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Genocidal war by Islamists is hardly something new in Sudan

What George Clooney Doesn’t Get about Islam’s Genocidal War in South Sudan



I don't mean to belittle George Clooney's good work on bringing attention to the plight of Africans in South Sudan. Traveling to a region of the world where at any moment a bomb could fall out of the sky and the real possibility of tripping over a live explosive certainly takes guts, but I wonder whether he truly understands the basis of hostilities in South Sudan and elsewhere in East Africa that has claimed millions of lives. In a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, Clooney and activist John Prendergast framed the conflict in Sudan as a civil war between the Sudanese government and the breakaway republic of South Sudan.
While this is part of the story, it doesn't really explain why the Sudanese military is indiscriminately bombing villages and killing all the men, women and children that they can get their hands on. What Clooney doesn't understand is this isn't just a conflict between opposing political factions, it is a religious war of extermination perpetrated by Islamists against non-Muslim Africans and Christians. Genocidal war by Islamists is hardly something new in Sudan. Arab tribes from the north have been raiding the predominantly Christian and animist south for slaves, gold and plunder for millennia. Since the 1980s the Sudanese government, then and now controlled by Islamists, has sponsored Arab Janjaweed militias who have displaced and killed millions. In 1992, pro-government Imams issued a fatwa authorizing "holy jihad" against "non-Muslims" who stand "against the spread of Islam". In case there was any misunderstanding, the fatwa specifically granted Muslims "the freedom of killing" any Africans and Christians who got in the way.

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The current Sudanese president and head of the National Islamic Front, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has made it clear that his goal is to exterminate all non-Muslims. He is wanted by The Hague for war crimes related to his role in the 2003 to 2009 Darfur Genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of non-Arab Sudanese were slaughtered to make room for Arab settlers. Flush with oil revenue, al-Bashir has upgraded Sudan's military with Russian and Chinese made weapons and is now poised to finish Islam's age old task of ridding the region of all non-believers. Sudan isn't the only country in East Africa in which Islamists have been trying to kill all the Christians. In September 2011 the UN warned that up to 750,000 Christians in Somalia were in danger of starving to death within months because al-Shabaab, the Al Qaeda linked Islamic radical organization dedicated to the extermination of Christians in Somalia, had been blocking food shipments. According to a local church leader, "any Somali that is suspected of being a Christian, or a friend of a Christian, does not receive any food aid." Like Clooney, the Obama administration has also glossed over Islam's role in the predominantly religious driven conflicts in East Africa. While Muslims have been vocally calling for murderous jihad against non-believers, the administration has released statements asking for "both parties" to relinquish violence, even though the source of hostilities has been decidedly one-sided. According to Faith J. H. McDonnell, director of The Institute on Religion and Democracy's Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan, "the Obama Administration does not seem to fully grasp--or at least wish to acknowledge--that what is taking place in the Nuba Mountains is ethnic cleansing." By utilizing the "moral equivalency" argument, McDonnell feels the Obama administration is whitewashing the National Islamic Front's pursuit of the "final solution" to the South Sudan problem. While any extra attention that Clooney can bring to the Sudanese government's genocidal campaign in South Sudan is a good thing, it is unfortunate that he does not also turn the spotlight on Islam's central role in the conflict. Does he feel that Islamic slaughter of non-Muslim Africans and Christians in East Africa is an anomaly? Is he afraid the leftist media will ignore his pleas should he openly criticize the "religion of peace"? Whatever his reasons, Clooney is hardly alone as most liberals are unable to acknowledge the role Islam plays in some of the worst human rights abuses on Earth, even when the truth is staring them in the face.


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Fred Dardick -- Bio and Archives

Fred Dardick got a BS in Biology at Boston University and MS in Biology at Stanford University before deciding that science bored him. He now runs a staffing company in Chicago where he is much happier now.


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