Stop the Genocide . . . in Iraq
posted by Susan Stark
Have you ever heard of the phrase, “selective compassion”?
This would characterize anyone, particularly Westerners, who zealously champion the cause of the Darfurians.
The actess Mia Farrow, and journalists like Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice and Nick Kristof of the New York Times shout at the top of their computer software and shed hot tears for Darfur. They regularly use their columns and celebrity status to guilt-trip us that we are not doing enough to “save” the hundreds of thousands who have died, and the millions who’ve become refugees in the Sudan.
And, I would have to agree with them. We aren’t doing enough. But . . . is it really “our” job to do anything for the Darfurians? I am about to argue, heresy of heresies, that it’s not.
It may be the job of the Europeans, the Africans, the Asians, or even the South Americans to save Darfur. Maybe it’s the job of Canadians to save Darfur.
But for Americans, our task is to save Iraqis, not Darfurians. There are now around 700, 000 Iraqis dead as a result of the Iraq War, and there are 3 million refugees, either exiled or internally displaced. And we Americans are either directly or indirectly responsible for this condition, whether we’ve supported the War or not, because we pay for it with our tax dollars. And if such a condition in Darfur is called a “genocide”, then the same label also applies for Iraq.
Yet, you don’t see Ms. Farrow or Mr. Hentoff or Mr. Kristof crying and guilt-tripping Americans over these pour souls. I guess it’s easier see genocide when some else is doing it, like the Arab Sudanese, then when you are doing it. Yes, all this constant concern for Darfurians provides a wonderful distraction away from the many more Iraqis suffering under the same conditions.
To all of these “selectively compassionate” celebrities and journalists shedding crocodile tears for Darfur, I say this: You can stop the waterworks right now, and you can start doing something for the Iraqis suffering because of you.
Stop the Genocide in Iraq.
http://www.lifeusa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=a_iraqidps
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/iraq.cfm
http://www.uuiraq.org/english/175.htm
http://ga3.org/campaign/Iraqi_refugees
Oh, and let’s not forget Afghanistan:
Tedrall's Blog 
August 20, 2007 at 7:55 pm |
Right on.
August 21, 2007 at 5:01 pm |
“But for Americans, our task is to save Iraqis, not Darfurians.”
Actually, I think it should read, “But for humans, our task is to save humans, not…” Oh, wait…
August 21, 2007 at 7:39 pm |
See Susan, Africa has won the popularity contest. Perhaps Toto needs to write a song about Iraq so that people think that iraqis deserve lip service too. A Live Aid would not hurt either.
In the 90s I remember all of the repugs screaming bloody murder over Clinton excursions in Africa and Eastern Europe because there was no “strategic interest” for the US in these regions, they’d say. In my proto neocon phase, I saw Kosovo as the place where WW1 was still going on. Republicans caused the US to withdraw from Rwanda by putting pressure on Clinton. That was back when the media called all sides “warring factions” despite who was actually killing who.
Since most of our money was going into the military, we might as well be using it to do some good. Now I know that is impossible. The US military budget needs to be gutted. The diseased testicles need to be snipped off. Half of our fighting men and women need to be forced into early retirement. Why? Because there is nothing to fight for anymore. This country officially sucks thanks to decades of stupidity and weakness. Our leaders are whores. The dumb ones get the job because they are better at selling themselves. The few intelligent, strong people that slip through are drowned out in the din of idiocy. If we are going to be attacked by terrorists, let it be Washington DC the day they all get back from vacation. Ah whatever, perhaps we just care too much. We should lighten up. It is football season afterall. Lots of deals on shitty food and cheap beer.
ps.
was this the Bushies evil plan all along? To make everyone lose faith in the military the same way we have lost faith in every other government administered institution since he userped? It worked. Now we are all military isolationists. We couldn’t get this country behind stopping the next Hitler.
August 22, 2007 at 9:20 am |
The following still matters and is relevant to the post because we are still paying for it and it has to do with killing innocent people.
We are still not certain on two facts:
1)How many people (besides nuns and priests) did we torture and kill in Central America?
2)How much money did Iran give to us in exchange for the weapons Reagan sold them.
Reagan was the Bin Ladin of the Americas.
Iraq is one under par, but only just.(‘under par’ meaning worse in this case). If you still like Reagan you are going to purgatory. If you don’t believe in purgatory, you are going to hell. If you don’t believe in hell, you probably don’t like Reagan, and you are going to heaven. If you are still reading this, you are never going to die.
August 22, 2007 at 12:03 pm |
I may have been somewhat harsh when I mentioned “crocodile tears” if the concern for Darfur is genuine.
But it just astounds me that Hentoff and Kristof mention Darfur constantly, when conditions in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine are not even on their radar screen. It gets me to thinking that maybe the REAL reason these columnists mention Darfur a lot
has less to do with concern for Black Africans and more to with getting people against the Arab-Muslim Sudanese.
That’s why I say stop the “crocodile tears”, ‘cuz yer not foolin’ me.
August 22, 2007 at 6:42 pm |
more like body snatcher tears
August 29, 2007 at 10:20 pm |
Kristof is just a liar and a shill for the Right. Period. Always has been. After 2000 he said the “liberals” had become “just as bad as anything I’d seen on the right” because – wait for it – some blog commenters had actually gone so far as to call Bush a liar. No, really. He was backing up professional Dem-basher Mickey Kaus at the time. Right after that he defended the corrupt lying hack Adam Nagourney, because lying and using your corrupt alleged ombudsman (Okrent) for cover might be wrong, but being uncivil about it is wronger.
Anyway, Kristof did one of his many dog-and-pony shows, ostensibly buying the freedom of an indentured teen prostitute in Cambodia – apparently the evils of liberal softness on Communism led to this, and he was modeling how the enlightened (essentially right-wing) Western man fixes that.
Problem being she went back to prositution – thanks to the multinats and the US destabilization of Cambodia, the economy still sucks – by the way, it was only after the official-enemy Vietnamese invaded and drove out the by then US-supported Khmer Rouge that the country started even having a semblance of normalcy.
Problem being, in the Saipan/Marianas there was not just sex slavery, not just FORCED ABORTIONs, etc. but an institutionalized cover up of the same, done by the majority party – the one Kristof likes to suck the dick of while pretending to be a liberal Democrat. And Kristof was all for the Marianas sex slave and other slave trades. Because it’s not an official enemy (commie, muslim, whatever) doing it. Kristof can’t see anything not done by the official enemy of the moment.
I really loathe him. There’s something to be said for the obvious worms like the Olsens, Coulter, etc. Kristof is like a rattlesnake that decided it could bite a lot more people if it just sawed off its rattle on some rocks.