"Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers"

By Norm Dixon

On September 21, Salih Booker, the director of the Africa Studies Program at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations ruling-class think tank, argued in the International Herald Tribune that the US government has failed to convince the UN Security Council to take tough action to end Sudan's "government-sponsored campaign of genocide" in Darfur because it "cried wolf" over Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction in order to justify its illegal invasion of Iraq.

Booker and many other US liberals, as well as influential establishment organisations such as Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group (ICG), are campaigning for President George Bush to launch a military "humanitarian intervention" in western Darfur.

Booker claimed that, following the rebellion that erupted in western Sudan in February 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell "dithered" as Sudanese government-sponsored janjaweed Arab militia drove more than a million of the region's non-Arabic speaking villagers from their lands. "The violence in Darfur went on for 16 months and international human rights groups and African advocacy groups shouted about this crime against humanity... the secretary stayed silent, even visiting the scene of the crime without saying the word 'genocide'."

Full Article : counterpunch.org