And you can substabtiate your no oil, no media notice claim, can you?

Of course it’s not oil per se. It comes with those who are concerned with oil (and of course it doesn’t have to be only oil - oil is merely one of the most important sources of interest to oil-hungry major powers).

When a country has an essential resource necessary for a major power to not grind to a halt, that power, where necessary, starts to meddle with the non-power country’s internal politics. (Equally, geo-political-military concerns are also of central importance.)

The usual way this has been done in the past is to destablise a recalcitrant non-power government and support its replacement by a compliant dictatorship (e.g. Chile, Indonesia, Arab countries).

This is not the only ‘model’ possible. A compliant democracy is just as good as a dictatorship (e.g. Afghanistan) - often times, for a democracy already in existence, one can find institutionalised elites who are willing accept compliance in exchange for particular interests being met (e.g. Australia, Israel).

Anyway, being pulled into the ’sphere of interest and/or concern’ of a major power pretty much guarantees that major power’s media will follow - a media, that due to increasing market concentration within the major power itself finds its interests tied to the interests of its population and its government. This Western media will thus, with a few exceptions, give a fairly favourable ’spin’ to the major power’s actions within the non-power country (e.g. the Palestine/Israel conflict from Zionist premises), although it doesn’t follow that ‘messes’ get hidden forever (e.g. Iraq).

Anyway, that to me seems to be a fairly accurate, if very broad-brush overview, of the pattern of things for much of the 20th century. One will note the links between the major power’s spheres of influence and concern and the media’s focus of attention.

Poor old Uganda has nothing much to comment itself to the interest or concern of major powers’ and thus one does not see a proponderance of reporting in that country by Western (major power) media.

And let’s not even start on the congo ..
the where ?

Exactly.

In the Academy: left-wing academics used to be interested in Africa esp. in the 1970s because it was believed there was hope for glorious socialist regimes coming to the fore. By the late 1980s that interest (and hope) had pretty much died, and so Africa again became the Ignored Continent. Even when it was of interest to Western academics, colonialism was casting its hand. Academics from where? From the former colonial powers themselves.

what really amuses me is the level of delusion that it must take to still think america is actually a forec for good, doing everything it can to combat ‘global terrorism’

Lemmings like Chris and his predecessor, Ibraham, both were big defenders of US foreign policy simply becasue the US is Israel’s sugar daddy. They even turn a blind eye to the rapture addicted evangelicals who fawn around Israel like jackals, waiting for Jesus to give the nod to throw the Jewish people to the great fires unless they convert to Christianity.

Truly macabre.

then when tossers like chris made their primary school comments you could grab relevent article and shove it in his mouth,

cos just the other day i read that the dude the UN had at the top of their ‘51 most dangerous warlords in sudan list’ was in washington on an official visit meeting top defence drongoes,

of course now i cant find it, thats right, i have no link to such claims,

what really amuses me is the level of delusion that it must take to still think america is actually a forec for good, doing everything it can to combat ‘global terrorism’

alice in wonderland is more realistic than the american led ‘war on terror’, sorry it changed didnt it, ‘global struggle against violent extremism’, oh wait, sorry, ‘the long war’

Sudan has enormous oil reserves.

Pfft. Yeah, but that’s not the issue. It’s a question of how fast it’s being exploited … and the Sudan’s production rate is one of the lowest in the world (only 401,300 bbl/day). Basically, if it’s just sitting there and no-one else is going after it, there is no problem. That’s pretty much what’s happening.

Anyway:

Bush Administration Allied With Sudan Despite Role in Darfur Genocide

The Los Angeles Times recently revealed that the U.S. has quietly forged a close intelligence partnership with Sudan despite the government’s role in the mass killings in Darfur. Charles Snyder, the U.S. State Department Senior Representative on Sudan, defends the Bush administration’s policy on Sudan.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/03/1357228&mode=thread&tid=25

Ken Silverstein, reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Read article: Official Pariah Sudan Valuable to America’s War on Terrorism.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sudan29apr29,0,6605677.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/terrorwar/analysis/2005/0429sudan.htm

It had been 142 days since Bush had uttered the word “Darfur,” and this day, he spoke carefully. “This is a serious situation,” Bush said. Then he made a statement that would effectively end a dispute within his administration over the true nature of the war crimes in Darfur. “As you know, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, with my concurrence, declared the situation a genocide. Our government has put a lot of money to help deal with the human suffering there.”

But where a government has recognized genocide, dictates of treaty law require an effort to punish and prevent war crimes — and that’s an effort the Bush administration has yet to undertake.

http://www.sudaneseonline.com/earticle2005/jun24-57740.shtml