More than 50 AU peacekeepers and support personnel are missing in action since the attack on the base in northern Darfur just after sunset on Saturday. It was the worst attack on AU troops since they were deployed in Sudan's violent west in 2004.

“This is the heaviest loss of life and the biggest attack on the African Union mission,” said AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni, who could not confirm the casualty figures because the fighting was ongoing.

Possible 60 dead peacekeepers in one attack, that is unbelievable.

This is a tragic day from the Africa Union Peacekeeping Force.

[ 30 September 2007: Message edited by: Webgear ]

Reuters Canada Article

What interests me, is the ontological shift.

quote:

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Originally posted by Webgear:
This is a mission that the NDP would like to have Canada to become apart of. It appears as dangerous as Afghanistan at this point in time.

---

Oh that! Well, that's just because the NDP wants to be in step with the martial tone of the times. Jack Layton doesn't want it to appear that he is any less fearless when it comes to sacrificing other peoples lives in useless causes than either of the other two parties.

Ten years ago he would have been crying a river about the child soldiers of the SPLA, right in tune with Moses Znaimer's "War Child Canada" campaign from Much Music. Now its the genocidal Sudanese government which is in the spotlight. He can critique the other parties for their mission in Afghanistan, appear militantly in favour of peacekeeping (as opposed to peacemaking) in the Sudan, and appeal to a couple of useful constituencies, while flowing with the anti-"Islamist" sentiments among the general population, all at once.

Imagine if you will, a blender full of bullshit, and you get the idea.

[ 30 September 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Death is a part of life, sacrificing your life for the greater good is a noble and grand experience.

quote:

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Originally posted by Webgear:
Quick guide to Sudan

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:

Oh that! Well, that's just because the NDP wants to be in step with the martial tone of the times.

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The NDP aren't the Washington lap dogs that the two stinky worn-out old line parties are(blech-gross). They know about Uncle Sam, and NDP'ers have been shouted down in the HoC numerous times wrt Darfur and Ottawa's compliance in the removal of Aristide in Haiti.

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

The NDP aren't the Washington lap dogs that the two stinky worn-out old line parties are(blech-gross). They know about Uncle Sam, and NDP'ers have been shouted down in the HoC numerous times wrt Darfur and Ottawa's compliance in the removal of Aristide in Haiti.

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What do you mean? It was Bush and the Whitehouse who first started pushing the genocide in Sudan line. Layton is just playing into it so he can look like he is militantly humanitarian. Militant humanitarianism has been the ideological justification of every single western military intervention of the last 20 years.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
If Jack Layton seriously wanted to do something about Sudan or Afghanistan, he would lobby for Canadian arms manufacturers to be forced to stop making 7.62 mm ammo for export.

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It doesn't matter where the ammo comes from as long the CIA and Pentagon enjoy that level of taxpayer funding every year. Let's be serious for a minute. The Khmer Rouge, for example, were funelled arms from all over the western world, but U.S.A. provided the lion's share. Saddam-Iraqgate same thing. Proxy wars and warfiteering along the way is par for the course when the oil hounds of hell are let loose.

Canada is part of NATO, and so are the other former colonizers of Africa. There's not much the NDP can do about that. The way the NDP looks at it is from a diplomatic and democratic point of view. As long as we're part of NATO, we might as well exercise some say rather than just nodding their heads up and down in rapid agreement in Ottawa the way our two autocratic old line parties have done so well in recent years.

I think Canada should be providing some funding to AU forces so they can better patrol and secure hot spots around Africa. Right now Canada is shovelling billions of dollars to Afghanistan. I think African Union forces should be better equipped to stand between and separate federal troops from rebels aided by the CIA and various western sources where big energy and mining companies just so happen to be basing themselves. A political party always has to have a position, even those who realize they won't be forming the government, at least not until such time as Canadians can win a fairer voting system from the plutocrats.

[ 30 September 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

The least we could do is reduce the availability of 7.62 mm ammo, used in the AK47, and lobby for international control on this kind of weaponry and the ammo, which is making your average street urchin into a lethal high tech killing machine, capable of dispatching numerouw people to Valhalla or Heaven or whatever, in a moments notice.

Notice, for example that this attack was not politically motivated, but motivated by the desire of this rebel splinter group to get a hold of precious AU weapons and transportation.

Barking on and on about imperialism, does nothing to resolve the serious issue of Canadian participation in the spread of this insidious plague of high powered weaponry.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
If Jack Layton seriously wanted to do something about Sudan or Afghanistan, he would lobby for Canadian arms manufacturers to be forced to stop making 7.62 mm ammo for export.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Free_Radical:

But Cueball, think of all of the good union jobs that would be lost with such a policy.

Layton has shown that he has no problem with auto manufacturers, as long as they keep his support base employed while the cars they manufacture destroy the environment. Why should his stance be any different with armaments that kill people all over the world?

---

Sudan is a complex country, which is only a country because of the lines on the map drawn by Europeans and others, though Egypt occupied it for a long time prior to the British.

Following independence, after a very brief attempt at peace, the North (largely Arab Muslim) and the South (largely Black Animist/Xian/Other) began to fight. The South had a few different groups, the SPLA being one of the dominant ones over the decades (there were splits and splinters).

The fight went on for a decade or two until the North accepted a coalition government combined with some devolution of powers to the South. That went on for a little while, and even survived a coup or two.

Until oil was discovered in some areas of the South, and the devolution of powers and autonomy to the South was not so appealing. At the same time, the Sudanese government and dictator were talking a radical Islamic line (Sharia etc), mostly to protect themselves from the growing Islamic Brotherhood movement.

Eventually the dictator (whose name I forget) declared the war against the Southern rebels to be a holy war, and all kinds of shit happened - including the deaths of about 2 million people, the ongoing enslavement of others, and yes, the child soldiers of the SPLA (who were fighting back against a genocide of their own). The Sudanese government bears much of the blame for the war and the genocide that was happening through the 80s and 90s. Some of our oil companies bear a lot of blame as well (hello Talisman!).

Many of the Sudanese government soldiers were Darfuri Dinka people (from Western Sudan). Not all by a long shot, but many.

Eventually the war with the South petered out, fairly recently. Tentative peace and an end to the bloodshed. Fine, but suddenly the Dinka in Darfur were running into trouble and getting rebellious themselves, largely because of population pressures and (possibly) climate changes making their traditional herding lifestyle less tenable.

So the Sudanese government had a problem. They couldn't use their Dinka troops to quell the Dinka. Instead, they started telling the non-Dinka and non-black tribesmen in the region that the 'slaves' were going to take over. Thus the janjaweed began their slaughter while the government could wash its hands (yet block attempts to intervene).

The janjaweed are essentially government sanctioned paramilitaries, combines with a bit of land greed and general rapaciousness. That goes a long way to explaining why the Sudanese government resisted UN involvement. I wouldn't be surprised if the attack on the AU site was sanctioned indirectly by the government as well.

quote:

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Originally posted by Webgear:
arborman

Execellent post. From my understanding there is also a east/west conflict on going also.

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No its bafflegab. I hardly see how point out that Sudan is a country divided into distinct ethnic groups each competing over limited resources, shows that the basic equation is any different than Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan we are told we are intervening to correct the power imbalance in Kabul and sided with the minority factions of Tadjiks, and Uzbeks, against the central authority dominated by Pashtuns out of Kabul, while in Sudan we will be intervening on the behalf of the minority southern people of Sudan against the central authority in Khartoum, dominated by Arabs.

The attempt to identify some nuances which make our intervention in one, but not the other, justifiable on moral grounds is pure politics and nothing more.

quote:

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I wouldn't be surprised if the attack on the AU site was sanctioned indirectly by the government as well.

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We really have to question pure speculations like this based on zero evidence, when no one who was actually involved in the incident has actually inferred such a possibility. This is politicized hype in other words. It is the AU which is asserting that the attack was independly motivated as a means of capturing AU equipment, no other motive has been put forward.

Then of course there is the artful insertion of the anti-"Islamist" paranoia, and half truths, so useful for instilling racially motivated populist panic:

quote:

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Until oil was discovered in some areas of the South, and the devolution of powers and autonomy to the South was not so appealing. At the same time, the Sudanese government and dictator were talking a radical Islamic line (Sharia etc), mostly to protect themselves from the growing Islamic Brotherhood movement.

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The fact that the JEM is an Islamic rebel movement, and the only group promoting the radical Salafist line is simply ignored in favour of putting the Sudanese government in the OBL camp. Lets not mention that there is no "Islamic Brotherhood movement", but a "Muslim Brotherhood" movement (founded in Egypt in 1904) since accuracy in detail is hardly relevant when one is pumping up the hysteria.

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Your smear against Webgear is completely unjustified, he has said nothing which contradicts the NDP line on Sudan.

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
No its bafflegab. I hardly see how point out that Sudan is a country divided into distinct ethnic groups each competing over limited resources, shows that the basic equation is any different than Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan we are told we are intervening to correct the power imbalance in Kabul and sided with the minority factions of Tadjiks, and Uzbeks, against the central authority dominated by Pashtuns out of Kabul, while in Sudan we will be intervening on the behalf of the minority southern people of Sudan against the central authority in Khartoum, dominated by Arabs.

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Darfur is in the West, not the South. Nor are the southerners a minority, they just don't have the army.

And who is talking about Afghanistan? Not me. My post was about Sudan.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:The attempt to identify some nuances which make our intervention in one, but not the other, justifiable on moral grounds is pure politics and nothing more.

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At what point did I argue in favour or against intervention? I merely described what I knew of Sudan.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:We really have to question pure speculations like this based on zero evidence, when no one who was actually involved in the incident has actually inferred such a possibility. This is politicized hype in other words.

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I noted that it was speculation in my post. The fact that the Janjaweed are stirred up, and indirectly supported by (or at least ignored by), the Sudanese government is not speculation.

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:The CIA and corporate-sponsored mercenaries are fueling the conflict. Sudan has oil reserves rivalling Saudi Arabia. "Save Sudan" groups started up their phony campaigns to stop "the genocide" around the same time the chickenhawks needed a diversion from accusations of running gulags for torture in Iraq and Iraqi opinion polls suggesting the torture was worse in 2006 than during Saddam's rein.

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No, I'd say that climate change and interethnic tensions are fueling the conflict. Any corporate sponsored mercenaries are likely in the South where the oil is, not the West where Darfur is. The fighting and atrocities in Darfur are happening independent of the CIA (difficult as that may be for you to accept), who have no reason to encourage it. There is nothing strategic or useful in Darfur for anyone who doesn't actually live there.

If we were talking about the South, which we are not, then you might have something.

It seems to me that people have managed to conflate two separate conflicts. The civil war with the South went on for most of the past 60 years. The conflict in the West, in Darfur, has been much more recent. There is certainly some significant contrast between the handwringing going on regarding Darfur and the deafening silence that accompanied the genocide in the South.

The relative reactions of outside powers, us to the conflicts in Sudan are telling in terms of geopolitics yada yada. That doesn't mean they are less important or the people dying in them are less real. And people are dying.

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: arborman ]

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: arborman ]

The logic of both is the same.

In Afghanistan, we are there to stabalize the domestic situation, so as to allow for the injection of humanitarian aid to bolster the local political and economic infrastructure, and ease the tensions between ethnic groups by reducing the underlying causes.

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:

No, I'd say that climate change and interethnic tensions are fueling the conflict. Any corporate sponsored mercenaries are likely in the South where the oil is, not the West where Darfur is. The fighting and atrocities in Darfur are happening independent of the CIA (difficult as that may be for you to accept), who have no reason to encourage it.

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Well that's a pile of baloney. "Inter-ethnic tensions"?. Why can't they all just get along? Get real! Everybody in the world knows the U.S.A's is the most wasteful, most oil-dependent economy in the world. Everybody in the world knows why the chickenhawks bombed Iraq, and even why they are at odds with oil-rich Iran. It's the crude.

quote:

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It's the Oil Merchants of Death

www.globalresearch.ca

The United States, acting through surrogate allies in Chad and neighboring states has trained and armed the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army, headed until his death in July 2005, by John Garang, trained at US Special Forces school at Fort Benning, Georgia.

By pouring arms into first southern Sudan in the eastern part and since discovery of oil in Darfur, to that region as well, Washington fuelled the conflict that led to tens of thousands dying and several million driven to flee their homes. Eritrea hosts and supports the SPLA, the umbrella NDA opposition group, and the Eastern Front and Darfur rebels.

There are two rebel groups fighting in Sudan's Darfur region against the Khartoum central government of President Omar al-Bashir-- the Justice for Equality Movement (JEM) and the larger Sudan Liberation Army (SLA).

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[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Is there no evil you can not find a way to blame on the CIA?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
I don't think that Karl Marx would stand by an historical analysis entirely dependent on the culpability and maliciousness of one organization.

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But neither are the "rebel" groups working to help matters. Darfurians don't want their former brutal colonizers, Britain, or that other oil-hounds from hell national insecurity state occupying Sudan militarily either. And that's what would happen if the CIA can shit disturb enough and keep the conflict going in order to convince the UNSC that NATO needs to mow the African Union's grass for them. Why not fund a "proxy" peacekeeping force like the African Union? The west should know enough about fighting proxy wars by now from experience to apply reverse idiot logic to the situation.

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
This is conspiracy theory, not dialetical materialism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
France was the original competitor with Britain in the Sudan, not the USA. Just so you know.

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Well imperialism has been a transnational cabal of corporations for some time now, hasn't it. Think IBM, Prescott Bush, General Motors and the Holocaust.

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
France was the original competitor with Britain in the Sudan, not the USA. Just so you know.

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Well, it was actually Egypt, and by extension the Ottomans, who colonized Sudan in the 19th century. The Brits and French competed for who would 'co-rule' the region with the Egyptians.

I think Fidel's analysis is somewhat simplistic, as is yours Cueball. Maybe some of the people in Darfur have their own motivations.

All countries are "different."

There are numerous complexities in the Afghan situation, my rendering of it is intentionally simple, to make the general dynamics overtly comparable.

Layton wants to make a case so that we can choose a side in a civil war. Just as the US made a case so that we could side with Rashid Dostum.

BTW: There is no "Islamic Brotherhood." But its always good to throw in some "Islamist" content into the mix, because it has that added extra-ingredient of evil "other", which plays well in the press.

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:

Ten years ago he would have been crying a river about the child soldiers of the SPLA, right in tune with Moses Znaimer's "War Child Canada" campaign from Much Music. Now its the genocidal Sudanese government which is in the spotlight.

---

The NDP didn't train Paul Garanga in the black art of torture, murder and terrorism at Fort Benning, home of the notorious School of the Americas/WHINSEC. And it wasn't the NDP who shovelled some $20 million dollars worth of weapons to the SPLA and other groups through Eritrea, Ethiopia and Chad from the 1980's to at least 2006 and very probably ongoing since the oil discovery.

The Yanks and Brits were once all for the idea of an African Union peacekeeping force. Now they're ignoring the AU. What happened ?

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:
I find the use and co-opting of Darfuri and other voices to promote our personal worldviews somewhat appalling.[/QB]

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I agree entirely, and it seems to me that the NDP's attempt to latch onto the militarist tone of the times, and international outcry around Darfur, largely sponsored by George W. Bush's Whithouse, is extremely cynical.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Layton wants to make a case so that we can choose a side in a civil war. Just as the US made a case so that we could side with Rashid Dostum.

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What a steaming pile of cow manure.

Tactical Use of Genocide in Sudan and the Five Lakes Region

by John Bart Gerald

www.NightsLantern.ca

quote:

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The leader of the Southern rebellion, John Garang, went to Grinnell College in the U.S. and was trained at the U.S. Army command school 7 He bears some similarity to Paul Kagame, the current President of Rwanda, who also trained at the U.S. Army command school. In 1990 Paul Kagame began attacking Rwanda from Uganda, and in 1994 invaded with well armed troops, a modern weapons army, land forces, precipitating a program of mass slaughters. Was it a fluke of tribal war that became genocide? Or was it a carefully planned NATO operation that discounted African population loss ?

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quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:
1. I'm not proposing anything.

2. You need to read more about Sudan, because a lot of your assertions are actually not true. They seriously discredit your case, whatever it is.

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I agree you aren't saying anything.

You're the one who proposed the existance of a movement called the "Islamic Brotherhood."

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:
1. I'm not proposing anything.

2. You need to read more about Sudan, because a lot of your assertions are actually not true. They seriously discredit your case, whatever it is.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:

I agree you aren't saying anything.

You're the one who proposed the existance of a movement called the "Islamic Brotherhood."

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My mistake, it was the Muslim Brotherhood. I was going on memory.

The group took power in 1989 through a military coup, though they do not currently hold power. You might choose not to believe they are real, but that doesn't make it so.

Look, I think that radicalism is a perfectly normal response to repression. In an Islamic society it stands to reason that the radicalism would be rooted in Islam. And if 1000 people are disaffected and radicalized, maybe a couple will go the distance and become dangerous.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
No. He is a populist population without any principles, that is what is being said.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Okay, sorry webgear. But webgear was the first to bring up the NDP, and the anti-NDP drones apparently saw that as the greenlight to attack Canada's fourth political party in parliament.

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No problem Fidel this time. I will not demand pistols at dawn for insulting my honour.

However the next time I will demand satisfaction.

Does anyone have any good sources on the situation in Sudan and the regional conflict?

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:

My mistake, it was the Muslim Brotherhood. I was going on memory.

The group took power in 1989 through a military coup, though they do not currently hold power. You might choose not to believe they are real, but that doesn't make it so.

---

Of course they are real. They were founded in 1904 in Egypt. They were the organization which killed Anwar Sadat. They are also the organization which Israel promoted in the West Bank under the tuttelage of Sheik Amhed Yassin, who later formed Hamas out of the more militant sector of the Muslim Brotherhood chapter in the Gaza Strip, and that is all just off-hand from memory.

Perhaps I know a thing about them that you do not?

My point is that you should not arrogantly dismiss the general thrust of my position because of a specific factual mistake (such as conflating the SLA with SPLA -- how hard is that?), when your own account is also obviously factually flawed, and then pretend to authority based on your superior knowledge, because such errors "seriously discredit" your case, "whatever it is."

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:

My point is that you should not arrogantly dismiss the general thrust of my position because of a specific factual mistake (such as conflating the SLA with SPLA -- how hard is that?), when your own account is also obviously factually flawed, and then pretend to authority based on your superior knowledge, because such errors "seriously discredit" your case, "whatever it is."

---

As far as I can tell your position is:

1. We should not intervene in Sudan, and therefore

Afghanistan might be an important base for former UNOCAL advisor turned stoogeocrat Hamid Karzai and the corporate jackals who shoved him to the front of the pack. But I think oil in Sudan and Exxon/BP/Shell will have priority on Sudanese oil.

If Afghanistan is wrong for Canada in 2009, it's wrong in 2007.

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:

As far as I can tell your position is:

1. We should not intervene in Sudan, and therefore

2. Jack Layton is bad.

---

Yes, Jack Layton is an unprincipled populist politician. He certainly finds the time to condemnd the government of Sudan, enough, supposedly on principle, but I have heard him say nothing on the ongoing occupation, and daily killings of Palestinians, other than to say: "Much of what Israeli is doing is necessary."

There has been no new policy commitment from the NDP regarding that. However, this issue, promoted largely at the behest of the whitehouse is "popular" human rights issue selling well in the liberal press and Jack is right in there lapping it up.

This is obvious to me.

What is not obvious to me, is what precisely is different about the Sudan in comparison to Afghanistan, in a way that Canadian involvement can be more efficacious in resolving the issues at the heart of conflict?

I am waiting for this answer.

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
I think it's a fubar in Sudan either way. And so when Warshington and Langley finally do create conditions of civil war and chaos in Sudan, Jack Layton will look like a genius. Layton and the NDP will look like geniuses for demanding peacekeeping in Sudan, because that's where our troops will be sent on Warshington's orders before or after the Afghanistan pullout date of 2009. Layton is just intercepting the low level background dialogue between Warshington and our stoogeocrats beforehand is all.

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I am aware of the Global Research website. I visit their website every few weeks and read their articles.

Do you know what chapter the UN is going into Sudan with? Is it a peacekeeping or peacemaking mandate?

I also do expect that Canada will be in Sudan by 2010, no matter which political party is ruling Canada at the time.

I believe that the Afghanistan mission will provide some valuable lessons learned for the mission to Sudan.

[ 01 October 2007: Message edited by: Webgear ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Webgear:

Do you know what chapter the UN is going into Sudan with? Is it a peacekeeping or peacemaking mandate?

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That I would not know. It could end up being a long drawn out affair with Omar al-Bashir ending up stuffed in an oil drum and floating to Arabia. I don't know. The goal is to get U.S./British troops in there and maybe even a base established in the nearer long run.

quote:

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I also do expect that Canada will be in Sudan by 2010, no matter which political party is ruling Canada at the time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:

I am waiting for this answer.

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You won't get one from me, because I would not support a military intervention in Sudan.

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:
The janjaweed are essentially government sanctioned paramilitaries, combines with a bit of land greed and general rapaciousness. That goes a long way to explaining why the Sudanese government resisted UN involvement. I wouldn't be surprised if the attack on the AU site was sanctioned indirectly by the government as well.

---

quote:

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The commander of the new hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur has blamed a breakaway rebel faction for an attack that killed 10 African Union troops.
Speaking from the scene of the attack, General Martin Agwai told the BBC it was a splinter group "who broke away from a faction called SLA United".

---

AU attack blamed on Darfur rebels

Khartoum 'prevented UN troops evacuating wounded peacekeepers'

quote:

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United Nations personnel based in Darfur have been prevented by the Sudanese government from evacuating their African Union comrades following Saturday's attack which killed at least 10 AU troops.

According to senior humanitarian officials based in Sudan, the UN mission in Sudan (Unmis) – which has 10,000 troops in the south of the country – tried to send a rescue team to the AU's base in Haskanita, North Darfur, in the hours following the attack. But they were denied access by Khartoum and it was several hours before the Sudanese armed forces sent their own troops to Haskanita to evacuate the remaining AU soldiers.

---

You did note that I said 'I wouldn't be surprised' indicating that my comments were speculation.

And that doesn't mean the janjaweed aren't indirectly supported by the government, or that they aren't committing genocidal acts.

Personally, I suspect that neither the Sudanese government nor the rebels (in all their factions) nor the janjaweed militias really want external observers or peacekeepers there. They all want a free reign to kill.

If all sides don't want it, then peacekeepers can't function and shouldn't be sent. Given that 'peacemaking' missions tend to do more harm than good, I personally think the best option is to disengage and refuse to trade or be involved with Sudan.

Anyway, enough of that. Lets at least agree that your and my analysis of the facts on the ground are not so out of step with each other, and that my statement:

quote:

---

The issue is basicly that we have these impoverished people running around trying to eek out some kind of life for themselves, living in an increasingly violent environment, where the only way they can get any kind of safety or even a means of eating is by robbing and killing and joining the most competent band of bandidos. Yes, the economic issues must be addressed but the availability of increaslingly lethal small arms is turning Africa and much of Asia into a war zone.

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Can be concieved as being another aspect of the same thing you are describing.

Now, in your defence of Layton's position, and given what you have just said above, what precisely is different about the Sudan in comparison to Afghanistan, in a way that Canadian involvement can be more efficacious in resolving the issues at the heart of conflict?

Second question, why is the NDP so taken with the idea that the AU is particularly well suited to resolving a civil war between black Africans, and Arabs?

[ 02 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

2. And, the NDP knows full well that the AU is not equipped to deal with CIA-funded and aided rebels murdering, kidnapping and raping civilians and creating a refugee crisis in Sudan.

Jack's going to look like a genius when Ottawa gets the call to send peacemakers, I mean peacekeepers into Darfur. And stoogeocrats in Canada's two old line parties will appear slow and plodding and overly obssessed with propping up another U.S. stooge in Kabul.

[ 02 October 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Since this is a mission they demanded that CF should be a part of.

This article povides some insight in the AU forces in Sudan

quote:

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Originally posted by Webgear:
This article povides some insight in the AU forces in Sudan

Durfur Peacekeeping

---

Sounds like the AU needs equipment and help with funding. Since Paul Martin, the amount of foreign development aid to poorest of poor countries has dropped markedly. Our two old line parties should think of foreign aid as a good investment in a sustainable world and not as a handout. Our two old line parties want Canada to follow the lead of president Dubya with an aggressive combat mission to prop up U.S. stooge in Kabul.

In 2005(?)Canada provided over 100 Armoured Personnel Carriers and the support to maintain the vehicles.

There are currently a dozen senior officers supporting the UN in the main headquarters in Sudan.

There is a news report today about former General Dallaire and his experiences in Rwanda. He states that many of the UN personnel on missions are underequipped and ill-trained.

Not to mention the fact that all the really good ones that naturally occur are probably already occupied. Also I think the nature of "peacekeeping" unfortunately limits the options as the posts have to be in more exposed areas that are well traficked by the local population in order to function.

[ 02 October 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Webgear:
Canada has been providing a lot of support to the AU.

In 2005(?)Canada provided over 100 Armoured Personnel Carriers and the support to maintain the vehicles.[/URL]

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I didn't know that. I do know Canada is contributing more to Afghanistan in aid than any other country. Here's what Jack Layton said about our overall direction with overseas development aid. And the U.S. is not contributing like it once did with the shift to the right.

quote:

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We are contributing less,
not more, in Overseas Development Assistance as a percentage of our Gross National Income. Thirty years ago we contributed 0.57% and ranked among the top five donors. Under Paul Martin, it dipped to 0.26% – dragging us down to 14th place among donors. After the NDP budget last year, aid stands at 0.33%.

In the last ten years, Canada has dropped from 8th place to 55th place in terms of global peacekeeping. And today Canada is ranked 28th out of 30 OECD countries in terms of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and smog.

It seems lately that Canada has embraced a world view more in keeping with George Bush than with Tommy Douglas or Lester Pearson . . .

In 1968, Lester Pearson chaired a commission on international development. He recommended that wealthy countries contribute 0.7% of their Gross National Income toward Overseas Development Assistance. Pearson’s recommendation was endorsed by the World Bank, the OECD and the United Nations.

Forty years have passed since that time. So how are we doing? In 2007, Canada is contributing 0.3% of our GNI. That’s less than half of what Lester Pearson called for.

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The Government of Canada should be donating an equal amount to each country, no one country should be getting more than another country.

Being one of the 14 top donors of the world does not seem like a bad number however Canada should be within the top ten in my view.

How much money does Canada donate every year to other nations?

I think Canada has done its fair share of peacekeeping since the 1950s, there is no reason that other nations should not take up the slack in the amount of peacekeepers.

"The town of Haskanita is the home of the African Union peacekeeping base that rebel forces attacked last week.

[ 07 October 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

None of Canada, US or Britian are even on the top ten list of UN peackepinng nations. Go check UN sources. and you will find that African, Asian & Arab countries top the list.

IF Canada the US and Britain decided not to provide any peackeepers, a majority of the world would not even notice.

Secondly, the African peackeeping forces have a strong and very successful track record in Africa & abroad.

US, Canada & British forces have very negative and unsecfull track records. (Rawanda, Haiti, Iraq, Columbia etc)

SO why anyone in their rigth mind, who wants peace, would be asking for western forces to directly intervine militarily is beyond me. Racism & Colonial mentality, would be the reason why people in the west continue to be blinded from reality.

The AU has asked for some technical & technological assistance. The AU has people that speak the native languages of those that they engage with and are intimately familiar with the various cultures.

What most of the Western activist fail to comprehend, that the UN unfortunately is overwhenlmingly not interested in Peace or the well being of Africans or any other impoverished people.

Those that have Veto powers (G8) .. are mostly interested in how they can profit from our misery. It has be proven that wars, not only bring profit to those G8 members that produce ammunitions, but also allow them to rape and pillage our resources more efficiently.