Wednesday, August 17, 2005

 
Genocide & Slavery in Sudan? Who cares.

A few facts about the mess in Sudan and why African-American "Leaders" ignore it:
  • The government of Sudan, the largest country in Africa, requires that all people practice the religion of Islam. The majority of people in the southern portion of Sudan are black Christians and animists. The Sudanese government has attempted to force these people into "peace camps" which offer the option of converting to Islam or forced starvation.
  • The government of Sudan is working to control oil resources located in the south. People in the south have resisted and fought back. The government of Sudan has killed over 1 million civilians via murder and forced starvation. More people have been killed in Sudan than in Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda, Chechnya, and Somalia combined.
  • Government supported militias conduct raids on villages in the south where they kill the men and take women and children as slaves. Almost all of the girls that are taken as slaves are raped.
  • The Sudanese government has denied that they condone or participate in slavery. They attribute reports of slavery to the results of wars between tribes in which hostages are taken. However, they refuse to allow international monitors in.
  • A State Department human rights report on Sudan states: "All the reports and information received indicates the direct and general involvement" of the Sudanese army and government supported militias in "the abduction and deportation of civilians from the conflict zones to the north."
  • Charles Jacobs, president of the American Anti-Slavery Group, sent photos and documents about slavery in Sudan to Jesse Jackson. Jackson’s office told him they did not want to get involved because the issue sounded “anti-Arab.”
  • Louis Farrakhan, who has visited Sudan as an honored guest of the government, and the “Nation of Islam” deny that slavery exists in Sudan and challenged the press to find proof of it.
  • Christian Solidarity International took CBS News on a covert flight into Sudan where they purchased 1,000 slaves, mostly women and children, for about $50 a person. The former slaves were returned to their villages.
Thanks to www.justfacts.com for most of this information.


 
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Over the past weeks, I've received many copies of a so-called "Plan for World Peace" attributed to Robin Williams (see below for entire text). Given his history and many past statements, it didn't seem to pass the smell test. However, even though I don't agree with some points of the "plan" (especially regarding terminating the practice of giving asylum to victims of maniacs around the world), it was tongue-in-cheek enough to have seemed a refreshing change from the Hollywood elite. If it were only true. Nobody seems to know who authored the actual plan, but the only part that can be attributed to Robin Williams is the last line.

Apparantly, he was shown the plan, asked if he was the source, and as part of his denial, issued this statement:

Statement by Robin Williams:

"Now, ain't that a winner of a plan. The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying "Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses." She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, "You want a piece of me!!!"

The Statue of Liberty line takes on a whole new meaning in this context.


*Original text of emails distributing "Plan for World Peace":
You gotta love Robin Williams... Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan .. what we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message.

Robin William's plan. (Hard to argue with this logic!)

I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan.

1.) The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic and the rest of those 'good ole boys,' We will never "interfere" again.

2.) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one sneaking through holes in the fence.

3.) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or where they are. France would welcome them.

4.) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation would be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers, or 7-11 cashiers.

5.) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby.

6.) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7.) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go some place else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8.) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides, most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9.) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10.) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The language we speak is ENGLISH . . . . . learn it. . . or LEAVE. . . Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?

"The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'"


Monday, August 15, 2005

 

Anyone who thinks the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's new President will result in the same push and pull between the reformist majority and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his core of ultra-orthodox clerics (which resulted in a kind of Politico-Cultural stasis) should just examine Ahmadinejad's cabinet selections. All ultra-conservatives, especially those heading the important interior, cultural and intelligence ministries (a whole different sphere of reference in comparison to American conservatism). Iran's reformers can look forward to more newspaper closings, pullbacks on freedom of speech and the rights of women, more arrests in the middle of the night, and the carrying out of punishment using Qur’anic Law or Sharia. We can also expect an all-out effort to complete a nuclear weapon. Should we trust a regime that could justify the launching of a nuclear nightmare as "God's Will"? It may be time to follow the example Israel set by bombing Iraq's nuclear facility.
The choice should be easy given the consequences. Once the Irani's have the bomb, they will use it. It's time for the gutless European Union to support the dropping of a few "bunker-buster" bombs on Iran's nuke factories.

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