See: Sudan Shuts Down Israeli Weapons-Smuggling Site
"Obama names special envoy to Sudan" by Reuters | March 19, 2009
WASHINGTON - President Obama named retired Air Force General Scott Gration yesterday as his special envoy to Sudan, choosing a close adviser with broad experience in the region to lead US efforts on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Darfur.
"Sudan is a priority for this administration, particularly at a time when it cries out for peace and for justice," Obama said in a statement announcing Gration's appointment. "The worsening humanitarian crisis there makes our task all the more urgent."
Sounds like the neo-con plan to me (using the "humanitarian crisis" -- caused by USraeli policy in the region -- as the justification):
"General Wesley Clark, who commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign in the Kosovo war, recalls in his 2003 book Winning Modern Wars being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia [and Lebanon]."
Strange how the situation in Darfur is also absent from the paper for months at a time.
Sudan's UN ambassador said Khartoum wants "constructive engagement" with the new US special envoy. "We are ready for dialogue and cooperation," Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem said in an interview. "We hope the US will reciprocate."
I wish we could live up to your hopes; however, the historical record suggest otherwise.
Gration, a decorated fighter pilot, was raised in Africa and is fluent in Swahili. He is a close Obama adviser and often traveled with him during the presidential campaign last year. They got to know each other when Obama visited Africa in 2006, when he was a senator. During that trip they visited Darfur refugees in Chad, a neighbor of Sudan.
"I have worked closely and directly with General Gration for several years, and have traveled with him to refugee camps in Chad filled with those who were displaced by the genocide in Darfur," Obama said in the statement.
The appointment comes at a time of deepening crisis in Sudan. The country expelled 13 aid groups after the International Criminal Court charged President Omar Hassan al Bashir with war crimes in Darfur, where 4.7 million people rely on foreign assistance.
--more--"
Also see: Why Sudan Is Charged With War Crimes
