January 15, 2008 -- This documentary set in Africa tells us two things. It's about as bad as it can get in the Darfur region of the Sudan and the U.S. isn't doing a damned thing to stop the genocide there. Anybody who follows the news already knew that. And they also know why the U.S. isn't doing anything to stop the genocide in Darfur. It is because we've already got all our troops tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan. We're tapped out, in terms of money and manpower. If we had a president with an I.Q. above 10 we wouldn't be in Iraq to begin with, and we'd have plenty of manpower and money to fight a war in Darfur.

The documentary tells us another interesting thing, however, and that's that there is a lot of oil in the Sudan and that the Chinese are buying up to 90 percent of the oil produced there. It flows in pipelines. All you'd really have to do is blow up those pipelines and stop the flow of oil to China. After a while that would get the attention of the Chinese, or the Sudanese government, which, like many outlaw governments in the world, depends on petrodollars to stay in power. All you'd have to do is keep bombing those pipelines and pretty soon you could dictate your terms, including and “hands off” policy in Darfur. Easier said than done, I'm sure, but it is certainly a doable strategy. It is pretty damned hard to protect an entire pipeline from determined saboteurs.

The documentary makes it abundantly clear that the genocide in Darfur is being engineered by the government of Sudan. Government attacks are coordinated with those of the jinjaweed, a ragtag bunch of militia groups, mostly Moslems (and paid by the Sudanese government), who attack Christian and animist people in Darfur, slaughtering them, destroying their homes, looting their belongings and raping the women. U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle (ret.) working on a cease-fire monitoring team, documented numerous instances of jinjaweed militias raping women, murdering people and desecrating the bodies, tearing out eyes, cutting off ears and castrating men. Steidle found bodies of people who were burned alive. Steidle saw evidence of murder, rape, theft and destruction on a massive scale. In the film he even breaks down and cries at one point. Members of the jinjaweed freely admitted to Steidle that they are being paid by the government of Sudan and that they are acting on behalf of the government of Sudan.

When Steidle presented his case to the Bush Administration, complete with photographs of the genocide. He was basically told to shut up about it. The Bush Administration, supposedly the defenders of Christian values, don't like to have it pointed out that it is not lifting a finger to protect the Christians in Darfur. It isn't even protecting the Christians in Iraq. Don't bother watching this movie, just write your Senator or Representative in Washington and demand that the United States do something to stop the genocide in Darfur, even if it means pulling 50,000 troops out of that worthless hell hole of Iraq and putting them in a place where the local people actually want them to be. This film rates a C+.

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Copyright © 2008 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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