Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Muslim Friends of Genocide

What is the connectin between Arabs and Muslims, on the one hand, and Terrrorism on the other was the ostensible subject of a meeting at Wichita Stat Monday evening? My busy schedule prevented me from attending, so only a few quick observations and a recent news story.

Stereotyping all Muslims or all Arabs as terrorists is wrong and should be resolutely opposed. Repressing people because of their religioius views is wrong--whether it is Muslims who are being repressed or Muslims who are being repressed.

The reality is that there is a powerful, transnational movement in the Arab and Islamic worlds that is profoundly anti-democratic, imperialist, and, openly genocidal in its aims.

Via Mick Hartley

A delegation of senior Middle Eastern leaders has travelled to Sudan to express international support for Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, who is accused of war crimes in Darfur.

Officials from Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah joined Syria's parliament speaker and the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group for talks with al-Bashir in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, on Friday.

The visit comes days after the International Criminal Court at The Hague issued a warrant for al-Bashir's arrest on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan's western Darfur region.

Ali Larijani, Iran's parliament speaker and a member of the international delegation in Khartoum on Friday, said the ICC arrest warrant is an "insult directed at Muslims".

Not that any of them ever expressed any concern for the Muslims killed or raped in Darfur - or those thrown off their land and forced to live in camps, maintained by humanitarian groups funded almost entirely by the West. Or their fate if the aid agencies threatened by al-Bashir are forced to leave.

Though fellow Muslims aren't Bashir's only friends:

The UN Security Council, at its first meeting since the arrest warrant was issued, failed on Saturday to agree on a statement asking Sudan to reverse the decision to expel the aid agencies.

The key powers at the UN Security Council - Russia, China, France, the US and Britain - met to discuss a statement which called on Sudan to reverse the expulsions.

But diplomats say China, which buys Sudan's oil and sells it weapons, objected.

A delegation from the African Union and the Arab League is due to ask the Security Council to suspend the war crimes case against Sudan's president.

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