I was stunned at some of the comments that were made in regards to the plight of the Darfurians. I pray that help comes before its too late. I have found that SOME people are so callous and hateful in their opinions and my question would be this, what if the shoe was on the other foot? When will we stop frivously spending money on things that really amount to little or nothing with no reward? I thought we believed in helping people in need, not shunning them and saying oh well, let someone else do it. It just makes me cringe at the thought that somebody's daughter is being raped and mutilated at this very moment, that someone's husband will never return or that the well water is no longer any good and the food has been taken away; it hurts to see that what was once a striving working class of people have been virtually destroyed for no reason.

Hopefully, someone will find it in their hearts to humble themselves and pray and turn from callous ways.

While we are waiting for the US to turn up the hear on Khartoum, here are two things everyone can do today:

Visit The Darfur Wall - http://darfurwall.org/a/dan - and donate one dollar to light a number on the wall. Join thousands of others in opposing the genocide.

Visit the Fidelity Out of Sudan website - http://fidelityoutofsudan.net/ This divestment project is gaining speed. If we can make Fidelity divest if will make a real difference. You don’t need to be a fidelity investor to participate.

Thanks,
Dan Burke, Director
The Darfur Wall

Zathras:

In your response, you did not provide any evidence for your original claim which was that Sudan enjoyed unqualified backing from every other Arab government.

There are 21 Arab states besides Sudan, so why don't you list the unqualified backing for Sudan from every single one of them?

Obviously you can't because I am sure that you would not be able to even list the names of those 21 states let alone be familiar with the policies of each one of their independent (and corrupt) governments.

And I of course assume that you can't even read Arabic, yet you come here to lecture people on the state of affairs of Arabs and their media.

Imagine if I had to comment on US media or US affairs without knowing English or without being familiar with the United States (aka living in it).

Let's be honest; if I asked you to list the major Arab newspapers in every Arab country, you wouldn't be able to list them. I personally do not know what the major newspapers are in Sudan. Seeing how you speak about Sudan, one would assume that you are familiar with the country, am I wrong?

The problem with views like yours is that they really are based on prejudice and some kind of bigotry. There is a template of the Arab behavior imagined in your heads that you simply apply to anything that goes by the name Arab.

Don't get me wrong, you are more than welcome to comment on our affairs. The Arab world is not only the hot spot for news, think-tank studies, election slogans, it has also become a play-field for few western armies (led by the US) to try out their sophisticated weaponry.

To answer the rest of your post regarding Arab attitude towards Sudan, there is an explanation to that and it is not exclusive to Arabs as you make it sound.

1- Sudanese conflict is internal. Anyone familiar with Sudan's recent history knows that the central government is very weak. You are probably thinking it is like other few authoritarian Arab governments that control the country quite well. That's not the case in Sudan.

2- This is not an Arab government attacking another Arab state. When that happened, for instance in the case of Iraq against Kuwait, Arab states supported the UN mandate to remove Iraqi presence from Kuwait.

3- It is complicated because there is no illegal foreign occupying force to remove. Whether we like it or not, the Sudanese government is legitimate.

4- When foreign countries, especially non-Arab, attack Arabs, then it is perceived to be worse. That's not exclusive to Arabs. When 2 Israeli were kidnapped by Hezbollah, Israel killed 1000 Lebanese civilians, bombed Beirut, destroyed most highways, airports, seaports and littered southern Lebanon with close to 1 million bomblets. The US government was happy with the response and most US media tried to put it in "context".

5- I do agree with the views expressed in your links but that's a universal problem.

My post upthread was intended to suggest a course of action for American diplomacy, one that I believe holds greater promise of producing progress on the Darfur situation than the ineffectual course pursued to date or the one urged by the authors of the main post.

Progress in this context means reducing the odds that many thousands of Muslims will be murdered, raped, starved or driven into exile in the next few months. Karim, upthread, suspects the motives of those who propose interfering with the Arab government of Sudan's campaign of extermination. He should be aware that this coin has two sides.

Even the infrequent commentary about Darfur in the Arab press has now and again noted the double standard applied to Arabs claiming victimhood at the hands of non-Arabs on the one hand and non-Arabs persecuted by Arabs on the other, as here -- http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=5593 -- and here -- http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/704/fr3.htm. It's not a new observation, and the Arab responses to it are not new either. Darfur is complicated. Outsiders don't understand the complexity. So hundreds of thousands of Darfuris have already been murdered, what about the Palestinians?

Transparent evasions these are, excuses for Arab tolerance of mass murder as long as an Arab government sponsors it. If I thought the Arab world had no capacity at all for shame at the disgraceful course Arab governments -- and most Arab media as well -- have followed with respect to the Darfur genocide I would not bother advocating a policy of confrontation now. It may be that I am wrong, and that Arabs will unite to speak against efforts to stop a deliberate slaughter of Muslims as the government of Qatar did recently on the UN Security Council. That would be useful to know as well. Muslims outside the Arab countries should be told about it.

But I rather think that making a major diplomatic issue of Arab tolerance for Arab genocide would prompt a reassessment of Arab support for what nearly everyone agrees is an odious government. The hour is very late for any diplomatic initiative on Darfur; to have any chance of success, such an initiative must recognize why Sudan feels able maintain its insolent defiance.

Thanks for your post Nathan, I read your response.

Please allow me to correct few misconceptions:

Arabist means "a scholar who specializes in Arab languages and culture":

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/arabist

The janjaweed are therefore not Arabists but rather Arabs.

It is also inaccurate to frame the conflict between Arabs and blacks. I think this is why many of us believe the whole saveDarfur campaign is, among other things, motivated (or started at least) more by hate for Arabs than anything else.

Sudanese are ethnically black. The name Sudan or Sudanese actually comes from Arabic "Sud" which literally means black.

So please let's stop with this non-sense of Arabs vs Blacks. It is Arab-Blacks vs non-Arab Blacks. Each time I read this crap, I can't help but wonder if these people have a CLUE of what they are talking about.

I have said this many times so I will repeat it again for the sake of everyone reading this:

Arabs are a diverse ethnic group: There are white Arabs (many found in the Levant: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Occupied territories) and Black Arabs (many found in Sub-Saharan Africa: Sudan, Mauritania, North Africa) and many in between found everywhere.

The "save darfur" issue was not started by the government.

There is no way to deny the fact that It was initially started by organizations who happen to be staunch supporters of Israel and mostly religious (Jewish but not Tikkun-like), and most importantly not a single African-American organization, not even one.

The way I analyzed this is by looking at the reaction it generated from people. I have read many blogs covering this issue, engaged few, and to my great surprise most people have turned this issue into an Arab-bashing venue. I was often told that racist Arabs are killing blacks, and that Arabs have no right to talk about Palestinians when this is happening, etc.

After the media picked up the issue (it was hungry for some Arab bashing to balance out the killings going on in Iraq), few politicians joined in (among them the shameful it-was-worth-the-price Albright) and later on other non-Jewish organizations joined in, including mainstream Muslim and Arab ones (which is good in my opinion, it will help contain the Arab bashing).

One the campaign picked up momentum among many groups, the US government joined them.

Now, as a human being and as Arab, I am totally against what goes on in Darfur but I was hesitant in joining groups that were using this crisis to spread prejudice and hatred against my people.

There are few groups who use the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation to denigrate the Jewish people, would you join them?

I wrote this letter recently challenging the Socialist Worker's general position against military intervention in Darfur. See also today's story in the Post about Sudanese soldiers in Chad.

http://socialistworker.org/2006-2/605/605_08_ViewsInBrief.shtml#Darfur

Darfur unfortuantely becoming a political test case. Human tradgedy is being kept behind and nationalism, relgion and race is getting the front head line. a simple fact is the murder is murder, death of a human being weather black or white is a tradgedy.

this is really sad that human tradgedies are judged on global political prospective and not addressed as loss of human soul.

irrespective of any human loss weather in darfur or iraq or bali should be stopped and the murderer to be punished as per universal and local laws. this is a simple truth.

you are correct that the UN is becoming a weak organization which is only good for debates, media shows and conferences. therefore any permanant solution for any crisis can not be expected from this forum

pushing US for openiing one more front is not a practical solution. no matter how much noble is the cause foreign troops completely aliented with local customs will not recieve welcome note.

darfur is basically an arab and african problem. regional countries should come up for immidate solution, an impartial enquiry which is acceptable to international community and immidate relief for sufferers is the minimum requirement.

US can facilitate behind the curtain with its arab allies to take the initiative.

your argument of putting pressures by imposing economic sanctions on khartoum government is very sorry to say will only make the life more miserable for ordinary citizens which are already living well below poverty line.

the rulers of course will keep on enjoying every possible comfirt avialable.

Chris Ford: On point as usual. I certainly agree with you.

Gabe: As Karim mentions, this is a very complex affair and waving the genocide flag does nothing to simplify or explain it. You have to recognize that this is a long standing civil war, a revolt by the mainly Christian black population in the South against the mainly Muslim Arab population in the North. Further, you have competing rebel groups whose behaviour has been known to be as brutal as anything coming from the Janajaweed.

I see no reason for us to get involved in the internal affairs of Sudan; we are already fully occupied with our misguided intervention into the internal affairs of Iraq.

Zathras:

You claimed that:

"The regime in Khartoum has enjoyed the unqualified backing of every other Arab government since it began its campaign in Darfur."

Can you post some evidence or examples?

The nature of the Arab governments is that they don't get involved much in other Arab countries internal affairs.

Isn't it accurate to say the US government enjoyed backing from most Arab governments in its war against Iraq?

Let me remind you and others who come here to lecture us Arabs about our governments that we didn't even elect or support:

1- No Arab government is selling weapons to Sudan. The US has been supplying Israel weapons even during its campaign against Lebanon (1000 Lebanese deaths vs 50 Israeli)

2- No Arab government is giving logistical support for the Sudanese government. Few Arab governments have and still provide logistical support for the US war effort in Iraq that has killed over 600,000 people.

3- Most Arab governments are providing logistical support for the US government war on terror effort. This include torturing suspects for the US government (Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, etc).

4- Our shameful Arab governments have always cooperated with western demands led by the US government including imposing harsh sanctions on Iraq that killed many of its children. The Arab governments also complied when sanctions on Libya were imposed.

Do you still think that these Arab officials care about any of this?

They don't. They are like US officials who pick and choose their "humanitarian missions" according to their political motives.

In sub-saharan Africa, about 4 million children die every year because of preventable diseases and hunger.

The case of Darfur is complicated.

I think the fact that the Sudanese government has not been cooperating with the US government on the war on terror and the fact that it opposed the war on Iraq publicly, has a lot to do with the position of the US government on this issue.

Many groups (virtually no black organizations) in the US who campaigned for Darfur have misrepresented the conflict and have tried to use it as a tool to denigrate Arabs and Muslims (like you do here), and nothing else. It is hard to believe that pretty much no black organization is involved in this and that it is also strange that many of these groups are staunch supporters of Israel.

Arab governments did nothing when the US government was bombing Iraq, why do you think they should act any different with Sudan?

I am waiting for your responses.

I appreciate the authors' motives, but wish they had paused a moment to think about what they mean by "the international community."

As a rule, where a human rights issue is involved the international community consists of the democracies in North America, Europe, the Pacific and a few other places. It is able to cow or browbeat isolated governments engaged in particularly egregious practices, especially if it spots them early enough. Sudan's war against civilians in Darfur, as the author observe, has been going on since 2003, but the bigger problem is that Sudan is not isolated.

The regime in Khartoum has enjoyed the unqualified backing of every other Arab government since it began its campaign in Darfur. Though oil is priced at about $60/barrel on the world market and has been higher recently, nearly all the humanitarian aid for the victims of Darfur has come from the United States and other Western countries. It is true that the Khartoum government is not strong enough to stand on its own against pressure from a united West -- but it doesn't have to.

It is on one level a bizarre situation, in that Sudan's murderous war on civilians -- nearly all of them Muslims -- does not obviously serve the interests of any other Arab government. One would think that at least some of them would be ashamed to be associated with an atrocity on this scale, for religious reasons alone. One would be wrong.

Perhaps this is because neither Western governments nor the Western media nor the aid groups have thus far challenged Arab governments to take responsibility for what one of their own is doing. Instead they have challenged Western governments already mired in the Balkans, in Afghanistan and in the case of America in Iraq to take sole responsibility for a crisis not of their making, in a part of the world in which they have no historic interests. Evaluate the morality of this any way you want to, but if these challenges could bring progress on Darfur they would have done so two years ago.

Darfur is not the only situation in which the international community requires local support for its pressure to be effective in stopping an atrocity. Zimbabwe's government could not have assaulted -- repeatedly -- the non-Shona elements of its country's population and wrecked its country's economy in the face of South African opposition, but the South African government has chosen a path of solidarity with Zimbabwe's big men instead. China has enabled North Korea's outrages on its own people for decades. You know the world is in a bad way when Nigeria is a role model.

I hate to be so negative about a situation now become a grave crisis. The fact remains that unless Sudan's alliances can be undermined, unless genocide sponsored by an Arab government is made an issue for all the others, the killing in Darfur will continue until the Darfuris are all slaves, exiles, or dead.

Noble motives? Think again.

A quick search on the "International Crisis Group" yields the following:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Crisis_Group

Please read the names of US board members. Of the 12 individuals, 6 are former high-ranking US officials including a military official, and they include PNAC member Kenneth Adelman whose profile can be read here:

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/982

In my opinion, this organization is hardly an NGO but rather an extension of the government. Through their connections and influences in the government, these former government officials channel government grants and money towards these so-called NGOs.

On the issue of Darfur, check the NGO's position on the Palestinian conflict which has been going on for decades as opposed to the recent Darfur crisis:

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4427&l=1

As of today, there are over 2.5 million Palestinian refugees (registered with the UN) many of which are still living under the Israeli military in the territories and banned, along with others, by the Israeli government from returning to their villages/homes in Israel.

While the Israeli government is in clear violation of numerous UN resolutions and that the occupation has been going on for 39 years, note the toned-down "diplomatic" response the NGO suggested for the Israeli government. There is not even a hint of some weapon related sanctions against the Israeli government let alone anything close to what they are suggesting against the Sudanese government (which, for the record, I don't support or defend).

No one is talking about Palestinian suffering (millions are to this day without a passport or any basic right in the territories), rather it is now "the on-going conflict encourages extremism" type of reasoning. The daily suffering of Palestinians is not as important, and in fact, it never was for these NGOs.

How much longer can these organizations ,that hide behind the NGO cover, can hide their double-standards, their complicity in the suffering of millions of people and their selective "noble causes"?

For the Darfur refugee problem, why not try the Israeli approach? just deport everyone to Chad or other African states, and then blame these states for not doing enough to absorb the refugees.

When governments like the US and its proxy NGOs (like this one) get involved in these conflicts, it becomes harder for us Arabs (who are fighting Arab governments violation of human rights) to make our case and convince average people to stand up to these crimes.

If we value our own ideals of freedom and liberty, we will not sit idly by while fellow humans suffer a genocide at the hands of ruthless, unaccountable tyrants.

Helping the innocent victims of Darfur wouldn't even require us to send troops. We would just need to exert political pressure and perhaps send a couple hundred advisors, all in the name of the right of humans everywhere to live free from tyranny and oppression.

Instead of listing reasons why we can't help, we should be searching for reasons that we should help. This is hardly an obligation that is beyond our capacity right now. This would represent a fraction of the money and political capital that we as a nation have available to make the world a better place.

I am embarrassed that my nation can spend $2B a week in Iraq, but we can't find a one-time payment of a few hundred million dollars to help end a conflict that has already claimed upwards of half a million lives. Never-mind how a stable and functional East Africa is in our national interests. Helping Darfur is in our human interests. We cannot seriously lay claim to moral righteousness as we sit passively on the sidelines, failing to utilize our ability to stop this genocide.

If we value our own ideals of freedom and liberty, we will not sit idly by while fellow humans suffer a genocide at the hands of ruthless, unaccountable tyrants.

Helping the innocent victims of Darfur wouldn't even require us to send troops. We would just need to exert political pressure and perhaps send a couple hundred advisors, all in the name of the right of humans everywhere to live free from tyranny and oppression.

Instead of listing reasons why we can't help, we should be searching for reasons that we should help. This is hardly an obligation that is beyond our capacity right now. This would represent a fraction of the money and political capital that we as a nation have available to make the world a better place.

I am embarrassed that my nation can spend $2B a week in Iraq, but we can't find a one-time payment of a few hundred million dollars to help end a conflict that has already claimed upwards of half a million lives. Never-mind how a stable and functional East Africa is in our national interests. Helping Darfur is in our human interests. We cannot seriously lay claim to moral righteousness as we sit passively on the sidelines, failing to utilize our ability to stop this genocide.

Thomas-Jensen and Mr. Prendergast have noble motives, but the US plate is full.

We have enough challenges with Iran, Iraq, the sadly misnamed WOT, Israel-Palestine mess, Venezuela-Cuba led mischief in Latin Lamerica, unchecked illegal immigration, massive debt, N Korea, Afghanistan, and rising China and a revanchist Russia without trying for "taking charge" the 12th simultaneous crisis (Darfur) or 13th (Congo).

Let a well-off, well-fed nation essentially doing NOTHING in the way of crisis intervention at present time (Sweden, China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, etc.) try to take the lead. [And let's not forget Germany and France and Japan - which send money but who have only token numbers of troops helping overseas].

We have a divided country and are bashed by liberal NGOs for ANY THING we do in the way of interventions or help. We were even bashed for our assistance in the Pak earthquake, the 2004 Tsunami, Katrina, The same NGOs and countries that fairly much have sat on their butts ever since joining the UN also seek to find and punish any US misteps with criminal charges in any intervention we do.

If we went into Darfur, they would eagerly look forward to having Draft indictments or harshly critical press releases ready.

So let them find a new whipping boy if they want Darfur fixed. Pick another leader to "guide" the dysfunctional UN and the "attack" NGOs. It's not on us anymore...If no one else steps up, too bad for the Darfurans, but Its-Not-Our-Problem.