Question

Since Sudan is a country with oil, shouldn't the liberals have a problem with the joint UN/AU force about to go in there and clean things up?

I'm asking this because I've seen a pattern emerge in which it's a "humanitarian mission" if the country is poor, and "imperialism" if the country has some asset.

I've found that as far as liberals are concerned, the only thing that matters is oil. They're not concerned with things like....say.....

• The use of poison gas and other war crimes against Iran and the Iranian people during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Iraq summarily executed thousands of Iranian prisoners of war as a matter of policy.

• The "Anfal" campaign in the late 1980's against the Iraqi Kurds, including the use of poison gas on cities. In one of the worst single mass killings in recent history, Iraq dropped chemical weapons on Halabja in 1988, in which as many as 5,000 people -- mostly civilians -- were killed.

• Crimes against humanity and war crimes arising out of Iraq's 1990-91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait.

• Crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq. This includes the destruction of over 3,000 villages. The Iraqi government's campaign of forced deportations of Kurdish and Turkomen families to southern Iraq has created approximately 900,000 internally displaced citizens throughout the country.

• Crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against Marsh Arabs and Shi'a Arabs in southern Iraq. Entire populations of villages have been forcibly expelled. Government forces have burned their houses and fields, demolished houses with bulldozers, and undertaken a deliberate campaign to drain and poison the marshes. Thousands of civilians have been summarily executed.

• Possible crimes against humanity for killings, ostensibly against political opponents, within Iraq.

Nope. Liberals that I know don't tend to give a rat's ass about facts like that. The only facts they tend to see are things like:

Extensive petroleum exploration began in the mid-1970s and might cover all of Sudan’s economic and energy needs. Significant finds were made in the Upper Nile region and commercial quantities of oil began to be exported in October 2000, reducing Sudan’s outflow of foreign exchange for imported petroleum products. There are indications of significant potential reserves of oil and natural gas in southern Sudan, the Kordofan region and the Red Sea province.

Interesting. I wonder where the libs will take us with this one. Maybe it's because Sudan doesn't have as much oil as Iraq that it will be okay. Maybe it's because the UN (who doesn't have their hands in a Sudanese food-for-oil program) is sanctioning it. I don't know. I'm sure they'll find some way to okay this one since going into Africa seems to be the only thing these guys agree on. Just makes ya feel good, I suppose.