May 2007

Hehehehe, oh yes they will!

Howie, where are you man? This poor woman needs some serious psychotherapy. I feel bad for her. She’s been through a lot.

Here we go again. With how things are progressing, this latest development doesn’t surprise me.

There is a specific piece of info which I found pleasing. It’s the one in bold.

New U.S. sanctions against Sudan would extend those implemented in 1997 and be aimed mostly at companies owned or controlled by the Sudanese government. One other company is believed to be violating an arms embargo for Darfur and will also be banned from doing business in the United States or having access to its financial system.

The companies targeted will include firms in the oil and petroleum export-related businesses, all of which are crucial to Sudan’s economy. They are all expected to be named.

The four individuals to be affected include senior Sudanese government officials and rebel leaders.

The fact that rebel leaders are included indicates senior officials in the White House understand well that the rebels need to be pressured too, and not just the Sudanese government. I’ve mentioned repeatedly that pressuring both sides is the right approach.

As for the sanctions themselves, I really don’t know. I have mixed feelings and thoughts. The first sanctions imposed on Sudan since the Clinton era didn’t succeed in accomplishing anything much besides making life for the average Sudanese citizen harder and more difficult. Are these new sanctions going to be any different? Will they actually help accomplish peace in Darfur? I’m not sure. Only time will tell.

UPDATE: Some extra useful info:

Andrew S. Natsios, the special envoy for Sudan, acknowledged at a news conference yesterday that the new sanctions would have limited effects on the country’s oil production and exports.

“The purpose of these sanctions is not sanctions,” he said. “The purpose of these sanctions is to send a message to the Sudanese government to start behaving differently when they deal with their own people.”

…The administration also singled out two senior officials — Ahmad Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs, and Awad ibn Auf, the country’s director of military intelligence — and Khalil Ibrahim, leader of a rebel group called the Justice and Equality Movement.

And:

Past the current round of sanctions, the choices become more difficult. One option is to keep sanctions in place, reengage the government and the rebels in negotiations, and wait until the conditions for a genuine peace ripen. In this view, the cost of patience is relatively low — humanitarian conditions in the Darfur camps have actually improved recently by most measures. The cost of military confrontation could be high, if it causes the regime to expel the thousands of humanitarian aid workers who keep millions from starvation.

The problem with waiting for peace, as one administration official put it to me, is that “the regime only responds to pressure. It has no record of responding to positive moves.” So the other option is to set out on a ladder of escalation that will compel acceptance of the U.N. force and the disarmament of the militias. This approach would eventually involve the threat of force by a coalition of the willing — not invasion and occupation, but a no-fly zone and perhaps a blockade. It would also require a clear message to the regime that menacing the refugees would bring terrible consequences. The more credible this threat of force, the more likely that the regime complies without the use of force.

For more opinions and views you check a complete list of links here. Me loves Google!

What a simple, yet lovely post. I love it. Globalization is here to stay. All this exaggerated talk about “cultural anarchy” is crap.

This at TechCrunch is about 2 weeks old but hey what the hell, I thought I’d share it with you in case you didn’t know about it.

Yesterday Engadget posted that the iPhone was going to be delayed several months, relying on what turned out to be a bogus email for the story. Four billion dollars in market cap was wiped off of Apple’s stock price in six minutes as the “news” hit the market. Engadget quickly corrected the story and the stock recovered within twenty minutes, but many investors had lost a staggering amount of money in the amount of time it takes to brush your teeth.

It shocked the crap out of me when I read it for the first time. One blog had the power to wipe off 4 billion dollars in 6 damn minutes only. Amazing! The above mentioned incident and my spidey senses are both reminding me that with great power, comes great responsibility. Yaaaaay to blogs . It’s fun being part of new media. And talk about a fast super liquid market.

For more background on this you can go here. The LeBron James bashing party has already begun.

Maybe Lebron is indeed in love with his money. Maybe not.

You can’t really know. I say let’s not judge him too soon. He said he can’t sign since he’s not aware of the situation and needs to know more about it first. Fair enough. Give him a month or 2. That’s more than enough time for him to know the facts and make up his mind. Only then will we be able to decide for sure. If he still doesn’t sign a month or 2 from now, there will be no more guessing left to do.

Meanwhile, the Genocide Olympics movement against China shows no signs of slowing down. Good. Me support.

You’re not going to believe this one. I don’t even know whether to laugh or cry. Do you remember this guy? Guess what has become of him? Here’s what.

Ahmed Harun, who was a government minister and head of the government’s Darfur task force when the killings occurred, is also sought by the court. He is now the minister of humanitarian affairs.

LOL. Minister of Humanitarian Affairs. Brilliant! I swear, simply brilliant. Yaaaaay let’s celebrate!

There is a notion I observed in the American Muslim blogosphere about Muslims who go on Fox News or Glenn Beck’s show to criticize Muslim extremism. Such Muslims are usually termed as “sellouts” and “opportunists”. There’s truth in that notion but I believe Zuhdi Jasser is an exception. I just watched part 1, 2 and 3 of an interview he had on FOX10-Newsmaker Sunday. He seems like a really decent dude. Moreover I liked the interviewer’s calm and professional manner.
(hat tip: Hyscience)

If the blog starts looking weird and messed up, don’t worry. I’m testing out a new and better looking theme that will include extra functionalities. It’s time for the blog to evolve. I’m also playing around with different plugins. Thanks to my ongoing internship, I managed to improve my programming skills a lot. Not only that but I got to know a bunch of very friendly and smart techies who taught me some really cool new stuff. It’s time for some application.

I just learnt that the video of the event will be available after the session is over. Something is better than nothing. I’m really looking forward to how the session turns out.

I knew different people were going to focus on the results of the poll in different ways. It’s almost hilarous! Just check out some of the different titles used by different media organizations and people:

25% of Muslim teens: Suicide bombs ok
Jerusalem Post, Israel - 14 hours ago
By AP. One in four younger US Muslims say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances, though most Muslim …

‘Troubling’ views on suicide bombings 78% of US Muslims opposed …
San Francisco Chronicle, CA - 16 hours ago
About 1 in 4 young adult American Muslims says suicide bombings against civilian targets “to defend Islam” can be justified rarely, sometimes or often, …

Survey of US Muslims shows moderate views
Kansas City Star, MO - May 22, 2007
LOS ANGELES | Nearly 80 percent of all Muslim Americans say that suicide bombings in defense of Islam are never justified, according to a nationwide study …

Poll: Most Muslim-Americans reject suicide bombings 9:27 AM CDT
Dallas Morning News (subscription), TX - May 22, 2007
AP. WASHINGTON – One in four younger US Muslims say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances, …

Most Muslims are moderate, but …
DetNews.com, MI - 1 hour ago
American Muslims are generally moderate and well-assimilated, especially when compared to Muslims in Europe and the Middle East. …

Tiny Minority, Big Problem
The Conservative Voice, NC - 10 hours ago
If we believe the spin of Associated Press headline writers, there’s little cause for concern about a new Pew poll of American Muslims. …

‘Most American Muslims reject terrorism’
Frontline, India - 6 hours ago
Silicon Valley, May 24 (PTI): An overwhelming 78 per cent of the Muslim Americans reject terrorists and terrorism, but a quarter of the young believe that …

You’ve got to admit it. It’s funny!

American Muslim organizations like eteraz.org which are committed to fighting extremist Muslim views have the ability to make a positive difference. I say this with confidence as I have watched them grow since day one. Their work and efforts are important. They’ve had a significant influence on me. More importantly the intentions of the founder, Ali Eteraz are sincere.

Extremism in mosques, not just in America but everywhere must be dealt with. Easy to say, hard to do, I know, but we need to keep pushing. Enough of mixing Islam, politics and hate speech. Let’s focus on sermons that deal with real issues like the importance of family, treating one another with respect, patience and the peace inducing effect of honest prayer. I truly enjoy them.

This, we defintely do not need. We need ones like him. As Muslims, we can’t simply sit down, complain about the current state of our religion and expect everything to change overnight without doing something about it.

Americans might also want to be patient about deciding which half of the glass they want to look at. The empty half or the full half? The half you choose to focus on will play a role in  determining the course of action you’ll pursuit. Keep an eye on both halfs. There needs to be a balance. As the titles listed above indicate, not all are balanced. Check out the whole list if you want to.

I have some questions and statements that I’d like to address to the panelists

To the media:

There has been a lot of talk recently about China being “the enabler of genocide” due to their support of the Khartoum government. Why hasn’t there been talk or focus about who the enablers of the rebels are? The rebels receive support from certain groups whether directly or indirectly. Shouldn’t those groups be scrutinized too for playing an enabling role in the conflict and dragging it further?

To intervention supporters:

The goal of intervention supporters is to help ease Darfur’s pain. Do pro-interventionists truly believe that intervention is going to make things better? Jihad is inevitable. That certainly ought to make the war messier and more violent. What will UN troops do then?

To the Sudanese Ambassador to the UN:

The Darfur conflict generally hasn’t been portrayed accurately in the Western media. However on the other hand, don’t you believe the way the conflict is being downlplayed by the Sudanese government shows a lack of respect for Sudanese lives especially when statements like “only 9,000 have died” are stated openly?

Introduction

Darfur in the minds of different people constitutes and means different things. This is due to the fact that we, the general public around the world are getting exposed to a tirade of conflicting views and information. As that continues, so will our polarization. Therefore, the long and seemingly endless debates will keep stretching and as that happens, innocent lives will continue perishing.

There is hence a need to bring diverging opinions closer together by assessing and analyzing the views on both sides and presenting the results in a non-politicized context as best as possible. This is extremely important if we truly want to appease the situation.

Darfur in the Minds of Westerners

If you ask any person in America or the West who’s heard about the Darfur conflict what they know about it, they’ll most probably tell you, “it’s a genocide being waged by Arabs against Africans” and that “the United States and the UN must intervene to protect innocent lives”. That’s about all they know. Why is that?

When it comes to awareness, the massive majority of Americans are only listening to one main organization. The Save Darfur Coalition. It’s their story and narrative that the American people pay most attention to, a story, which doesn’t focus on important root causes such as water shortage and desertification. It’s a story that has made the conflict seem primarily racial in nature when it’s really not. Furthermore, it’s a story that doesn’t accurately portray the true situation and that some say has become politicized.

The Save Darfur Coalition is oversimplifying the Darfur conflict. That doesn’t help because when people don’t understand how complex things are, the solutions applied have a much higher possibility of exacerbating the situation rather than appeasing it.

Sleepless in Sudan, shares a similar view in a blog entry dated back 2 years ago when she was an aid worker in Darfur:

Find out more. The conflict in Darfur may be complex and the context somewhat daunting, but it’s hard to help when you’re ignorant about the issues involved. It’s going to be a lot easier for you to help the people of Darfur if you try to understand the situation and use your knowledge to take certain actions

…No matter how good your intentions, uninformed opinions or arguments will not take you very far.

Understanding the situation is indeed crucial.

Darfur in the Minds of Muslims and Arabs

For most Muslims and Arabs who have heard about Darfur, the conflict is one, which has been over exaggerated by Zionists in an attempt to use it as a pretext for invading Sudan and getting to the wealth of natural resources it possesses. These include oil and uranium. As a result many Muslims and Arabs simply downplay the seriousness of the violence. Others completely deny it even exists. Why is that?

The Khartoum government and their supporters successfully managed to deflect people’s attention away from the reality. They did that by playing “the Israel Card”. In the Arab and Muslim worlds, pointing the finger at Zionists tends to work extremely well.

The True Reality of Darfur

Arabs Vs Africans?

The portrayal of the Darfur conflict primarily as “a genocide waged by Arabs against Africans” is an inaccurate oversimplification. This article will provide you with an idea of what Darfur is really about and the complexity of its state of affairs. It doesn’t stop there though. There’s more and the following stresses it further:

Ahmed Mohamed Haroun is one of the two named by the ICC as suspected war criminals involved in Darfur. This is a picture of him.

Does he look Arab to you?

The Khartoum government is not waging war in Darfur because it’s primarily interested in wiping out certain ethnic African populations. All the Khartoum government mainly cares about is fighting the rebellion and maintaining its solid grip on power in the country. It’s primarily an issue of wealth and power sharing. Only after that do ethnic and tribal factors come into play. The recently settled eastern conflict in Sudan further proves this point. The Khartoum government has marginalized the inhabitants of eastern Sudan just like it has done to Darfur (and Southern Sudan) even though the tribes in eastern Sudan consist of ethnic Afro-Arabs and ethnic Arabs who crossed the Red Sea from the Arabian Peninsula about a century ago.

The recent discovery of oil in Darfur is also a factor. Part 4 of Inside Sudan, by VBS sheds more light on this.

The Scale of Violence

In today’s Internet Age, hiding the death and destruction occurring in Sudan’s western region simply isn’t going to work. There are thousands of videos and pictures available online for anyone to see. Moreover accessing Google Earth and zooming into Darfur via satellite, reveals extra surprises. People can disagree about statistics and numbers but there is no question as to how bad and horrific the situation in Darfur is.

Downplaying the mass violence and pretending it doesn’t exist is morally wrong. It indicates a lack of respect for Sudanese lives. Furthermore, pointing the finger solely at the Zionists and retreating back into a state of denial doesn’t help ease the suffering of millions of women and children struggling in Darfur and in refugee camps.

The Agenda Behind Darfur: The Enablers & Turabi’s Role

The Agenda

It would be very naïve to think that there’s no agenda behind what’s happening in Darfur. One does exist.

We always witness talk in the mainstream media about China and how it’s “the enabler of genocide”. It’s a good thing that China is being put under scrutiny for its enabling role in this conflict but… what about the rebels? Who are their enablers? From where are they getting their financing? Which parties are providing it to them and why?

How can the rebels afford their ongoing war against al-Bashir’s NCP dominated Khartoum government? How can they afford their travel expenses in and out of European countries?

Certain groups are providing them with the financial means to do so. The question is who? Moreover and more importantly what is the agenda of those financiers? They certainly have one. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be financing Darfur’s rebels in the first place. In politics, nothing comes for free.

It’s known that Chad allegedly provides the rebels support. It’s also known that wealthy Darfurian businessmen overseas outside Sudan provide support too. What isn’t well known and focused on in the Western mainstream media however is the agenda of regime change some powerful groups have in mind. The influential right-wing organization Project for the New American Century, for example has the following published on their website:

Now it’s time for the threats to end and the consequences to begin. After all, in addition to the humanitarian imperative, the United States has a strategic interest in Sudan. Khartoum is one of seven regimes on the U.S. government’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, and Sudan’s dictatorship has had ties with almost every significant terrorist organization in the broader Middle East. Al Qaeda was based in Sudan during the 1990s, and other terrorist groups continue to operate there freely. This month Die Welt reported that Syria and Sudan have been collaborating in developing chemical weapons and may have used them against civilians in Darfur. Thus, in moving against Khartoum for its human rights abuses, we will also be striking a blow in the war on terrorism.

Al-Bashir’s worries are not baseless. The United States and Israel did after all support the Southern Sudanese militarily and financially against the Northerners during the long and bloody Southern- Northern Sudanese civil war which raged on for more than 2 decades.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. It was in their interests to destabalize a hostile regime.

Are Darfurian rebels receiving support from the United States and Israel directly or indirectly through neighbouring countries like Chad?

Professional journalists and the Western mainstream media should definitely dedicate more time to answering this question.

Turabi’s Role

Many aren’t aware of Turabi’s role in the Darfur conflict. The following are excerpts highlighting his involvement:

1-

Although analysts have emphasized the racial and ethnic aspects of the conflict in Darfur, a long-running political battle between Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir and radical Islamic cleric Hassan al-Turabi may be more relevant.

A charismatic college professor and former speaker of parliament, Turabi has long been one of Bashir’s main political rivals and an influential figure in Sudan. He has been fingered as an extremist; before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks Turabi often referred to Osama bin Laden as a hero. More recently, the United Nations and human rights experts have accused Turabi of backing one of Darfur’s key rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement, in which some of his top former students are leaders.

Because of his clashes with Bashir, Turabi is usually under house arrest and holds forth in his spacious Khartoum villa for small crowds of followers and journalists. But diplomats say he still mentors rebels seeking to overthrow the government.

2-

Dr Khalil Ibrahim, a protege of Islamist hardliner Dr Hasan al-Turabi. Formed in November 2002, JEM is increasingly recognised as being part and parcel of Dr Turabi’s Popular Congress. Time magazine has described JEM as “a fiercely Islamic organisation said to be led by Hassan al-Turabi” and that Turabi’s ultimate goal is “the presidential palace in Khartoum and a stridently Islamic Sudan”. [2] Khalil is a long-time associate of Turabi’s and served as a state minister in Darfur in the early 1990s before serving as a state cabinet-level advisor in southern Sudan. Ibrahim was a senior member of the Islamist movement’s secret military wing.

Proposed Solution

1. A well-informed individual is a more effective and capable individual. Understanding the conflict thoroughly is vital for the achievement of any real long-term peace.

2. Just as al-Bashir’s NCP dominated Khartoum government is playing a war role, so are the rebels. Before any negotiations for a comprehensive and inclusive peace agreement take place, the fighting needs to stop. The enablers on both sides can make that happen (if they’re actually interested).

3. Turabi’s involvement needs to be addressed and dealt with.

4. The peace agreement has to be satisfactory to the rebels and the Khartoum government needs to make some concessions that address some of the key rebel demands. Otherwise any agreement will be a meaningless piece of paper.

Darfur’s innocent women and children have suffered for way too long.

PS: As usual your comments and criticisms are welcome.

Yaaaaaaaaay! Ingrid is back blogging. You have been missed Ingrid! Me happy.