BRATTLEBORO-A recent photograph in The New York Times shows President Biden warmly greeting the president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A few days earlier, on Sept. 18, Nicholas Kristof's article, "I Just Went to Darfur. Here's What Shattered Me," appeared in the newspaper.
In it, he documents massacres of males followed by the rape of girls and young women and starvation in the Darfur region of Sudan. These widespread atrocities are part of a strategy openly carried out by Sudan's Rapid Support Forces to rid Darfur of Black people, according to Kristof.
These rapists and murders are supplied and supported by the UAE, whose president was so warmly greeted in Washington.
The UAE is the major source of weapons for the Rapid Support Forces largely responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocide in Darfur. But who ultimately bears responsibility for the actions of the rapist and murders and their leaders?
The United States is the major supplier of military equipment of all kinds to the United Arab Emirates, and our defense industry delights in the profits being made by selling weapons to this oil-rich nation.
Can the Biden administration and Congress morally and legally continue to allow the sale of armaments to United Arab Emirates in the face of its support of ethnic cleansing and genocide?
U.S. weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE during the years of heavy bombing of Yemen resulted in massive civilian casualties and famine. This question continues in the face of United States support for war crimes committed by the Netanyahu-led forces in Gaza on the pretext that Israel has a right to self-defense. Surely, such a fig leaf cannot be extended to the UAE's support for genocide in Sudan.
Such behavior by Washington comes with a steep price, as Israel extends the war in Gaza and the West Bank to Lebanon and as the Sudan situation is spilling over the neighboring countries.
Is the United States ultimately responsible for two of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today? If so, what can we do about it?
Stephen Minkin
Brattleboro
This letter to the editor was submitted to The Commons.
This piece, published in print in the Voices section or as a column in the news sections, represents the opinion of the writer. In the newspaper and on this website, we strive to ensure that opinions are based on fair expression of established fact. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, The Commons is reviewing and developing more precise policies about editing of opinions and our role and our responsibility and standards in fact-checking our own work and the contributions to the newspaper. In the meantime, we heartily encourage civil and productive responses at [email protected].