Well I voted for Bush last elections and as i am a young professional send me the 250 dollars instead.
I have no problem for blaming the sudanese government. But you cant blame an entire creed for the actions of a few. Its like saying all americans are part of the KKK.
^ This is beyond the Sudanese gov't..they are ofcourse guilty of this. But the arab militia is the main culprit, whose ideology is derived from idiotic interpretation of religious doctrines. Thus their penchant for slavery....
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Matsui: *
^ This is beyond the Sudanese gov't..they are ofcourse guilty of this. But the arab militia is the main culprit, whose ideology is derived from idiotic interpretation of religious doctrines. Thus their penchant for slavery....
[/QUOTE]
And Communism is derived from idiotic interpretations of economics and sociology. The Nazis had some funny interpretations of purely secular things, too. Really, does the fact that idiots are able to abuse a thing devalue that thing? Or does it devalue those idiots and their abused interpretations?
Sudan is a shame with little that can be done about it substantively. That sucks, but it's the world we've made.
The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.... - Chancellor Adolf Hitler's Proclaimation to the German Nation, Feb 1, 1933/
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - President James Madison, while a United States Congressman
So much for ideology eh Matsui?
^ that would suggest that some ideologies are faulty to begin with like those followed by th arab militia and of course your hero Adolph HItler.
As far as Madison's qoute, that is great. Thank god we don;t have any such issues to deal with.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Matsui: *
^ that would suggest that some ideologies are faulty to begin with like those followed by th arab militia and of course your hero Adolph HItler.
As far as Madison's qoute, that is great. Thank god we don;t have any such issues to deal with.
[/QUOTE]
Once again you miss the point. The two quotes are directly related to the Bush regime. Have you read the patriot acts? I have and they violate the bill or rights in many regards. But the point was a simplistic one, any ideology can be corrupted. After all the Hindus did it in destorying a mosque. Just like the Taliban did to the Bhuddas.
I too have read the patriot acts and I am glad that we have such laws now in practice to weed out and eliminate the elements which are hell bent on destroying our way of life. If it is a little discomfort for the short term, I am willing to live with it as are many Americans. There are americans who don;t feel the same way, that is their viewpoint. They should go to the ballot box and change the status quo. That is why those two quotes have nothing to do with the Bush regime.
Also, this is about Sudan, how the arab terrorist militias are commiting genocide while the western world is once again being asked to step in. WHle the daily calls for jihad go on the muslim world, there is no one who is willing to wrao a suicide belt and blow up a few of these arab animals. Selective morality, once again.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Matsui: *
^ that would suggest that some ideologies are faulty to begin with like those followed by th arab militia and of course your hero Adolph HItler.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe you're right on that.. that would suggest then that these abuses of religion/ideology have become separate ideologies of their own, corrupted from the start.
On Sudan, though. I think it would be a good thing if Muslims could organize themselves better (by better I mean bigger, more efficient and more PR) and step in the middle of this to mediate a conclusion. I think it'd be great if Muslims could do this not only with Sudan, not only in places involving Muslims, but anywhere stuff happens. .. OK, think I'm sounding muddy now.. what I mean by "Muslims" is citizens of Muslim countries with lousy govts. The idea is that those people organize under a noble cause outside of their own borders, build experience, networks, resources, etc.. weasel funds out of their govt and get their govt committed to reform activities abroad and then let it rub off on the homeland. Eh, I'm having trouble making sense of this in words right now....
Here is the final installment from Kristoff. A harrowing read. I think it is time for the arabs to get some dignity back by doing something about it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/23/opinion/23KRIS.html
Magboula’s Brush With Genocide
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: June 23, 2004
ALONG THE SUDAN-CHAD BORDER — Meet Magboula Muhammad Khattar and her baby, Nada.
I wrote about Ms. Khattar in my last two columns, recounting how the Janjaweed Arab militia burned her village, murdered her parents and finally tracked her family down in the mountains. Ms. Khattar hid, but the Janjaweed caught her husband and his brothers, only 4, 6 and 8 years old, and killed them all.
Ms. Khattar decided that the only hope for saving her two daughters and her baby sister was to lead them by night to Chad. They had to avoid wells where the Janjaweed kept watch, but eight days later, half-dead with hunger and thirst, they staggered across the dry riverbed that marks the border with Chad.
That’s where I found Ms. Khattar. She is part of a wave of 1.2 million people left homeless by the genocide in Darfur.
Among those I met was Haiga Ibrahim, a 16-year-old girl who said her father and three older brothers had been killed by the Janjaweed. So Haiga led her crippled mother and younger brothers and sisters to Chad. But the place they reached along the border, Bamina, was too remote to get help from overtaxed aid agencies.
So when I found her, Haiga was leading her brothers and sisters 30 miles across the desert to the town of Bahai. “My mother can’t walk any more,” she said wearily. “First I’m taking my brother and sisters, and then I hope to go back and bring my mother.”
There is no childhood here. I saw a 4-year-old orphan girl, Nijah Ahmed, carrying her 13-month-old brother, Nibraz, on her back. Their parents and 15-year-old brother are missing in Sudan and presumed dead.
As for Ms. Khattar, she is camping beneath a tree, sharing the shade with three other women also widowed by the Janjaweed. In some ways Ms. Khattar is lucky; her children all survived. Moreover, in some Sudanese tribes, widows must endure having their vaginas sewn shut to preserve their honor, but that is not true of her Zaghawa tribe.
Ms. Khattar’s children have nightmares, their screams at night mixing with the yelps of jackals, and she worries that she will lose them to hunger or disease. But her plight pales beside that of Hatum Atraman Bashir, a 35-year-old woman who is pregnant with the baby of one of the 20 Janjaweed raiders who murdered her husband and then gang-raped her.
Ms. Bashir said that when the Janjaweed attacked her village, Kornei, she fled with her seven children. But when she and a few other mothers crept out to find food, the Janjaweed captured them and tied them on the ground, spread-eagled, then gang-raped them.
"They said, You are black women, and you are our slaves,' and they also said other bad things that I cannot repeat," she said, crying softly. "One of the women cried, and they killed her. Then they told me, If you cry, we will kill you, too.’ " Other women from Kornei confirm her story and say that another woman who was gang-raped at that time had her ears partly cut off as an added humiliation.
One moment Ms. Bashir reviles the baby inside her. The next moment, she tearfully changes her mind. “I will not kill the baby,” she said. “I will love it. This baby has no problem, except for his father.”
Ms. Khattar, the orphans, Ms. Bashir and countless more like them have gone through hell in the last few months, as we have all turned our backs — and the rainy season is starting to make their lives even more miserable. In my next column, I’ll suggest what we can do to save them. For readers eager to act now, some options are at www.nytimes.com/kristofresponds, Posting 479.
Here’s an idea towards a solution from John McCain (damn, aren’t there any other Senators in America?):
The U.N. Security Council should demand that the Sudanese government immediately stop all violence against civilians, disarm and disband its militias, allow full humanitarian access, and let displaced persons return home. Should the government refuse to reverse course, its leadership should face targeted multilateral sanctions and visa bans. Peacekeeping troops should be deployed to Darfur to protect civilians and expedite the delivery of humanitarian aid, and we should encourage African, European and Arab countries to contribute to these forces.
The United States must stand ready to do what it can to stop the massacres. In addition to pushing the U.N. Security Council to act, we should provide financial and logistical support to countries willing to provide peacekeeping forces. The United States should initiate its own targeted sanctions against the Janjaweed and government leaders, and consider other ways we can increase pressure on the government. We must also continue to tell the world about the murderous activities in which these leaders are engaged, and make clear to all that this behavior is totally unacceptable.
And a lefty’s reaction:
This is pretty weak brew, seeing as how the genocide in Sudan is actually unfolding before our eyes, rather than, as in Iraq, being something that took place years ago. A prominent US official is calling for other countries to intervene militarily while we “provide financial and logistical support.” Why shouldn’t we do more? The answer, of course, is that our ground forces are stuck in Iraq participating in a mission that’s under-manned as it is. …
That’s a cute rebuttal, but I’d take McCain’s idea over nothing. Not that there’d be much difference in practice.
Spoon, while all that is great in how the west is going to help the olks being systematically ethnically cleansed byt he arabs, what are the uslims going to do? Sit on their ass and blame the west as usual? Act like Ostriches for the vermin within? Because that seems like the status quo. From Philippines to the US, there are folks that are anachronistic in design.
I hope more aid comes…
Kuwait Sends Second Aid Convoy To Darfur
The situation in Darfur needs real human will to help those affected
By Ragab El-Damanhori, IOL Correspondent
KUWAIT CITY, June 18 (IslamOnline.net) - Kuwait has sent its second aid convoy to Darfur, as more humanitarian relief supplies are still badly needed to end a humanitarian crisis gripping the strife-torn western Sudanese region.
Fifteen tones of tents, 40 tones of corn products and 20 tones of wheat were aired to Al-Fashir city, for distribution among the local inhabitants of the northwestern historical caravan center in Darfur.
The Kuwaiti plane also carried 520,000 Sudanese pounds-worth of medical stuff and oil components for other residents of Darfur, where international aid workers have long complained from failure to reach many victims despite repeated requests for access made to the Sudanese government.
The aid convoy by the Kuwaiti Direct Aid Committee (For African Muslims) is the second in less than three months. In March, the relief group sent 60 tones of supplies to the conflict-scarred region.
“Spider Web”
In the meantime, the Joint Kuwaiti Committee for Relief - which groups Kuwaiti relief organizations - sent its deputy chairman to Darfur to assess the latest developments in the turbulent region.
The deputy, Badr Al-Shamroukh, told IOL he was horrified by what he had seen of gruesome scenes and tough living conditions in Darfur.
“More than 13 people live in a one meter-high ramshackle hut. It is the same as the spider web,” Al-Shamroukh told IslamOnline.net upon return.
The Kuwaiti relief official also visited camps of refugees, and met with officials in the region.
An estimated 670,000 people have fled their homes in Darfur, and about 110,000 people from the region have sought refuge in neighboring Chad since the middle of last year.
"There is a precarious situation in Darfur, and a humanitarian crisis looms larger with the beginning of the rainfall season which is anticipated to obstruct access to the needy.
“The rainfall will destroy these huts, and will leave their occupiers in the open with no shelter to resort to for protection.”
Al-Shamroukh said children in Darfur are the most to bear the brunt, as they are soft targets for infectious diseases carried by the large number of insects.
The relief official believed that Darfur still needs 30,000 tents and huge amounts of medicine and pesticides, in addition to means to dig wells in the area for water resources. He urged more help from the Kuwaiti government.
“People in Darfur are on the rocks. Words still fail me.”
Two rebel groups in Darfur - the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) - took up arms last year, accusing the central government in Khartoum of ignoring the region.
A ceasefire was signed between the government and the rebels on April 8, to allow humanitarian aid to reach those affected.
But the rebels still accuse the government of consistently breaking the truce by bombing villages and backing armed militia in the area, a charge repudiated by Khartoum.
Human rights groups and U.N. aid workers have accused government-backed militia of killing, raping and looting local inhabitants from four local ethnic groups and systematically forcing them out of their villages in Darfur.
Similar accounts of attacks have also been given by some of the refugees, who told U.N. aid workers in recent weeks that Sudanese border patrols were stopping more people from fleeing.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan warned in April that the international community must be ready to take decisive action against Sudan, including possible military force, if Khartoum denies aid workers access to Darfur.
On Friday, June 18, Annan declared he would pay a fact-finding mission to Darfur.
A great article, not just on Sudan, but on precisely how the carrot and stick approach of diplomacy works. Armchair critics can argue either side, that the US is not involved enough, or that the country is suffering sanctions, or that the war on terror is hurting innocents. But the process of coaxing, prodding, and cajolling a reluctant government towards doing the right thing is a complex long term effort. For those that think that US policies should be black and white, or that North Korea must be exactly like Iraq, read about the intracracies of working with irresponsible governments…
What drives US policy in Sudan?
By Elizabeth Blunt
BBC Africa analyst
The US has praised Sudan over its help with extremists
The US Secretary of State is in western Sudan to see for himself an area where more than a million people have been forced from their homes.
Colin Powell warned of action against Sudan if security in the Darfur province is not restored.
But why is the United States so interested in Sudan?
The relationship between Sudan and the United States is a curious one.
The Americans still list Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, and formal diplomatic ties are at very low level.
Yet by deploying a mixture of aid and sanctions, Washington has brought about major changes of policy in Khartoum.
The US government has been the godparent of the peace agreement that seems finally to have ended the war in the south of Sudan.
Cynics often claim American foreign policy is driven by oil.
Sudan does have oil, and African producers are an alternative to the increasingly turbulent Middle East.
But southern Sudan is never going to be a cheap or easy place to produce.
Co-operative
Other issues are more likely to be driving Washington’s policy.
One is the pressure from right-wing Christian groups in the US, who have taken up the cause of their fellow Christians in Sudan.
Their nagging - on the issues of slavery and the forcible imposition of Sharia law - helped get sanctions imposed on Sudan in 1997.
But the most urgent driving force is likely to be Sudan’s place in President Bush’s war against terrorism.
It has a radical Islamist government which hosted Osama Bin Laden in the early 90s; a number of attacks against US interests were planned from Sudan.
Since then the Americans have worked hard at persuading Khartoum to be more co-operative.
Osama Bin Laden was expelled, training camps were closed, and the US state department says Sudan has “deepened its cooperation in investigating and arresting extremists”.
Colin Powell now has to tread a fine line between putting pressure on the Sudanese government over its activities in Darfur, and driving it back into the arms of America’s enemies.
The UN has finally gotten the Sudanese government to agree to have the militia disarmed. Let us all pray that this ceasefire comes into play, despite the continuous violence in Darfur.
Sudan pledges to disarm militias
Sudan says it will begin to disarm Arab militias who have forced an estimated million people from their homes in the western Darfur region.
The pledge followed a meeting between Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who has finished touring Dafur.
There have been several high-level visits to the Dafur region this week.
But UN official Jan Egeland has warned Sudan officials may be unable to control the “monster” they had created.
‘Aid looted’
Although the Sudanese government and rebel groups have signed a ceasefire, daily violence continues in Darfur.
Mr Egeland who is leading the UN’s emergency relief has said they had reports of villages in northern Darfur being bombed and four lorries carrying aid for different humanitarian agencies had been looted at gunpoint.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
The Sudanese have agreed to remove obstacles to humanitarian aid following complaints that aid workers have been stopped from going to the region.
Washington earlier threatened to impose sanctions against Sudan if officials did not curb the militias.
Some one million people have fled their homes in the Darfur region and at least 10,000 have already died in a conflict in which the Janjaweed Arab militia has been accused of “ethnic cleansing”.
The UN has warned that the refugees could die from famine and disease unless they are allowed to return home.
Refugee camps
About 200,000 Sudanese are reported to be seeking refuge at Camp Iridimi, Chad, near the border with Sudan.
They told a correspondent from AP news agency that their settlements were first bombed by airplanes and helicopters.
Aza Jumah Tedel
Aid worker’s diary
Militiamen then arrived burning down their houses, killing and raping.
“They killed my husband. They killed my children. They burned my house. They stole my cattle,” said Aza Jumah Tedel.
Mr Egeland said the refugees had been “hunted down by the most hideous campaign of terror”.
Human rights groups say the authorities have given support to the militias, a charge officials deny.
“The government of Sudan commits itself to… immediately start to disarm the Janjaweed and other armed outlaw groups,” the joint Khartoum UN statement said.
A spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch Jemera Rone told the BBC’s World Today programme that Sudan’s government “rarely ever” honoured its promises.
“Their track record is very poor. They prefer to promise… and later go to do whatever they set out to do to begin with.”
Peace talks
Negotiations between the warring groups in the Darfur region and the Khartoum government are due to take place in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa on 15 July.
But a spokesman for one of the groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) told AFP news agency on Saturday that they would not be attending.
“These negotiations are coming too quickly, since several of the points in the ceasefire accord of 8 April have not been respected, like the creation of a humanitarian corridor and the disarming of the Janjaweed,” Abdallah Abdel Kerim told the agency.
On his visit, Mr Annan called on Sudan to take swift action by disarming the Janjaweed and ensuring refugees can receive aid and return home.
“My message is simple,” he said, “violence must stop.”
Darfur walon ka kiya ho ga?
:(
Sadly, many thousands have now perished in the humanitarian disaster affecting Sudan. The UN has again urgently requested emergency Aid from International donors.
“The World Health Organisation estimates that an additional 10 000 people a month will die from malnutrition or health-related problems.” 
Africa faces worst famine in 20 years](http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=136&art_id=vn20041024121643407C124159)* The Sunday Independant, South Africa 24 Oct 04*