Bruce Dixon is another who makes the case that the “Save Darfur” campaign is more or less a “humanitarian imperialism” front to be used to justify intended neocon oil and resource wars in the African continent, particularly in the resource-rich Sudan.

Cartoon © Khalil Bendib, All rights reserved. Click on thumbnail for full-size

See also:

IPS, War in the Name of Peace: Interview with Jean Bricmont, author of ‘Humanitarian Imperialism’; Paul de Rooij, “Humanitarian Wars” and Associated Delusions (review of Bricmont); Kevin Funk and Steve Fake, Divestment and Darfur: Solution or Diversion?; The Fanonite, Do-Gooders Gone Bad; Mahmood Mamdani, The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency (and here for an interview on Democracy Now!); Ned Goldstein, Exploiting African Genocide for Propaganda; Roger Howard, Where anti-Arab prejudice and oil make the difference; Alexander Cockburn, Gaza and Darfur: When Will Kristoff Go to the Occupied Territories?; William Reed, How to Save Darfur; Keith Harmon Snow, The US’s War in Darfur.

The star-studded hue and cry to “Save Darfur” and “stop the genocide” has gained enormous traction in U.S. media along with bipartisan support in Congress and the White House. But the Congo, with ten to twenty times as many African dead over the same period is not called a “genocide” and passes almost unnoticed. Sudan sits atop lakes of oil. It has large supplies of uranium, and other minerals, significant water resources, and a strategic location near still more African oil and resources. The unasked question is whether the nation’s Republican and Democratic foreign policy elite are using claims of genocide, and appeals for “humanitarian intervention” to grease the way for the next oil and resource wars on the African continent. Read the rest of this entry »

BAR’s editor Glen Ford lays out in plain terms what current US foreign policy towards Africa means for Somalia.  Audio also available below:

[audio http://peoplesgeography.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/somalia_black-agenda-report.mp3]

U.S-Instigated War Brings Mass Death to Somalia

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“If the rulers of the United States were searching for a plan that would kill hundreds of thousands of Africans, they have found it.”

American foreign policy is the direct cause of the humanitarian crisis in Somalia - the worst in all of Africa, according to United Nations officials. That’s why, until recent days, U.S. corporate media said little or nothing about the hundreds of thousands of Somalis - now numbering at least half a million - who face death by starvation and disease because of a war instigated and facilitated by Washington. The corporate press methodically avoid - and thereby, cover up - stories that contradict the mythical American narrative: that the U.S. means to do good in the world, and only does wrong by mistake. Read the rest of this entry »