[Peace-discuss] Re: hostility towards activists

[Chas. 'Mark' Bee]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
To: <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 9:12 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Re: hostility towards activists


> Washington clearly doesn't think the "possibility [of a UN force in Sudan] 
> has passed."  And if "no one seriously involved in ... policy making on 
> Darfur ever advocated ... an armed invasion of Sudan by the UN," then you 
> must consider the US government not "seriously involved in ... policy making 
> on Darfur."
>
> Good-hearted liberals and those Santayananly unable to learn from history 
> (specifically the Kosovo war -- US policy is so consistent as to be 
> repetitious) continue to give cover to US imperial policy on Africa (e.g., 
> campus die-ins).
>
> Less innocent are those who understand the generally unadvertised policy 
> quite well and support it, notably the embattled Israeli lobby.  The "Save 
> Darfur" coalition, that came to public attention with a rally in Washington 
> last spring featuring George Clooney and Elie Wiesel, "was actually begun 
> exclusively as an initiative of the American Jewish community," according to 
> the Jerusalem Post.
>
> The USG and the lobby have long found the Muslim government of Sudan a 
> convenient hate-object.  (Few Americans remember that the Clinton 
> administration rocketed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan: the result of the 
> loss of medicines has been estimated to include thousands of deaths -- the US 
> blocked a UN attempt to investigate the results.)  Like those other objects 
> of US attack, Serbia and Somalia, Sudan is on the ring around the cynosure of 
> US foreign policy, Mideast energy resources. Two-thirds of its oil goes to 
> China, at a time the US is desperately afraid of the emergence of an 
> independent Asian power grid (the source of the Iran "crisis" and the US 
> nuclear deal with India).  And the atrocities that have resulted from the 
> rebel uprising in Darfur can be presented as an occasion for the USG's 
> propagandistic "global war on terrorism."
>
> Now the well-known Washingtonian poodle, PM Blair of the UK -- 
> practically the only foreign leader supporting George Bush's carnage in 
> Iraq -- is calling for "tougher action" against Sudan.  In a visit to 
> Washington last week, Blair boasted that he told Bush that they had to deal 
> with Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, in the next two to three months. 
> While it lets Blair bloviate (remember Bush's embarrassing "Yo, Blair" 
> open-mike incident, when Blair plead to be allowed to go the Middle East and 
> Bush wouldn't let him), Washington is planning air strikes and a naval 
> blockade.
>
> The Financial Times quotes a US official as saying “The Americans mean 
> business.”  The US is demanding Sudan admit a “hybrid” force of UN and 
> African Union peacekeepers.  Similarly, before the bombing of Serbia, the US 
> demanded that NATO have unchecked access to that country.  It's of course 
> likely that military intervention against Khartoum’s wishes would, among 
> other things, risk destroying a separate North-South agreement that ended 
> decades of civil war last year.  But that's incidental to Washington's goals 
> in Africa.
>
> Regards, CGE
>
> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/aa7683f2-8a1f-11db-ae27-0000779e2340.html

  I've been looking off and on for any historical evidence of a previous UN 
peacekeeping force turning into an economic occupation like we've got in Iraq, 
and haven't been able to find any so far, probably because I can't come up with 
the proper search terms.  Any suggestions?

  Interestingly enough, it looks like the US might not be able to convert this 
mission to an oil pillage without some static - China, for instance, is said to 
be quite invested in the region.  (And, of course, they hold so much of our 
debt they could almost buy this place.)

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0922/p04s01-woaf.html

  Re: Kosovo, I was very interested in a travel article in the now-defunct Hub, 
maybe a year ago, which stated that Americans are seen there as heroes today. 
After seeing the video of a bleeding woman being dragged off the streets by 
passersby with her bags of groceries left behind, due to Milosevich's snipers, 
I wasn't too surprised.