war within a breath

Pots, Kettles and Black People

07.30.07 - 07:51am

While I have sympathy for the families of those who lost loved ones in the attack on the USS Cole seven years ago, I cannot let this remarkable story, with the staggering hypocrisy involved in the ruling, pass without comment.

An American judge has ordered the Sudanese government to pay $8million in compensation to the families of the 17 US sailors killed in the suicide attack on the Cole at Aden in 2000. According to CBS, Federal Judge Robert G Doumar lamented how a nation could support such acts:

“It is depressing to realize that a country organized on a religious basis with religious rule of law could and would execute its power for purposes which most countries would find intolerable and loathsome,” Doumar wrote in his ruling. “It is a further tragedy that the laws of the United States, in this instance, provide no remedy for the psychological and emotional losses suffered by the survivors.”

The families accused Sudan’s government of providing support, including money and training, that allowed al Qaeda to attack the destroyer while it was in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000. In March, Doumar found the African country liable for the attack on the now-repaired Navy destroyer. His ruling Wednesday reaffirmed those findings.

Indeed, there can be no excuse for such a horrific attack, nor for a government that supports it. No doubt the judge also laments another outrageous attack, not just allowed or supported by a government but actually ordered by its leader and commander-in-chief, an attack which led to the deaths of, not just 17, but thousands of people. I am referring of course to the American cruise missile attack on the El Shifa pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan in 1998, ordered by that charismatic Democrat Bill Clinton, who falsely claimed it was involved in chemical weapons production and linked to Al-Quaeda.

The attack hit the factory which produced the majority of Sudan’s medicines. Werner Daum, the German ambassador to Sudan from 1996-2000 concluded that the attack and the shortage of medicines it brought about in the poverty-stricken nation “probably led to tens of thousands of deaths”.

As every single justification offered by the United States for this atrocity has been demonstrated to be utterly without foundation, including by a report by the US government’s own State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, no doubt Judge Doumar also finds it depressing that his own nation would “execute its power for purposes which most countries would find intolerable and loathsome” and would support compensation for the thousands of Sudanese families who lost relatives. Unfortunately he seems to have forgotten to mention it in his ruling and CBS does not seem to think it relevant either.

America can simply freeze Sudanese assets and take the money. But there will be no recompense for the deaths of tens of thousands of nameless black people, consigned to the memory hole while jolly old Bill Clinton and buddy Tony Blair, who supported the atrocity, are welcomed on friendly chat show sofas around the world.

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