Jimmie Higgins
2nd May 2006, 20:48
Liberals make me sick.
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp05022006.html
May 2, 2006
"Out of Iraq, Into Darfur"
Just Saying No to Imperial Intervention in Sudan
By GARY LEUPP
At the huge, inspiring antiwar march in New York yesterday, I noticed many placards with the massage, "Out of Iraq, Into Darfur." They were held by members of a group called "Volunteer for Change," described as "a project of Working Assets." I wasn't sure what to make of the slogan. Was it somehow satirical, playing on "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" and warning about a future Somalia-like intervention in Africa? Or was this really a call to take U.S. troops out of Iraq and deploy them instead in "humanitarian" "peacekeeping" in western Sudan?
This morning I've done some Google searching and found the answer. It is, unfortunately, the latter. Since at least last year Working Assets has been urging people to petition President Bush to support "urgent international action" through the UN to "protect innocent civilians" in Darfur. Plainly the organization finds no contradiction between opposing imperialist military deployment in Iraq and supporting it in Sudan. Nor, perhaps, do many of those marching in Washington D.C. today to demand such U.S. intervention.
For many months now I've occasionally received emails asking me, "Why are you spending so much time attacking Bush Middle East policy, and ignoring the atrocities in Darfur?" There are many reasons I haven't written on it, including the fact that I put opposing imperialist wars with their murderous consequences at the top of my list of things to do in my spare time, and the fact that I haven't much studied the situation in Darfur. But I've sensed for awhile that some forces are using the alleged "genocide" in that region to divert attention from the ongoing slaughter in Iraq (and ongoing brutalization of the Palestinians by Israel), and to depict another targeted Arab regime as so villainous as to require what the neocons call "regime change." They've mischaracterized the conflict as one between "Arabs" and "indigenous Africans" whereas (as I understand it) all parties involved are Arabic-speaking black Africans---"Arab" "African" and "black" being distinctions more complicated than most Americans realize.
I'd ask those holding those signs yesterday to recall that in November 2001 a general at the Pentagon told Gen. Wesley Clark that in the wake of 9-11 the administration had "a five-year campaign plan" to attack not only Afghanistan but "Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Somalia." I'd ask Working Assets to observe that the Iraq War it opposes and the Sudan intervention is endorses are in fact part of that same empire-building campaign plan.
Click the above link to read the rest...
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp05022006.html
May 2, 2006
"Out of Iraq, Into Darfur"
Just Saying No to Imperial Intervention in Sudan
By GARY LEUPP
At the huge, inspiring antiwar march in New York yesterday, I noticed many placards with the massage, "Out of Iraq, Into Darfur." They were held by members of a group called "Volunteer for Change," described as "a project of Working Assets." I wasn't sure what to make of the slogan. Was it somehow satirical, playing on "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" and warning about a future Somalia-like intervention in Africa? Or was this really a call to take U.S. troops out of Iraq and deploy them instead in "humanitarian" "peacekeeping" in western Sudan?
This morning I've done some Google searching and found the answer. It is, unfortunately, the latter. Since at least last year Working Assets has been urging people to petition President Bush to support "urgent international action" through the UN to "protect innocent civilians" in Darfur. Plainly the organization finds no contradiction between opposing imperialist military deployment in Iraq and supporting it in Sudan. Nor, perhaps, do many of those marching in Washington D.C. today to demand such U.S. intervention.
For many months now I've occasionally received emails asking me, "Why are you spending so much time attacking Bush Middle East policy, and ignoring the atrocities in Darfur?" There are many reasons I haven't written on it, including the fact that I put opposing imperialist wars with their murderous consequences at the top of my list of things to do in my spare time, and the fact that I haven't much studied the situation in Darfur. But I've sensed for awhile that some forces are using the alleged "genocide" in that region to divert attention from the ongoing slaughter in Iraq (and ongoing brutalization of the Palestinians by Israel), and to depict another targeted Arab regime as so villainous as to require what the neocons call "regime change." They've mischaracterized the conflict as one between "Arabs" and "indigenous Africans" whereas (as I understand it) all parties involved are Arabic-speaking black Africans---"Arab" "African" and "black" being distinctions more complicated than most Americans realize.
I'd ask those holding those signs yesterday to recall that in November 2001 a general at the Pentagon told Gen. Wesley Clark that in the wake of 9-11 the administration had "a five-year campaign plan" to attack not only Afghanistan but "Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Somalia." I'd ask Working Assets to observe that the Iraq War it opposes and the Sudan intervention is endorses are in fact part of that same empire-building campaign plan.
Click the above link to read the rest...