I went to the Denver’s sparsely attended ‘Save Darfur’ rally today with signs made special for the rally. US OUT OF AFRICA, US/NATO OUT OF SUDAN, and STOP US WAR ON SOMALIA were 3 of them, and we used these to face the listeners that numbered about 150.
Some attending seemed to agree with our message, while others were rather hostile. As I passed out fliers my message was, ‘US OUT- NOT IN’. Many would ally with the Devil himself to try to stop the killing, and the huge number of deaths from this war is certainly horrifying with nobody in the antiwar community wanting the bloodshed to continue. However…
What is the context of this war? We have people calling on their government now committing genocides in Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan to come to the assistance of others suffering from fighting occurring in another country. I heard at the rally, many blaming China and Arabs for the mayhem in this one region of Sudan called Darfur. I saw not one sign and heard not one person other than our group mention what the US is doing now in Somalia. Nobody brought up the genocide in the Congo that has killed many more than in Darfur. Nobody but nobody had any sign calling for US OUT of IRAQ!
We had one sign that had the US flag on it and the word GENOCIDE, and then a short, short list of the genocides the US has been involved with. NATIVES, SLAVES, KOREANS, SE ASIANS, IRAQIS. We could not put the many other ones on a poster board sign. They would have included RWANDA, ANGOLA, ANGOLA, MOZAMIQUE, THE HORN OF AFRICA, THE CONGO, and others lesser known ones on the continent of Africa alone. The US has played a major role in all these genocides, yet many in arms about the Darfur massacres insist on trying to turn the US government into a peacekeeper!
The Darfur activists are demanding that US ‘take action’, that the federal legislature put pressure on Bush to be aggressive. One group actually had a score card on this, and listed Congressman Tom Tancredo as having an A+ along with Senator Ken Salazar. No surprise here at all, as Pelosi’s gang actually are trying to outflank Bush to the Right on demanding ‘action’. That’s right. Some Democrats like Democratic Party Congressman Donald Payne are now calling on Bush to start a bombing campaign on Khartoum! So much for the Darfur crowd as being ‘non-violent peacemakers’ we think. How sick is this? A Democratic Party Congressman and a ‘peace organization’ together calling on George W. Bush to initiate yet more military action on yet another country? All in the name of ‘stopping genocide’!
Well that’s enough for now, other than to further mention again that the head of the ‘Save Darfur Coalition’ is straight from the US State Department and the UN Security Council’s US support operations branch for occupying countries invaded by the US. Not satisfied with how few countries the US has invaded, occupied, and/or bombed he wants to try for yet more I guess? See this press puff piece about former US Ambassador Lawrence Rossin. He now heads up the ‘Save Darfur Coalition’! He’s going for another one it seems! Bombs away, Lawrence!