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LOW-TECH STOVE saves lives in Darfur. “The goal was to make a wood-burning stove that would use just a fraction of the fuel consumed by the open fires typically employed for cooking in Darfur. Each Berkeley-Darfur Stove is approximately 1 foot tall, and weighs 12 pounds. . . . These women report saving an average of approximately $1 per day in firewood expenses: A $20 stove saves a Darfuri woman more than $300 per year, or $1500 over the stove’s five-year life span. In a place where the average income is less than $5 a day (and most of this comes in the form of international aid), the impact of the stove is striking.”
IN THE MAIL: From Mahmood Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror.
SAVING DARFUR REFUGEE LIVES with a new, efficient cookstove design. Not as satisfying as wiping out the Janjaweed, but something.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT Darfur.
AZIZ POONAWALLA POINTS OUT THE RACISM: Darfur vs Gaza: African muslims are worth less than Arab muslims.
DARFUR UPDATE: Darfur onslaught ‘to clear way for Chinese oil hunt’ say rebels. “Sudan is already one of Africa’s biggest producers of crude oil, pumping 500,000 barrels a day. About two thirds is destined for China. Chinese companies have begun exploration in South Darfur. North Darfur lies in an oil exploration block controlled by a Saudi-led consortium and the area close to the Libyan border is thought to be the most likely to hold reserves.”
SHARON COBB ON BOYCOTTING OLYMPIC ADVERTISERS over China’s role in the Darfur genocide. It’s become a difficult subject for her since Obama made a big Olympic ad buy. “Senator Obama,you have an impeccable record on Darfur. Please don’t let this gaffe by your campaign stop you from doing the right thing.” (Via Michael Silence).
I’m planning to ignore the Olympics. It’s just another corrupt international bureaucracy, and the programming is boring anyway.
AUSTIN BAY on Darfur.
DOG BITES MAN: U.N. ineffective against armed bandits in Darfur.
DARFUR UPDATE: “The Arab League is under increasing pressure from Moslem organizations, to pressure Sudan to stop the atrocities in Darfur. The Arab League has defended Sudan to the world, accusing critics of being anti-Moslem. But many Moslems know better, and are appalled at the suffering of the Moslem victims of Sudan’s ethnic cleansing program in Sudan.”
HOW CHINA abets genocide in Darfur.
FOR THE U.N., “humiliation” over Darfur.
JAMES KIRCHICK: “Intervention in Darfur may fuel Muslim anger, but that can’t be an excuse to do nothing.”
A SAVAGE DIAGNOSIS: “Everybody wants to save Darfur but no one will do the obvious thing. Everyone bemoans what’s happening to Zimbabwe but no one will touch Mugabe. Everyone knows what Iran is up to, but heaven forfend we should do anything serious about it. Everyone sees that Putin is finlandizing Europe—I mean, he just said “I will nuke you if you try to defend yourselves against Iran”—but he’s an honored guest at the big banquets. etcetera, etcetera.”
BUSH MOVES ON DARFUR: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.
JODY WILLIAMS AND MIA FARROW: “Chinese oil companies fuel genocide in Darfur. It’s time for Americans to divest.”
DARFUR UPDATE: FROM AUSTIN BAY, thoughts on ending Darfur’s genocide.
DARFUR UPDATE: StrategyPage has the latest.
DARFUR UPDATE: “More than three quarters of Muslim respondents in six nations surveyed said they believe Arabs and Muslims should be equally concerned about the situation in Darfur as they are about the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to the results of a recent poll unveiled at the Arab Broadcast Forum in Abu Dhabi. Results ranged from a high of 95% in Morocco to 76% in Turkey.”
BILL RICHARDSON’S plan for Darfur.
UPDATE: He hasn’t won over Don Surber.
JOE BIDEN ON DARFUR:
”I would use American force now,” Biden said at a hearing before his committee. ”I think it’s not only time not to take force off the table. I think it’s time to put force on the table and use it.”
In advocating use of military force, Biden said senior U.S. military officials in Europe told him that 2,500 U.S. troops could ”radically change the situation on the ground now.”
I agree with the sentiment, though we’re a bit busy at the moment. Perhaps Biden should make pushing for a larger military a top priority.
UPDATE: Reader Ed Stephens writes: “Tell Joe Biden to ask the Europeans. . . ‘Why don’t they have 2,500 troops to send to Darfur?’ If an area w/300 million people can’t raise that many troops, then perhaps it’s time we have a discussion about ‘free riding’ with them.”
Meanwhile, The Mudville Gazette characterizes his position as “Screw Iraq, Invade Darfur:”
The harsh reality is that once we abandon Iraq we’re going to have to put all the newly available troops in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda certainly will, and their recruiting is going to soar. Ultimately we’ll lose that one, too, because they won’t quit knowing full well that we will.
Then we can go to Darfur.
Behind much of the absurd talk of the impact of Iraq on military “readiness” there’s a Democratic talking point: “Because we are in Iraq, we aren’t capable of waging a war somewhere else.” That’s valid to an extent (but absurd to a greater one), but a more complete translation is that “because we are in Iraq we aren’t capable of executing a war that Democrats could hypothetically support, because Democrats are tough on national defense, by golly, and there are plenty of wars in places other than Iraq we’d prosecute to prove it”.
That’s disturbing, I’m concerned they would do so a bit too eagerly given the opportunity. Biden seems to be going that route – but he could just be paying lip sevice to it to earn the “hawk” (or “tough guy realist”) appellation the media bestows on guys like Murtha. (The actual “go to guy” for Dems when it’s time to cut-and-run. See Somalia, for example.)
I’m all for doing things about Darfur. But I don’t believe Biden.
TONY BLAIR CALLS FOR A NO-FLY ZONE over Darfur.
IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER DARFUR POST, a reader emails: “How is it that the war we aren’t involved in ended up fulfilling all the quagmire predictions of the one we did get into? Makes Iraq look like a rather professional, and practically downright humanitarian, gesture.”
DARFUR UPDATE:
Now in its fifth year, a military campaign by the Sudanese government to crush a rebel movement in Darfur has almost completely reordered the region’s demographics. The conflict is complex but comes down to one in which the government has armed and supported certain nomadic Arab tribesmen against the region’s farming villagers, who are predominantly black Africans.
At least 450,000 people have died from disease and violence in the conflict, and more than 2.5 million — around half the area’s entire population — have fled to vast displacement camps whose numbers continue to swell.
Yet there remains a relatively small number of farming villages such as Kuteri where people are struggling to maintain dignity under the yoke of the government-backed Arab militiamen, who eat their food, drink their water and lounge under the spare shade of low, twisted trees. . . .
“They beat us, but we treat them like family,” added his friend Abdulmalik Ismail. “In our minds, we hate them.”
I can’t imagine why.