakthrough - a significant step towards peace and ending the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

But little has changed on the ground in Darfur. African Union observers continue to chronicle tales of death and destruction. Rebel fighters and government soldiers eye each other nervously across the frontlines. Bandits attack with impunity. Defenceless civilians are as fearful of attack as ever.

Even a trip along the main road between El Fasher and Nyala, a rare strip of asphalt that slices through the desert and links the capitals of north and south Darfur, is fraught with danger.

Fatouma and 50 other passengers who had piled into a creaking open-top lorry set off from the market town of Shangil Tobayi, where she had gone to sell her firewood, at 5pm on Thursday.

An hour into the journey, with the desert still glowing in the thin late afternoon sunlight, raiders fired into the air to try to force them to stop but the lorry sped on past.

At the ghost town of Amar Jadid, long since emptied of its inhabitants, the gunmen were more ruthless.

According to Mustapha Abu Ahmed Said, a slight man wearing a dirty pinstripe shirt and sunglasses, three men with machine guns blocked the road and fired at the truck's tyres. They shot Mr Muhammad, the driver. Ms Hussein, her baby daughter, and three other people were also hit.

Everybody was forced off the truck and ordered to carry their cargo of millet, goats and cows into the scrub bush, where nine other armed men were waiting with a dozen camels.

"They told us that we were slaves and that they would finish us," said Hussein Ahmed Abdullah, who, like all the passengers, was robbed of his money and possessions. He and others said that the raiders then took 15 women aside and raped them before riding off into the night.

Some three hours later, guided by a full moon, the passengers stumbled into the sprawling village of Menawashie on foot. The wounded had managed to hitch a ride on a passing vehicle.

One woman died of her bullet wounds. She was buried in a simple grave, marked only by a mound of dirt.

An African Union military observer, who took careful notes from the eyewitnesses gathered next to the road that cuts through Menawashie, asked what the raiders looked like.

"They wore muftis and military uniforms," said Mr Abdullah. "They were Arabs. They were Janjaweed" - the tribal militias armed by the government and blamed for many of the worst atrocities, particularly mass rape, in Darfur.

Responsibility for escorting trucks along the road between Menawashie and Shangil Tobayi lies with the Sudanese government, under a deal brokered by the local African Union observers. But locals say that the police vehicle used for the escorts broke down three weeks ago and there have been no patrols since.

In Mershing, a nearby town that was attacked by the Janjaweed in February, causing 55,000 people to flee, the police commander seemed unperturbed by the assault on the truck.

"The security situation is calm around here," said Lieutenant Fahd Rahman al-Nur, who added that he had been given no new instructions since the peace deal was signed. When asked about Thursday night's attack, he said that the Janjaweed, who are supposed to be disarmed by the government within six months under the terms of the peace deal, could not have been responsible.

"These raiders were opportunists from non-Arab tribes. Arab militias loot cattle but they don't block roads," he said.

Darfur's rebel forces turn on each other

Xan Rice in Tawilla, North Darfur
Wednesday May 17, 2006
The Guardian

With Darfur's remaining rebels still refusing to sign a peace deal, fighters that were united against the Sudanese government have turned on each other.

Around Tawilla thousands of civilians have been displaced since the beginning of the year following deadly violence between two ethnically-divided factions of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), Darfur's largest rebel movement.

In what has become a turf war for control of rebel-held territory, gunmen on pick-up trucks and horseback have been burning huts, killing, looting, and even raping women, in raids just as deadly as those of the Arab "Janjaweed" militia.

Villages that had been emptied due to raids by government forces are once again deserted. Camps for displaced people on the outskirts of town lie abandoned, their terrified former residents having barricaded themselves in makeshift shelters against the razor wire surrounding the African Union peacekeepers' base. All but one international NGO have left.

"Initially the trouble here was the government forces," said an AU military observer based in Tawilla, two hours' drive west of the state capital, El Fasher. "But now these different SLA groups fighting each other have become the problem." [..]

Yesterday the UN security council passed a resolution to speed up planning for a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur and threatened sanctions against anyone who opposed the May 5 accord. On Monday the African Union agreed to transfer authority for its 7,300 strong peacekeeping force to the UN by the end of September.

The latest twist in the Darfur crisis follows a major falling out late last year in the leadership of the SLA, a broad-based guerrilla movement formed to protest against the region's marginalisation by the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum.

Minni Arcua Minnawi, the group's secretary-general, took with him the larger share of the fighters and weapons. Most of his men are Zaghawa, a cattle-herding tribe. Mr Wahid, the SLA chairman, and a member of the sedentary Fur, Darfur's largest tribe, was left with a smaller force but a large support base. [..]

The SLA "liberated" the [Tawilla] area more than a year ago, bringing a degree of stability. Civilians began returning to their fields to plant crops. Some even returned to their villages near the town. But since February this year Tawilla has become one of the most insecure regions of Darfur as rebels under Mr Minnawi sought to capture territory from their rival faction. Civilians were caught in the crossfire. The initial attack, at Korma, left 12 of Mr Wahid's fighters dead, along with numerous bystanders. Attacks on villages continued throughout the next two months. On April 19 the Minni rebels attacked the village of Tina, forcing all the inhabitants to Tawilla and looting their property.

"When you see the suffering around Tawilla, it is because of Minni," said Mr Muhammad, a thin man wearing military fatigues. "He has a secret agenda of wanting to create a big 'Zaghawaland' but we are fighting for all the people of Darfur."