Hillary on Sudan: NO FLY ZONE. Shoot down whatever hits that no fly zone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqibBRlF3EE

Thoughts?

with peacekeepers and supplies?

It's not about warmongering like bush...it's about trying to deal with the slaughter in Darfur.

Geez :eyes:

Check the link. They even admit they fired on the convoy.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080109/wl_africa_afp/sudandarfurununrest_080109202736

What else is new??

NO MORE WARS!!!!!!!! :grr:

Which is better...

Stand by and do nothing while men, women and children are slaughtered?

or

Commit our forces to save lives?

What about working with UN to put in place a no-fly zone so the Sudanese couldn't use their armed forces to commit acts of genocide or take out UN convoys that are offering humanitarian aide to those who are being slaughtered?

I agree...no more premeditated war. It should never have happened. But it should in no way prevent us from doing what we can to help others who truly need it such as those people in Darfur. That is where our intervention could have done the most good.

If we had a president who didn't care so much about oil, who wasn't so greedy, who was so eager for war and so damn imcompetant, we wouldn't have this ungoldy war in Iraq.

Instead, if we had a president like Gore, for example, Iraq would never have happened and he would have done everything he could to stop what was happening in Darfur.

And I will note Dodd, Obama, and Clinton were all co-sponsors of Biden's S. Res. 559:

No-Fly Zone: Senate Resolution 559
Senate Resolution 559 was introduced on Sept. 7, 2006, by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE). Thirty-seven senators co-sponsored the resolution. Senate Resolution 559 passed by unanimous consent on Sept. 13, 2006.

The resolution calls on the president and the United Nations to take immediate steps to end the genocide in Darfur. Specifically, the resolution calls on the UN to deploy peacekeeping troops to the region as soon as possible. It also urges the president to work with NATO and the UN to enforce a no-fly zone in Darfur.

While the resolution is nonbinding, it recommends several important measures that President Bush should enforce to protect civilians in Darfur. Imposing a no-fly zone would greatly reduce attacks in Darfur, and a UN peacekeeping force is vital for ending the atrocities.

Being the biggest guy on the block means we should use that strength to do good when necessary.

I absolutely don't get people who want to let genocide occur because we shouldn't use our force for good.

But I don't want to see a "white army" invading a black country.

Thank You for qualifying your stance, cynatnite. :hug:

I just want the USA to HELP people without the * crap of over taking them and marginalizing them.

Yes, I want them freed from that oppression! It saddens and sickens me but I fear for the role

the USA would play and how far they'd go, under *'s watch. I also worry about another ground street war.

That's what I hate about this the most. The world will be paying for bush's policies for generations and it makes me very sad.

:hug:

Thanks

This is not about WAR! This is about saving lives... these atrocities can not continue!

It seems to be made in a knee-jerk political fashion...by which I mean I'm guessing you support a candidate other than Hillary and perhaps read the topic subject and decided upon your response (negative against Hillary) based upon that.

Can I ask for your honesty: did you read the entire question/answer OP before posting?

"Is she or isn't she a blond?"

Remember that ad?

She needs to shit or get off the pot and you need a reality check!!

two completely different situations.

:(

Darfur is not Iraq anymore than IFOR/KFOR was.

Hey who fucking cares about them anyway right?

MO MORE INVASIONS BY THE USA, NO MORE USA INTERVENTIONS, NO MORE USA GROUND TROOPS

IN OTHER COUNTRIES BEHAVING LIKE THE POLICE OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!! NO MORE WAR!!!!!!

There are other alternatives.

nobody flies over it.

If we can stop attacks on the innocent people of Darfur, what's wrong with that?

the sovereignty of other nations.

It's not really a solution or at best, an illegal and ham fisted one.

we shouldn't stop atrocities?

Maybe you should stop it before you go whooping up on the next country.

were atrocities too. Right. We violated their sovereignty alright.

No genocide occurred in Kosovo. Most of the refugees ran when the NATO bombing began in 1999, and 1/3 of them ran into Serbia - the supposed source of the "genocide." A total of 2,000 people were killed in the fighting in 1998-99 (prior to the illegal NATO intervention, which killed about 6,000 people). The conflict began in the first place due to an insurgency by the CIA-backed, drug-dealing KLA, which also had the backing of the mujahedeen known as "Al Qaeda" in the West. One can imagine how the U.S. would have handled the situation the Yugoslavian federals faced - with overwhelming force from the air, of course.

Even going by the wild exaggerations of the Save Darfur propaganda - which ignores far greater atrocities happening in the direct region - the toll in Darfur is only a fraction of what the U.S. has done to Iraq.

If Darfur is the site of genocide, then the U.S. has committed at least four times the genocide in Iraq and Washington DC should be a no-fly zone. The U.S. has absolutely no legitimacy for intervening there or anywhere. Any intervention will be on behalf of U.S. economic interests - there will never be a genuine humanitarian intervention and there almost never has been. Humanitarian is just the lie in which imperialism is dressed. (Do people here actually read history, or only Samantha Powers?)

How can you all be so ignorant of the actual history of U.S. military and covert interventions since 1945? The Pentagon and the CIA do not save lives, ever - they end them.

and regain the respect of the world community, we won't have the moral authority to lead any such effort.

:sarcasm:

They operated essentially as an independent country from the rest of Iraq because Saddam was too afraid to move any forces, air or ground, into the area to assert control because he knew they'd be obliterated. The Kurds loved this, and it allowed them to build up their infrastructure and government. Things were going fairly well for them until Saddam fell and with him the special bubble of protection they enjoyed for all those years from the first Gulf War. Now they're just as susceptible to attacks as any other Iraqis.

Great fucking plan!! :wtf:

You are of the status quo...same old shit, different day!!!

RETIRE ALREADY!! Gheesh!! :grr:

But that didn't occur to you, did it? :eyes:

Edit: Additionally, the No Fly Zones were wholly separate from the sanctions leveled against Saddam's government. Apples, meet oranges.

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You seem to have a pretty myopic view of what's going on. That creates a very limited set of options that can be utilized to address the situation. You think it's either do nothing or use military force.

What I want to know is: How does giving more billions to Lockheed or Halliburton help the situation in the Sudan?

I just have to ask: Are you nuts?

Here is what is totally missing from your analysis:

>>

"Ninety percent of Sudan's export income is derived from oil, with Khartoum funneling the majority of this revenue into military expenditures. Sudan lacks the capital and expertise to efficiently extract its own oil, and relies almost entirely on foreign companies to operate this lucrative industry, which provided the government with over $4 billion in export revenue last year.

The oil industry in Sudan is dominated by four foreign companies: China National Petroleum Corporation of China, Petronas of Malaysia, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India, and Sinopec Corporation of China. While these are all state-owned enterprises, U.S. investors have significant funds invested through various publicly-held affiliates and subsidiaries."

http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lang=e&id=ENGUSA20071220001

>>

How can you even try to discuss the horrors going on over there without even first mentioning these folks?

You need to quit trying to lecture people on stuff you seem to know so little about. I just don't get how you think that giving more money to Raytheon and Blackwater is going to help anybody except Cheney and Feinstein.

...suffer in much the same way the Iraqis did if we imposed sanctions again. Obviously, sanctions against Sudanese oil exports will likely hurt the civilians the most. But again, sanctions are being confused with no-fly zones; they're separate issues, separate options. No-fly zones have an immediate and useful impact in that they deny access to an area to the Sudanese military. No only was Saddam's air force prevented from getting near the Kurds, Saddam was also reluctant to move ground forces into the region because he knew they'd get obliterated. The Darfurians don't need sanctions leveled against the Sudanese government, they need immediate relief from their attacks.

If this were a joint UN-AU venture, let the UN provide air cover in the form of a no-fly zone, as well as providing relief aid, and let the AU provide the boots on the ground to enforce peace within the zone and engage Sudanese forces violating the zone.

I've got to ask you again: How will giving billions of MORE dollars to defense corporations make the violence stop?

They will be making MORE MONEY than they are now. How does that change anything? Where is the incentive to change?

What if there was a profit to be lost, instead of gained, from all this violence? Don't you think change would be much more likely to occur if it cost them money to continue on this path, instead of making them rich?

Now you are talking about billions more dollars for military action. Why not just hit these corporations in their wallets instead? What is wrong with that? I don't see the problem, although I do see a problem with giving more and more billions of tax dollars to the same industry that BENEFITS financially if there is an INCREASE in the violence. How does that make sense to you? Please try to explain it so that it makes sense. What is this special motivation that these companies will have, that will go against their own financial interest, and that you think we are failing to account for?

I'm guess I'm not really surprised that you think the Iraq model is a good process to follow. Do you think the Katrina response worked well, too?

...while people hem and haw about what to do economically and how much to do it. But what I want to know is when US American aerospace companies took over Sudan's government and started arming the Janjaweed militias. You imply that intervening in Sudan's attacks against Darfur will immediately translate into ungodly sums of money for US American corporations. The US doesn't even have to get involved militarily, we could just sit back and provide economic aid and Humanitarian relief; I've posted elsewhere of a joint UN-AU operation. Also, how is using existing squadrons of aircraft (not necessarily from the United States or even US American countries; you do know other countries can and do make their OWN fighter jets, right?) automatically equivalent to giving aerospace companies brazillians of dollars in new contracts? You're making some pretty spacious and asinine assumptions about where the airpower has to come from. And then you throw out the red herring about Bush the Younger's handling of Iraq and Katrina, neither of which have ANYTHING to do with the no-fly zones established after the first Gulf War. Bush the Elder, the UK, and France established and patrolled them, Clinton continued them through his presidency, France ended its participation in 1998, and Bush the Younger picked up where Bill left off right up until the beginning of the second Gulf War. The Kurds in the north and the "marsh Arabs" in the south were very grateful to have at least a few years of not being killed by Saddam.

You can rant and rave about the corporations and the war industry all you like and you'd be right to do so. It IS sick that they get so much damned and bloodied money in their trade but meanwhile, Darfurians will keep dying just so you can feel good about yourself for "sticking it to The Man" with your rants and berating others on an Internet forum. I'm sure the Darfurians will spend their dying breaths praising your name for calling out the Fat Cats in the military-industrial complex.

I really wish people would drop this asstarded notion that written history began after Bush the Younger took office and will end once he leaves. It gets really tiresome when people reflexively invoke his name as fault for all that is wrong in the world. Shit was fucked-up long before he came along, shit will be fucked-up long after he's gone; he has just made things worse while he has been in office. As much as people, both supporters and haters, would like it too the world thankfully doesn't revolve around him.

But I still don't understand how making the slaughter more profitable will cause it to end.

How does that work? Explain it to me the way that you understand it to work, because I really don't get it.

I don't think anyone would dispute that billions are already being spent to support the slaughter there. Why not make that portion of the cycle unprofitable for everyone, and especially for the corporations that are profiting now? Would that not have a positive effect? Don't you think that might work better than just increasing their profits?

*sigh*

Billions are NOT "already being spent to support the slaughter there" by companies outside the country. If you're going to make that kind of argument, then you absolutely must make the same argument apply to the United States, that every country and every company that has invested money in any form, big or small, in the United States supports Bush's continued occupation of Iraq, supports the torture of "enemy combatants," supports the shredding of our constitution, and applauds Bush's handling of Katrina. It's a dumb argument to make, but it's the one you're making: Guilt by association.

This is a very simple concept: Economic impacts take time to be felt. If the corporations start pulling investments, that'd be great but the effects would not be immediately felt anymore than international sanctions would (though they are essentially the same thing). The Sudanese government would still have its military, the Janjaweed would still have their weaponry, both would still be able to enter the Darfur region, and the people living there would still be very screwed. Area denial is the best course of action the people can receive for immediate relief from the attacks.

If the two courses of action were taken jointly, then the Sudanese government would likely stop its attacks and be more receptive to productive negotiation in a matter of days rather than weeks if just sanctions (either internationally-levied or investments privately pulled) were leveled against them. You've demonstrated that you have this bizarre notion that the Sudanese government gives a shit about fair play and diplomacy, or is particularly worried that its brutalization of Darfurians will illicit much more than dirty looks and sternly-worded posts on the Internet. This isn't a Western democracy with an advanced military we're dealing with, it is a power-sharing government that's one part rebel coalition and one part military that took power in (yet another) military coup in 1989. They don't respond positively to threats of economic sanctions. They've shown they aren't because threats of economic sanctions have been thrown at them for months now, if not years, yet the slaughter continues. Go ahead and dangle the carrot in front of them, threatening to take it away, but have the cattle prod handy to make sure they don't go where they're not supposed too. If you try to starve them of cash, but take no measures to protect Darfur, Sudan will just lash out at the Darfurians that much more.

"The Sudanese government would still have its military, the Janjaweed would still have their weaponry, both would still be able to enter the Darfur region, and the people living there would still be very screwed."

I guess you think that we have American "freedom fighters" that are fighting for free in Iraq.

Gosh, the DOD and those Blackwater folks are really stupid, I guess, they are actually PAYING their soldiers and mercenaries.

How about this, to try and give you a different perspective. What do you think would happen if these companies (China National Petroleum Corporation of China, Petronas of Malaysia, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India, and Sinopec Corporation of China) were each fined $10,000 per death? Do you think that might have any effect? Do you think it would be a positive effect for those people in Darfur?

an uneducated red-herring, at best.

The no-fly zones in Iraq were a useful and positive thing for protecting innocent Kurds.

If you believe a response of "RETIRE ALREADY!" to information like that makes you appear anything other than a knee-jerk anti-Hillarybot, you're mistaken.

for good foreign policy or diplomacy.

...has no interest in diplomacy, which they've demonstrated plenty. They've been less than cooperative in international efforts to bring an end to the conflict, that's why the AU has offered to bring in it's own military forces as a (essentially toothless) peacekeeping force.

:wtf:

And some call me crazy for supporting a 'PEACE' Candidate!

Go Dennis Kucinich!! We need you and your PEACE DEPARTMENT!!!

after all the death we have seen this policy reap.

It's just gobsmacking. :wow:

I have to be honest. I want to see a female president in my lifetime but
my conscience is making me look at the policies and it's tearing me apart!!

Why did she alienate me? How can she claim to be caring and then vote to re-fund a war

and risk MY sons life!?! :grr:

I just can't wrap my head around it, no matter how many Gloria Steinem's article's my sister sends me.

It really hurts. :cry: I feel like HRC abandoned me and my sons.

That they are just 'throw aways' to her and that's why I'm not buying what she's selling! :grr:

... just watched genocide on TV?

...even if they were documenting the atrocities there.

Edit: Look, snarkiness aside, just because everything Bush touches turns to shit doesn't mean that will always be true for US foreign policy nor always has been true. Christ, it seems like to some people the world has only existed and will only exist with Bush in office.

:grr:

Interesting.

:grr:

Not ALL AMERICAN FORCES!!!

GET IT!?!

Anyway, AU forces have already been proposed, which is far more likely to happen because no one wants to send their snow-white troops into the land of scary black people. They let it happen in Rwanda, they've let it happen in Darfur.

:wtf: are you talking about -

"because no one wants to send their snow-white troops into the land of scary black people."

I didn't mean that at all and don't twist my words!! :grr:

Under * that has been true. He only invades countries with oil. :(

But he doesn't represent America anymore!!

He took us down the rabbit hole and the judges weren't willing to do their jobs

and I hope they will IMPEACH but I know they won't.

:(

First of all, the UN most certainly DID let the slaughter continue in Rwanda. A commander of UN forces on the ground in Rwanda caught wind of the impending genocide (that preparations were being made to incite the Hutus against the Tutsis in the form of radio provocations and the handing out of machetes and so on) and he dutifully informed headquarters. He begged for action to be taken or at the very least he be allowed to keep his soldiers in place to protect any civilians already under his protection and any who came. The only action taken was to order him and his forces to immediately evacuate himself, his soldiers, and foreign nationals from Rwanda. The UN knew full-well what was occurring, it hemmed and hawed for weeks about sending forces, and ultimately waited long enough for the violence to die down before returning to Rwanda.

Second of all, no one is accusing YOU of not wanting to send your white son to black Africa. I'm merely repeating the observation that white, western democracies have an aversion to sending military forces into Africa. Rwanda and Darfur are examples of this.

Thirdly, what's going on in Darfur is a genocide, just as Rwanda was. The UN has made some effort, the international community has as well, and the AU has even floated the idea of sending an all-Africa peacekeeping force into the region ... all to no avail. The Sudanese government isn't having any of it.

Fourthly, This isn't about Bush or his stealing of the Florida election in '00 or about the USSC Justices shirking their duties and declining to protect democracy. This about the international community's lackluster response to yet-another genocide. A no-fly zone might be the most viable response to Sudan's continued transparent stonewalling of efforts to stop its slaughter of people living in Darfur.

Do you think no Americans, including me, has read about and understood what's going on?

Stop believing your M$M hype! I think more Americans than you realize, know what's going on.

It's amusing how you keep dancing around the issues, throwing out every talking point from our side of the aisle in the hopes that something will stick, but you're just making yourself look silly. The fact of the matter is you don't really understand the issues involved with Darfur, you don't really understand the issues involved with the punishments leveled against Saddam's government after his defeat during the first Gulf War, and you don't really know how to deal with someone who does more so than you. The only knowledge you've demonstrated you have is how to scream "FU A-Hole" and "Eat ****," and basically question the motives of others who dare question you.

:sarcasm:

I'm guessing, from your posts here, you were happy with that outcome in Rawanda. Correct?

I was under the impression it was more or less land-based tribal fighting, with one side having government arms and funding.

firing on unprotected soft targets. Can and have killed many people.

The hind helicopter has no ability to defend its self against an f18 or f15. Nor does anything sudan operates.

Just the threat of intervention by the UN would stop the lopsided killing.

Problem


Solution:

It just seems you have to prove how tough you are to run for President.

be commander-in-chief. There are those who will say as a woman she is too nurturing to be able to defend us, blah, blah, blah. She's going to go out of her way to show comfort with ordering the military to attack.

"No one care about you, you aren't even niggers, you are just Africans" paraphrase from Hotel Rawanda. If this was in eastern europe we would intervene.

You are goddamn right we should do something. It is unacceptable to sit and do NOTHING while people are killed by the hundreds of thousands. We took the time to fix Yugoslavia.

It is not a civil war it is a genocide. There is ZERO risk to us assets if we run CAP. None.

We maintain a powerful military, we have the chance to use it to help people.

of the same.

Humanitarianism as a pretense for foreign intervention. How many times we been down this road? Unfortunately enough Americans are suffering from historical amnesia, if they knew in the first place, that this duplicity takes hold.

I'm wondering if those who support this ever get beyond the manufactured talking points and take out a map and look at the geopolitical concerns in the region.

I know, I know...

Good ol' cavalry can't just stand by while...

Don't be as simplistic and ignorant as those who would claim Iraq = Germany.