Bloomberg Discovers War Crimes Only Happen... Elsewhere
The Bloomberg headline screams: 'Sudan Militia Accused of Executions After Seizing Besieged City.' The United Nations, they tell us, is concerned about the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) overrunning El-Fasher. And rightly so; the human cost is catastrophic. Yet, this framing conveniently sidesteps the U.S. government's historical pattern of selective outrage. Remember the 'freedom
fighters' in Nicaragua, Contra-funded by the CIA, who also committed rampant atrocities? Or the multiple instances where the U.S. has provided 'counter-terrorism' support to groups with equally dodgy human rights records? One might wonder, how exactly does the RSF's current barbarism differ from, say, the Darfur genocide—which the Bush administration labeled as such in 2004, and where some of the
RSF leadership cut their teeth as Janjaweed commanders? It appears that some 'militias' are just more newsworthy, or more convenient to condemn, than others. The RSF, for example, has historical ties to the very regime the U.S. once sanctioned. But the underlying conflict in Sudan, fueled by competing regional and international interests for gold, oil, and strategic advantage, often gets reduced
to simple 'militia violence' when it serves the narrative. Why no deep dive into the foreign patrons supplying these factions with weapons, or the geopolitical chess game that allows such groups to rise? When does a 'militia' become a problem worthy of Western intervention, and when is it just background noise for 'regional instability'?