Blinken Sees A Genocide In Sudan, But Not In Gaza

Blinken is ready to name what’s happening in Sudan a genocide, but doesn’t seem the similarities in Gaza.

The U.S. Secretary of State has taken a break from demanding more weapons shipments to fuel the genocide in Palestine, to announce that he has “recognized” a genocide in Sudan.

Blinken says he has based his determination on the horrific killing of civilians in Sudan, without citing any evidence of intent to commit genocide. It is the voluminous evidence of that intent that distinguishes the genocide in Gaza from most wars, virtually every one of which in recent decades has amounted to a mass slaughter of mostly civilians — and most of which have been more one-sided than the war in Sudan.

It is perhaps to Blinken’s credit that he claims to oppose both sides of the war in Sudan, if only because it acknowledges the possibility of opposing both sides of a war. But Blinken has, in fact, been arming in particular one side, the very side he now accuses of genocide, and doing so largely by sending weapons to the UAE.

Blinken should read this fact sheet and report.

There has been a push in the U.S. Senate to cease arming the UAE and through it the war in Sudan. Or there was, anyway, until the Biden Administration said it believed the UAE’s claims that it would stop arming the war. This is, of course, the same administration that believes a genocide in Gaza is a slightly troubled humanitarian effort, when the government of Israel tells it so.

It’s hard not to suspect that the worldwide denunciation of the U.S.-fueled genocide in Gaza is part of the reason for Blinken’s claim to have spotted a genocide elsewhere. A rightwing talking point in U.S. media for months has been the claim that the world is full of genocides and that objecting to one in Palestine amounts to anti-Semitism.

But Blinken has now backed himself into a corner. If he is going to oppose both sides of every war that slaughters civilians, he’s going to have to join us war abolitionists. And we will welcome him with open arms, as soon as he makes amends for his crimes and frees himself from all the conflicts of interest that surround revolving-door masters of war.