sudan
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All human history, everyone knows, comes down to sex, violence and oil, so that in the end is the story of Sudan.
But Sudan's story also includes dumb people in Hollywood and Washington who wanted to be in Hollywood movies and how they helped create the world's most failed "failed state" and how this outcome was predictable to smart people. But unfortunately it also involves a horrifying catastrophe that has resulted in the death of many, many people. Here is what you need to know about Sudan.
Sudan is a big country in Africa, below Egypt. It used to be all one country but then some people in Washington and Hollywood, not necessarily in that order, decided it should be two and so South Sudan was created in 2011. What happened is that the U.S. and other people insisted that Sudan allow people who lived in southern Sudan to have a referendum about whether to become a new country and the people of southern Sudan overwhelmingly (by 98.83 percent, according to this story) voted for independence.
That made sense because the government of Sudan treated the southerners badly and there is a lot of oil in the south of Sudan and the government didn't use the oil revenue to help the southerners. So, in theory, by voting for independence and creating the new nation of South Sudan all southerners were going to be rich because their new government would have all that oil money and spend it on education, health care, etc. But this was never going to happen for reasons that will become apparent below.
What did happen is that some governments succeeded in creating South Sudan and some celebrities, like George Clooney and Nicholas Kristof, succeeded in making it the world's emotional petting zoo. And it has also become a cash cow for NGOs and international aid workers.
But the main thing to note here is that South Sudan was basically created because Susan Rice, now the United States National Security Advisor (?), decided that because of what happened in Rwanda, when the U.S. did nothing to prevent one of the worst genocides of recent times, that the U.S. should do more to save the world.
But South Sudan was not a good place to save the world because it is a big mess. Also, the U.S. never really wants to save the world; like every great power it seeks to accrue more power and wealth and acts primarily to protect and expands its interests. It doesn't give a **** about anything else. (See, not necessarily in chronological order, Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iraq and on and on and on. The idea that the United States has some sort of special role/mission in the world and is a unique force of good unlike any force of good previously known in human history is so laughable that no one serious could consider it, yet Barack Obama and every other president [and the entire media, from the New York Times to Ron Burgundy] treats it as an accepted fact.)
(I don't really have time to go into this here but I loathe Nicholas Kristof. He's such a jerk and it must be so hard carrying the White Man's Burden, it's so heavy. Here's what he wrote—in his "On the Ground" report—when South Sudan became independent: "A warm welcome to the world's newest country, South Sudan, after a tumultuous independence struggle of more than 50 years that cost more than 3 million lives. South Sudanese deserve the celebration they're enjoying in Juba and around the country." He is such a clueless buffoon he didn't even know he was joking.)
But Sudan's story also includes dumb people in Hollywood and Washington who wanted to be in Hollywood movies and how they helped create the world's most failed "failed state" and how this outcome was predictable to smart people. But unfortunately it also involves a horrifying catastrophe that has resulted in the death of many, many people. Here is what you need to know about Sudan.
Sudan is a big country in Africa, below Egypt. It used to be all one country but then some people in Washington and Hollywood, not necessarily in that order, decided it should be two and so South Sudan was created in 2011. What happened is that the U.S. and other people insisted that Sudan allow people who lived in southern Sudan to have a referendum about whether to become a new country and the people of southern Sudan overwhelmingly (by 98.83 percent, according to this story) voted for independence.
That made sense because the government of Sudan treated the southerners badly and there is a lot of oil in the south of Sudan and the government didn't use the oil revenue to help the southerners. So, in theory, by voting for independence and creating the new nation of South Sudan all southerners were going to be rich because their new government would have all that oil money and spend it on education, health care, etc. But this was never going to happen for reasons that will become apparent below.
What did happen is that some governments succeeded in creating South Sudan and some celebrities, like George Clooney and Nicholas Kristof, succeeded in making it the world's emotional petting zoo. And it has also become a cash cow for NGOs and international aid workers.
But the main thing to note here is that South Sudan was basically created because Susan Rice, now the United States National Security Advisor (?), decided that because of what happened in Rwanda, when the U.S. did nothing to prevent one of the worst genocides of recent times, that the U.S. should do more to save the world.
But South Sudan was not a good place to save the world because it is a big mess. Also, the U.S. never really wants to save the world; like every great power it seeks to accrue more power and wealth and acts primarily to protect and expands its interests. It doesn't give a **** about anything else. (See, not necessarily in chronological order, Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iraq and on and on and on. The idea that the United States has some sort of special role/mission in the world and is a unique force of good unlike any force of good previously known in human history is so laughable that no one serious could consider it, yet Barack Obama and every other president [and the entire media, from the New York Times to Ron Burgundy] treats it as an accepted fact.)
(I don't really have time to go into this here but I loathe Nicholas Kristof. He's such a jerk and it must be so hard carrying the White Man's Burden, it's so heavy. Here's what he wrote—in his "On the Ground" report—when South Sudan became independent: "A warm welcome to the world's newest country, South Sudan, after a tumultuous independence struggle of more than 50 years that cost more than 3 million lives. South Sudanese deserve the celebration they're enjoying in Juba and around the country." He is such a clueless buffoon he didn't even know he was joking.)