Genocide

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Originally Posted by BlueCat

Still alienating the french I see Psycho :) while they are quite fun to pick on they do provide a lot of fodder. :D

I feel the problems in the world right now are going to be hard enough to solve and it will take all G8 nations.
After what Bush has done to our international relations we can't afford to alienate our allies not even the french ones :)

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Hell BlueCat.......you know I love the French Gov. and how they deal with matters. Lets see what a few others have to say:


France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes. Mark Twain

I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me. General George S. Patton

Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion. Norman Schwartzkopf

The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee. Regis Philbin

You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it. Sen. John McCain

You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses and wears a beret. He is French, people. Conan O'Brien

The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag. David Letterman

France was at the root on Rwanda, same with Sudan.........two genocidal acts in this century. Shouldn't we be getting at the "root" of the problem or at least be making THEM clean it up?

Have a good one!:jointsmile:

Well Psycho as I said before ALL Governments are quilty....BUT I don't vote in France. I am interested in what I can change.

U.S. interest in Sudan

Sudan is the largest country in Africa in area. It is strategically located on the Red Sea, immediately south of Egypt, and borders on seven other African countries. It is about the size of Western Europe but has a population of only 35 million people.

Darfur is the western region of Sudan. It is the size of France, with a population of just 6 million.

Newly discovered resources have made Sudan of great interest to U.S. corporations. It is believed to have oil reserves rivaling those of Saudi Arabia. It has large deposits of natural gas. In addition, it has one of the three largest deposits of high-purity uranium in the world, along with the fourth-largest deposits of copper.

Unlike Saudi Arabia, however, the Sudanese government has retained its independence of Washington. Unable to control Sudanâ??s oil policy, the U.S. imperialist government has made every effort to stop its development of this valuable resource. China, on the other hand, has worked with Sudan in providing the technology for exploration, drilling, pumping and the building of a pipeline and buys much of Sudanâ??s oil.

U.S. policy revolves around shutting down the export of oil through sanctions and inflaming national and regional antagonisms. For over two decades U.S. imperialism supported a separatist movement in the south of Sudan, where oil was originally found. This long civil war drained the central governmentâ??s resources. When a peace agreement was finally negotiated, U.S. attention immediately switched to Darfur in western Sudan.

Recently, a similar agreement between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in Darfur was rejected by one of the groups, so the fighting continues. The U.S. poses as a neutral mediator and keeps pressing Khartoum for more concessions but â??through its closest African allies helped train the SLA and JEM Darfuri rebels that initiated Khartoumâ??s violent reaction.â?� (www.afrol.com)

Sudan has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in the world. Over 400 ethnic groups have their own languages or dialects. Arabic is the one common language. Greater Khartoum, the largest city in the country, has a population of about 6 million. Some 85 percent of the Sudanese population is involved in subsistence agriculture or raising livestock.

The U.S. corporate media is unanimous in simplistically describing the crisis in Darfur as atrocities committed by the Jan jawid militias, supported by the central government in Khartoum. This is described as an â??Arabâ?� assault on â??Africanâ?� people.

This is a total distortion of reality. As the Black Commentator, Oct. 27, 2004, points out: â??All parties involved in the Darfur conflictâ??whether they are referred to as â??Arabâ?? or as â??African,â?? are equally indigenous and equally Black. All are Muslim and all are local.â?� The whole population of Darfur speaks Arabic, along with many local dialects. All are Sunni Muslim.

Drought, famine and sanctions

The crisis in Darfur is rooted in intertribal fighting. A desperate struggle has developed over increasingly scarce water and grazing rights in a vast area of Northern Africa that has been hit hard by years of drought and growing famine.

Darfur has over 35 tribes and ethnic groups. About half the people are small subsistence farmers, the other half nomadic herders. For hundreds of years the nomadic population grazed their herds of cattle and camels over hundreds of miles of grassy lowlands. Farmers and herders shared wells. For over 5,000 years, this fertile land sustained civilizations in both western Dar fur and to the east, all along the Nile River.

Now, due to the drought and the encroaching great Sahara Desert, there isnâ??t enough grazing land or enough farmland in what could be the breadbasket of Africa. Irrigation and development of Sudanâ??s rich resources could solve many of these problems. U.S. sanctions and military intervention will solve none of them.

Many people, especially children, have died in Sudan of totally preventable and treatable diseases because of a U.S. cruise missile attack, ordered by President Bill Clinton on Aug. 20, 1998, on the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum. This plant, which had produced cheap medications for treating malaria and tuberculosis, provided 60 percent of the available medicine in Sudan.

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Originally Posted by BlueCat

Well Psycho as I said before ALL Governments are quilty....BUT I don't vote in France. I am interested in what I can change.

U.S. interest in Sudan


Many people, especially children, have died in Sudan of totally preventable and treatable diseases because of a U.S. cruise missile attack, ordered by President Bill Clinton on Aug. 20, 1998, on the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum. This plant, which had produced cheap medications for treating malaria and tuberculosis, provided 60 percent of the available medicine in Sudan.

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On August 20, 1998, the factory was destroyed in cruise missile strikes launched by the United States in retaliation for the August 7 truck bomb attacks on its embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya (see: 1998 U.S. embassy bombings). The administration of President Bill Clinton justified the attacks, dubbed Operation Infinite Reach, on the grounds that the al-Shifa plant was involved in producing chemical weapons and had ties with the violent Islamist al Qaeda group of Osama bin Laden, which was believed to be behind the embassy bombings. The August 20 U.S. action also hit al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, to where bin Laden had moved following his May 1996 expulsion from Sudan.


The bombing of the al-Shifa factory resurfaced in the news in April, 2006 due to the firing of former CIA analyst Mary O'Neil McCarthy. McCarthy was against the bombing of the factory in 1998, a fact that was published in the New York Times soon after her arrest. However, despite the claims by the government of Sudan that the factory produced only pharmaceuticals, McCarthy came to the view the plant was used in chemical weapons development. Thomas Joscelyn quotes Daniel Benjamin, a former NSC staffer:

The report of the 9/11 Commission notes that the National Security staff reviewed the intelligence in April 2000 and concluded that the CIA's assessment of its intelligence on bin Laden and al-Shifa had been valid; the memo to Clinton on this was cosigned by Richard Clarke and Mary McCarthy, the NSC senior director for intelligence programs, who opposed the bombing of al-Shifa in 1998. The report also notes that in their testimony before the commission, Al Gore, Sandy Berger, George Tenet, and Richard Clarke all stood by the decision to bomb al-Shifa. [13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shif...utical_factory

Guess we could have let Chirac and friends just use chemical weapons on the southern folk..........

Ya know, I spent some jail time with a dude from Sudan....showed me the scars across his chest/stomach where he was ripped with a machine gun. Thats why his folks shipped him to the U.S. He told me that this has been an ongoing conflict between the tribes for over 40 years now. A vicious cycle as he put it........the parents ship their kids off to the U.S./Europe for a better life.......the kids grow, get educated, make money, ship funds to home to help their families, then the familily/tribe uses the cash to buy more guns to kill the opposing tribe.

Between that and the French connection.......it would be best for us just to let Europe/FRANCE deal with this one. We could do some food drops though.....I was all for the air support.:D

Have a good one!:jointsmile:

The fighting will stop as soon as they decide who will take possession of the oil and control of the water.

It has been happening for 40 years because they have had a drought that long.

The fighting will stop when the western world stops fueling the conflict.

You are stepping all around the fact that some very large corporations from several countries have an interest in this region and they have an interest in who wins certain conflicts. Surely you believe that governments are capable of setting up puppet governments and swaying votes. Do you think the corporations are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the dust to settle?

WHen the gulf war ended it was the best extended commercial an arms salesman could ask for. some arms manufacturers incorporated bombing videos into their promotional materials.) Countries were clamoring for the high-tech weapons that made for such good TV.

So, once elected, Bill Clinton took advantage of the opportunity. Rather than insert human-rights concerns into the arms-sales equation, as did his Democratic predecessor President Carter, Clinton decided to aggressively continue the sales policies of President Bush, himself no slouch when it came to selling U.S. arms.

Early on, Clinton required our diplomats to shill for arms merchants to their host countries. The results were immediate: During Clinton's first year in office, U.S. arms sales more than doubled. From 1993 to 1997, the U.S. government sold, approved, or gave away $190 billion in weapons to virtually every nation on earth.

America's top weapons customers during the Clinton years, tallying their total 1993-97 purchases through both the Pentagon (so-called "Foreign Military Sales," or FMS) and U.S. manufacturers ("Direct Commercial Sales," or DCS).

What we found is that while the U.S. obviously sells weapons to NATO countries and relatively democratic allies like Japan and South Korea, it also has a nasty habit of arming both sides in a conflict, as well as countries with blighted democracy or human-rights records, like Indonesia, Colombia, and Saudi Arabia.

How can you see nothing wrong with this?
I will never vote for a Clinton.

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Originally Posted by BlueCat

You are stepping all around the fact that some very large corporations from several countries have an interest in this region and they have an interest in who wins certain conflicts. Surely you believe that governments are capable of setting up puppet governments and swaying votes. Do you think the corporations are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the dust to settle?

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I do believe that the corporate front will lobby for their own interests but it's ultimately the Governments decision; it also seems to me that you are doing a lil' side stepping of your own.

Since WW2 and the cooperation of France turning Jews over to the Germans, then their actions in Algeria, Rwanda, and Sudan. Who has more of a fingerprint on genocide in the Western World? They would even overlook the extermination of Kurds and Shi-ites as long as the food for oil was lining their lil' pockets.

THEN when shit hits the fan it's up to Uncle Sam to clean up the mess. Like Vietnam.....another French fuck-up that we took over. We don't need another one.......let FRANCE clean up Sudan.

Nice to have ya back........:joint1:

Have a good one!:jointsmile:

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Originally Posted by BlueCat

WHen the gulf war ended it was the best extended commercial an arms salesman could ask for. some arms manufacturers incorporated bombing videos into their promotional materials.) Countries were clamoring for the high-tech weapons that made for such good TV.

So, once elected, Bill Clinton took advantage of the opportunity. Rather than insert human-rights concerns into the arms-sales equation, as did his Democratic predecessor President Carter, Clinton decided to aggressively continue the sales policies of President Bush, himself no slouch when it came to selling U.S. arms.

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LMAO! Mr. Peanut was the one who cut the military budget to a point that were close to being a super power joke! Reagon rectified that one. Mr. Peanut also put together the deal that put nuclear technology in the hands of the N. Koreans.........

Sorry, don't care much for Mr. Peanut either....is he of French ancestory?:blueknife:

Have a good one!:jointsmile:

Il est bon d'être ici mon ami. :)

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Originally Posted by BlueCat

Ozark said:I'm proud that America always tries to do the right thing, we're not always successful but we are committed to trying. There will always be people that can not be honest enough with themselves to admit all thats right with my country. .

OMFG I give up. Yes it is all conspiracy. The world is beautiful just take the green pill and be happy in the Ozarks. I have lived there too BTW so I try to understand your line of thinking.

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I didn't say the world was Beautiful, did I ?

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the fact that we sell 90% <-- of the arms means nothing. Maybe you can explain the US actions in El Salvador or Haiti. OR how about the arms sells in Nicaragua, explain that great feat of American moral servitude.

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Please put down the clicker and stop changing the channel, we're talking about Sudan "American moral servitude" :D

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'THis is MY country too. I think my family has done a hell of a lot for this country,

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Again,I never said it wasn't, I'm sure your family has.

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The problem is self centered people that think the country is all THEIRS and that America can do no wrong.

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Again I never said it was (all/only) my country, again I never said America does no wrong, as a matter I said America "tries" to do the right thing.

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We are a growing nation and make mistakes like any other country.
To believe we can do no wrong is simply close minded and dangerous.

There are many many great nations out there the US is one of many not the one and only.

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Again, no one any where in this thread ever said different

I said "I was proud to be an American" and proud that "my country tries to do the right thing" and you respond with negatives, lets be honest here, reading someone else saying something positive about the USA hit a nerve with you. I believe the expression was OMFG ?

You have proven me right in at least one statement:


"There will always be people that can not be honest enough with themselves to admit all thats right with my country."

No Ozark that wasn't what struck a nerve but if you'd like a struck nerve review: The Muslim (Arab) Government in Katun is not killing the Christian (black African) minority in Darfur with American weapons.


That is not true. You don't know that. They are killing them with American weapons we have been selling weapons to them for quite some time. It is just easier to believe that it is not happening.

Next was this statement: And it's going to continue until people have non-corrupt Governments that at least acknowledge the human being as such, and have a functioning economies.

We ARE corrupt, there are no non corrupt governments. It is a beautiful idealogical thought and it would be great if it worked that way. It doesn't. OH then it was also the rude conspiracy theory crack.

Corporate control and arm sells ARE NOT conspiracy theories. Anything anyone does not know about seems to be labeledl conspiracy now a days.

Or how about this brilliant Orwellian thought: yes, companies defend their interests/investments just like people do. Who would have thought that the people who run them big bad evil corporations would let human emotion enter into their judgments on business matters.

No one I know behaves like this. Maybe you have a habit of making your neighbors fight and kill each other so you can buy their houses. I don't know.

You might want to read up on the Coca Cola plant in Columbia too. They are doing such fine humanitarian things these days.

http://www.killercoke.org/

then you said: All the "it's America's fault, corporate greed/conspiracy" Bla-bla-bla is just background noise.

I never said it was all America's fault a fact I have repeated more than once and I don't like having my opinion dismissed as background noise.

next you said: I'm proud that America always tries to do the right thing, we're not always successful but we are committed to trying. There will always be people that can not be honest enough with themselves to admit all that's right with my country. .

America does not always try to do the right thing. show me. Make me a list. what did they do right in El Salvador, anywhere in Central America or even south America. What have they done right in Iraq?

NO YOU are not committed to doing anything. The young people of the arms forces are the ones that are committed. Have you or your children served their country? You are so ready to put "boots on the ground" in Africa are you or your children prepared to go?

BTW I am a very honest person I know exactly what is right with my country its called the Constitution it sure as hell isn't Michael Bolton or any other member of the bush administration.
What's right with my country? Oh well I don't know... I think the elections went rather well don't you?

I don't want to get in a flaming war with you. You have your opinion and I have mine.

"Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." Flannery O'Connor