War on Sudan? "We distinguish between the American people and the American government, " being a longtime (and I'm not disagreeing w/it) deliver to pwoggie sandalista tourist bromide, you are merging the Sudanese people w/their horrid regime.
Give the OAU troops some teeth and funding via the UN. The USG isn't going to intervene, anyway and if they did, true enough would fuck it up but, again that ain't gonna happen. CBC doesn't have any pull at the Pentagon and W.H.
Ah, social imperialist racist Barbara Ehrenreich on Darfur, http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2005w16/msg00099.htm http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2005w16/msg00348.htm
http://villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/images/Darfur-baby-burnt-bombing-r-thumb.jpg (Napalm?)
http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/000971.php
>...But under the blood-soaked sands of Darfur is oil , and Powell is
no longer secretary of state. You don't see the Blair and Bush
governments plotting to justify a humanitarian military intervention
in that situation. No, we're playing footsie with Sudan's genocidal
regime, as Ken Silverstein of the Los Angeles Times reported from
Sudan in late April:
The Bush administration has forged a close intelligence partnership with the Islamic regime that once welcomed Osama bin Laden here, even though Sudan continues to come under harsh U.S. and international criticism for human rights violations.
The Sudanese government, an unlikely ally in the U.S. fight against terror, remains on the most recent U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. At the same time, however, it has been providing access to terrorism suspects and sharing intelligence data with the United States.
[In late April], the CIA sent an executive jet to ferry the chief of Sudan's intelligence agency to Washington for secret meetings sealing Khartoum's sensitive and previously veiled partnership with the administration, U.S. government officials confirmed.
...Federico Bordonaro, a Sorbonne scholar, captures that landscape perfectly in "The Darfur Question at a Time of Increasing U.S.-China Competition," a new piece for the Power and Interest News Report:
Today's American and Western attention for the Darfur question has much to do with Khartoum's new commercial and political ties with Iran and—especially— China. Beijing's attempt to gain influence in Africa is in fact one of our age's geopolitical novelties. Its main goal is to acquire African oil and gas at favorable conditions, in regions where Western oil majors must still compete for total control. Beijing's new African policy has been focused on Gabon, Nigeria, and Sudan. It must be said, for the sake of accuracy, that Sino-Sudanese relations are not entirely new, for the arms trade between the two countries has been in place since the late '60s.
Control over oil reserves is at the top of China's wishes—and Sudanese diffidence for the U.S. seems to be a good set-up for Chinese penetration as a power broker. In 2003, China's National Petroleum Corp. planned to invest $1 billion to create Sudan's largest oil refinery. Moreover, as recent declarations from Sudanese Minister of Energy and Mining Awad Ahmed Al-Jazz confirmed, a newly discovered oil field expected to produce 500,000 barrels per day of crude oil is located in the Darfur region. This latter is also the way to Chad, a country well-known for its natural gas reserves.
Keep this in mind when you read about World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz's sudden concern for Africa. On the other hand, "sober and tough-minded" is what I'd call Bordonaro's shrewd estimate of the oil politics being played in Africa:
At a time of growing strategic partnership between U.S. geopolitical adversaries such as Iran and China, Sudan's importance is understandable in light of its energy assets and strategic position to securitize the "Greater Middle East."
Posted by Harkavy at 09:28 AM, June 02, 2005
-- Michael Pugliese
