A short and succinct letter to the editor in today’s Sydney Morning Herald from Zaid Khan puts things into perspective:

Nearly 70 years ago, in a small eastern European city, an oppressed and occupied people were under siege, living under atrocious and brutal conditions, lacking food, medicine, electricity, water, and slowly being strangled in the hope they would just disappear.

Warsaw Ghetto 1941 - Gaza 2008. Israel, you are a disgrace.

Zaid Khan

What is to be done? Chances are that if you reading this, you already have a good grasp of what is happening. Also avail yourself to first hand accounts from residents in Gaza, such as Tabula Gaza, Raising Yousef–A Mother From Gaza and Dr Mona El Farra’s blog. Spread the word and discuss it with people who may not even know all this is happening or who may uncritically accept the Israeli neocon worldview propagated in some of the major media outlets. Israel is committing slow genocide and ethnic cleansing. A simple yet powerful letter like the one above can ricochet around the world.

Here are some other ways you can help: Read the rest of this entry »

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 »