China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, (EDIT: the UK, indirectly) and Egypt have each also supplied weapons into this conflict [1]. Presumably due to Sudan’s position on the Red Sea. (China and the UAE seem to be alone in supplying the RSF, though.)
The other complication is the surprising contributions of various African countries. Ethiopia had supported the RSF until 2024, and Kenya hosted an RSF conference in Feb 2025. Haftar in Libya supported RSF before the war, but may have changed positions as his Russian backers turned against the RSF in 2024. The RSF also has some ties to rebels in South Sudan as well as in Chad. Chad in particular gave shelter to the RSF at the behest of the UAE, but has also seized arms shipments that were intended for the RSF. Russia as noted was sympathetic to the RSF until mid-2024, when they switched sides.
When the war initially broke out, some articles in The Economist seemed somewhat agnostic between the two sides, noting that both had serious corruption issues and had committed many abuses. But as the war has progressed, the RSF seems to have revealed itself to be the far more vicious faction, and the red E along with the rest of the Western media now sees their advances as a tragedy. Unfortunately, the one constant here is the general failure of foresight among nearly all countries of the global North (whether aligned with the West or Russia) getting involved in Africa. If the brutality of the RSF had been better anticipated in 2023, the current situation might have been prevented.
Got evidence that they supplied weapons? GP’s Wikipedia article does not seem to say that they did (apart from an unclear reference to US military aid, which I don’t think refers to US military aid to Sudan specifically).
China never directly supplied weapons either. Yet its weapons have been found on both sides. The RSF got them through the UAE and the SAF got it through Iran.
If GGP is going to count China as a supplier it's only fair to count the US. Js. Fwiw, both China and the US place sanctions on the RSF and denounce it as a genocide. Neither directly does business with either side.
Russia is involved directly in the conflict however, literally sending in Wagner mercenaries. They used to back the RSF but in early 2024 switched sides and now fully back the SAF. The sad truth is that most major international players don't care about the Sudanese people. They just want to have the support of whichever side comes out on top so they can continue exploiting the gold reserves of the country like they did before the dictator Omar al-Bashir was overthrown by a popular revolution.
It would be very strange if American weapons weren't used in a conflict this big, which is a very different question from "did the US government sell weapons into this war".
Guess you are on the wrong side of things if you know your weapons are getting laundered through other countries to get to a conflict. And of course uk, us and china know this and always knew this.
> How come dubai hasn’t experienced any sanctions yet?
The UAE has crafted itself as a new Switzerland. (Qatar is trying to copy, but clumsily.)
They buy American weapons and financial assets, making them influential. They’ve also established themselves as a logistics hub in an important logistics channel to the West and Asia. (They also pitch their balancing effect on Saudi Arabia skillfully.)
The comment merely said UAE has become strategically influential in finance, transport (cargo shipping (#5 in world), world's busiest international passenger airport), tourism. Nothing about being fond.
5% GDP growth in non-oil. More diversified than Saudi. #2 globally for being "easy to do business in and with". Top-10 in Global Soft Power Index since 2023 [0], rose from #18 in 2020. Dubai has become a global influencer capital.
Looks like the US is backing UAE as Saudi wanes, and as a regional counterweight.
If we're talking about Switzerland, yes it's a federal republic with semi-direct democracy, but it also happily supplied mercenaries to mainland Europe for several centuries.
> whenever someone is talking fondly about UAE that's all you need to know about that person
I’ve heard that line about Qatar, Uruguay, Singapore, Malta, Cyprus, the Maldives, and countless other small states.
I grew up in Switzerland. Folks like to compare themselves to us, mostly due to complete ignorance of our actual history and culture.
It’s true in part and misses the point in others. Geopolitically, however, the observation is sound. Small states need a powerful protector far away or to balance their position between nearby large states. The latter only works in mountainous hellholes and on peninsulas (provided your larger neighbor(s) can’t blockade you; if they can, you need a foreign guarantor with a blue-water navy, of which historically there have only been one or two at a time).
(You know Switzerland is a weapons exporter, right? To the U.S. But also to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Hungary. One could almost say that folks who conclude intent from a place of ignorance communicate “all you need to know about” themselves.)
I think the connotation of 'being Switzerland' has less to do with the modern state of Switzerland and more to do with the ... Unsavory things Switzerland has historically been a part of.
Most of them are patently incorrect, and most of those don't even care to educate themselves since they keep repeating cheap stuff they heard from other bright people and that's it. How many heard about accepting refugees despite being literally surrounded by axis and facing starvation of their own people (how many nations would do that including yours), or not-so-secret massive collaboration with western allies while on surface acting as neutral ie Campione d'Italia, and so on and on).
They were neutral in WWII like ie Spain was, think a bit what does it actually means. Not participating in conflict in any way. So they accepted both jewish and nazi gold or art, and everybody's else. If you want to understand why some of that was kept around after the war maybe reading about numbered accounts would enlight you. If you actually care to understand history as it happened.
Hitler had plans to conquer Switzerland after dealing with Russia, he was aware that they were 'most free and most armed nation in the world', fiercely independent and taking them would cost him dearly not only due to terrain.
Literally nobody had come out of WWII with properly clean slate, you just need to dig (not even deep) to find abhorable stuff on everybody, to different volume of course. Swiss have no problem acknowledging their mistakes, much more than most other nations.
The UAE is pretty good at playing both sides so they always come out ahead. They act as a key diplomatic intermediary and host a major US military base which is essential to projecting power in the region.
Just wanna plug the most thorough and useful video I've seen on the history of this conflict. The US, Russia, and many other players are more heavily involved in this conflict than is often discussed in media. It breaks down the specific ways many international players are profiting from the conflict and helps makes sense of the motives driving it
Yes ofc. The RSF is just the rebranded Janjaweed which were legally classified as having committed genocide. But they never faced any international consequences and here they are committing genocide once again. It's also a major conflict though as the SAF is the major oppositional force fighting against the RSF. SAF was the military that took control after a democratic revolution pushed out the dictator Omar al-Bashir
Genocide these days can only be committed against a certain oppressed class following a certain religion by others who don’t follow this religion. If the same religion goes and commits genocide against other people like yazidis or Hindus it’s kosher.
That’s the power of media investments that oil rich barons did.
Horse manure. On the one hand, you say "oppressed class following religion". On the other hand, you claim "another religion" is killing x y z.
The TRUTH is that those of the "other religion" who are committing crimes in Syria and Sudan - in other words ISIS in Syria & UAE in Sudan - ARE THEMSELVES ALLIED WITH your "oppressed class", aka Israel.
The links between Israel/CIA and ISIS have been documented by many, and now is out in the open since 2024 Syria. And the UAE's alliance with Israel has been on open display during the Palestinian Holocaust, even down to them running supply convoys to them.
When you strip away all the propaganda and outright lying (as copious real journalism has done over the past few years), then you continuously see members OF THE SAME ALLIANCE on THE SAME SIDE of genocide.
The 2020's have truly stripped away DECADES of propaganda, leaving behind a simple picture of good vs evil. Twas ever thus ...
Sudan is the 3rd largest producer of gold in Africa but it remains the poorest country in Africa because the companies that exploit those resources are never Sudanese.
The RSF got their weapons by acting as mercenaries for the UAE to fight against the Houthis in Yemen. Fighting as a mercenary is pretty much the only reliable source of income for many people in the country.
On examination of photos and videos of weapons used in the conflict that were posted on social media, the rights group identified that companies registered in China, Iran, Russia, Serbia, and the UAE were associated with the weapons provided to RSF.[96] Human Rights Watch reviewed images of show crates with markings indicating they were manufactured in 2020 and initially acquired by the UAE Armed Forces in through a contract with Adasi, a subsidiary of UAE-based weapons manufacturer Edge Group. A January 2024 report by the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan deemed the UAE's alleged support to the RSF as "credible"
According to Business Insider, "The two generals helped Russian President Vladimir Putin exploit Sudan's gold resources to help buttress Russian finances against Western sanctions and fund his war in Ukraine."[108]
Yes, to clarify the primary international players:
Russia: initially supported the RSF, then at one point was trading with both sides, and in 2024/2025 fully switched sides to back the SAF
Iran: stayed out of it until 2024 when it finally backed the SAF which caused a major turning point in the conflict
UAE/the US: the main player responsible for RSF's rise. It hired out RSF mercenaries to fight the Houthis in Yemen. At one point there were more than 40,000 RSF mercenaries (mostly between the ages of 14-17) in Yemen. It continues to be the primary funder of the RSF
Israel: the RSF buys surveillance tech and weapons from Israel
Saudi Arabia: the largest smuggler of (illegally acquired) gold from RSF. A major source of funding for the RSF
China: doesn't directly deal with either side but Chinese-made weapons were found in the hands of the RSF mostly through the UAE reselling them. The SAF also has some Chinese made weapons through Russia and Turkey
tl;dr: it's a very complex disaster but international players simply don't have an interest in ending it. The SAF is the main opposition to the genocidal RSF, but they are also uninterested in maintaining the democracy that the people fought for and the sides backing the SAF (mostly Iran, and now Russia) are likely hoping to continue their exploitation of gold if they defeat the RSF
This is truly horrible and I don't want to detract from the original aim of the article, but can we just establish that 'visible' from space doesn't really mean much anymore given the resolution of satellites? My garage is also visible from space, doesn't make it worthy of a headline.
Sudan has multiple forces at play right now. There’s the Islamic Arabs committing genocide on the non-Arabs. The RSF, largely composed of Arab nomadic groups (evolving from the Janjaweed militias), has been accused of systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, such as the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit. These attacks involve mass killings, rape, and village burnings.
There’s also the Islamic Arab monarchies (RSF) vs the Muslim Brotherhood (SAF).
The common denominator is the Islamic Arab presence from Islamic conquests. Sudan’s ethnic tensions trace back to the 7th-century Arab-Islamic conquests, which Arabized the northern Nile Valley, creating a dominant Arab-Muslim elite that marginalized non-Arab, indigenous groups in the periphery (e.g., Darfur’s Fur, Masalit, and Nuba).
Typical Hasbara lying. The victims ARE THEMSELVES MUSLIMS, which you are trying to disguise in your very first sentence, just to construct a narrative.
The conflict has NOTHING to do with Islam. It's a resource grab, by (ostensibly Muslim) certain Arab states which ARE ALLIED WITH ISRAEL (in a general sense).
I don't see the original comment tying the tensions to Islam anywhere. And yes, the conflict is heavily tied to ethnicities - RSF is Arab-dominated and has been systematically genociding other ethnicities, and both sides are effectively enabling a resource grab for their backers.
Arab vs non-Arab conflicts are also nothing new. See Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, etc.
It's worth noting there are islamists on both side. Anyone who characterizes this as purely religious or ethnic has a bridge to sell. This conflict would have died years ago if it weren't for foreign actors putting their hands up Sudan's ass
The number of violent conflicts initiated by various islamist groups is insane [1]. There is something wrong here that goes beyond funding. It's possible to acknowledge that without being islamophobic.
The heatmap may as well represent a map of recently decolonized areas with unresolved political issues, and just so happens that many of these places have significant Muslim populations.
If you read the Koran and Hadiths, there are numerous statements about the true Muslims duty being to spread Islam - at the point of the sword being a well supported one, scripture wise.
If you're in the Silicon Valley you sit on the land of one of one of the most brutal genocides that's ever occurred. Let's not act like Catholic and Christian missionaries haven't committed some of the largest genocides we have records of.
Besides these debates about religion are an obvious distraction when we know EXACTLY why this is happening. The previous governor was propped up by international players because they allowed them to exploit the countries gold reserves. They are the 3rd largest producers of gold but the poorest country in Africa because none of the resources being extracted from Sudan is going back to the Sudanese people. The UAE (which is funded by the US) is currently the largest player but even Russia was funding the RSF until early 2024 (Russia has since switched sides).
"Visible from space" used to mean "by astronauts". If high-resolution sensors are allowed, then the term applies to things like a tree and a car, and doesn't signify much.
Well, maybe it signifies that nobody wants to go and take photos in person.
"Analysis by the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), which has been tracking the siege using open source images and satellite imagery, found clusters of objects “consistent with the size of human bodies” and “reddish ground discolouration” thought to be either blood or disturbed soil."
The "visible from space" here is clearly dumb click bait from The Telegraph.
Well we are currently sending funding. Except that funding is going to further the conflict. Sudan's gold reserves are critical materials. The previous dictator, Omar al-Bashir, was propped up by foreign powers exactly because they allowed those countries to extract the gold reserves. The RSF is the same thing. they are the evolution of the Janjaweed militias that the ICC found to be committing genocide. The international community did nothing to stop them or hold them accountable so they are once again committing genocide. International players want this to continue. Russia was at some point funding both sides and sending in Wagner mercenaries. UAE has been funding the RSF since the very start and continues to be the largest importer of (illegal) gold. Israel benefits because the RSF is a major importer of its surveillance tech as well as weapons. Both Israel and the US fund the UAE despite knowing that the UAE is fueling the RSF because they both ultimately benefit. American and even Chinese weapons have been found on both sides (mostly through the UAE reselling weapons to the RSF). Even if the SAF wins, it'll just be another military junta whose top priority is to exploit the gold reserves to the benefit of whichever nation is funding it and NOT giving any of that wealth back to the people.
ideology plays little role in these conflicts, they are partially religio-ethnic but mostly about pure power, where religion and ethnicity are levers pulled to leverage power.
the people seeking power would sell out their own mothers if that's what it took.
the ideologies here are the ideologies of the HN commenters who try to fit the facts into their predetermined narratives.
and "visible from space" means absolutely nothing meaningful. can we read license plates from space or not yet? I don't know, but in this context, who cares
(way back in the 1980s a china-zealot was telling me that the Great Wall of China was "the only manmade thing visible from space." I had the presence of mind to say back, "isn't it more significant to be able to get to space to see what's visible?")
This is horrible but I feel like the "visible" from space headline is becoming increasingly less impressive as satellite imagery becomes more impressive.
You could say, I drink so much coffee it's visible from space and it's literally just a coffee mug sitting on a park bench.
I take it that’s supposed to be funny. Most people have absolutely zero agency over what happens beyond their own city’s borders, proclaiming your views loudly in public is one of the very few ways you can influence society.
It's because the US clearly is the main supporter of Israel who is the Goliath in that conflict.
In Sudan the US is not clearly propping up one side.
People are reasonably more mad in the US about Gaza since their taxes directly fund it and the US seemingly could exert influence on Israel if there was political will.
It is not clear how the US would improve Sudan without wading into some massive peacekeeping / reconstruction mission - which no one has the appetite for.
Sadly, yet another bloody chapter of the Abu Dhabi (al Nahyan) - Doha (al Thani) feud that has been going on since the 2011 coup attempt [0], which itself is part of a longer multi-generational blood feud going on between the royal families [4]. The Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and Balkans are all burning because of this saga [1].
The UAE backs the RSF [2] (formerly known as the Janjaweed of the Darfur Genocide), and Qatar supports the Sudanese Army [3]
The bargain the US has made with Qatar continues to prove itself as conceptually flawed and generally terrible. While the UAE deserves plenty of blame here, the Qataris are as usual up to their elbows in other people’s blood.
> bargain the US has made with Qatar continues to prove itself as conceptually flawed and generally terrible
They buy our weapons and financial assets. We get base. I’m not sure we’ve ever particularly cared about what anyone is up to in Africa. Yemen became of interest because it was fucking with the Red Sea.
Destabilizing the region, working with Hamas, facilitating terror financing, working with Iran, and a bunch of other stuff should concern us. There’s plenty of flat sand to park aircraft on without doing business with those filthy slavers.
> Qatar already deals with Iran and Russia by proxy
So does the UAE. They’ve played their game well.
It doesn’t mean we need to be their staunch defenders. But it’s in our government’s interest to not piss them off for no gain. And we’re not in a place in America where foreign policy swings power.
Much of Europe and Asia is dependent on Gulf sourced ONG and Gulf sourced FDI.
And the current crisis is happening because the last time we were hands off with Middle Eastern affairs shortly before the Arab Spring, a number of conflicts spiraled into proxy wars between KSA, UAE, Qatar, Turkiye, and Iran.
We just have to keep protecting them and give them weapons, otherwise somebody else will do it.
Quite a high moral ground to be on, I tell ya. I know I know, realpolitik and all, but then lets stop pretending there is some higher ground and treat say china-us conflict as something that literally doesn't concern Europe at all (seems like US has still military upper hand but who knows for how long, seems like China will steamroll ya economically/technologically pretty soon). Especially given this year developments when we saw that US military equipment cannot be trusted, US IT infra cannot be trusted and so on.
Europe would be more concern if there was more trust in the current US government. Besides, European politicians have been so naive they have let China use their financial power to exert pressure, they are slowly waking up to it, but not fast enough.
OK I'm not a Qatar apologist or anything, but Qatar is obviously on the less-bad side here. What are you suggesting is better? Letting RSF ethnic cleanse whatever portion of Sudan they want?
In this conflict Qatar isn't supporting the genocidal and unrepentant RSF, but previously in Syria it was Qatar that backed the hardliners in Jabhat al-Nusra who committed similar atrocities that the RSF are doing except on Druze, Alawites, and Shia.
There are no good guys or bad guys - everyone is bad, and that's how proxy wars are.
A major reason Gaza and the West Bank spiraled was due to this Qatar-UAE feud as well - Qatar has historically supported Hamas whereas Abu Dhabi has historically supported the Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, and the former head of Fatah in Gaza is now the 2nd in command in Abu Dhabi (Mohammed Dahlan)
Like I said, I'm not apologizing for any of the many bad things Qatar has done, but I don't understand how this, where Qatar is supporting the legitimate-ish and not-especially-genocidal side, is being used as evidence by the "Qatar sucks" camp.
Becuase this is one proxy war that is part of a larger proxy war across the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia.
I'm jaded because I've been following this for 15 years, and looked at the Arab Spring with hope, but now all I've seen is the entire movement swung into a transnational proxy war.
The UAE backs Vucic and is the primary FDI source for Serbia's real estate and armaments industry. A major reason Vucic's administration slid into authoritarianism was because the opposition began asking hard questions about the Belgrade Waterfront Project.
> When we go to see the Emirates, what number on our to-do list do you think Sudan is? It is not on our to-do list. What we have to do is keep the Emirates onside with Israel and onside against Iran.
> What we have to do is keep the Emirates onside with Israel and onside against Iran
This is so incredibly dumb.
The UAE is a spigot of oil and money. (Secondarily, a massive buyer of American goods, services, weapons and financial assets.) Sudan isn’t on our to-do list because it doesn’t directly affect American voters. Oil prices and capital do.
I don't understand what you find dumb. Can you explain what you're disagreeing with? Do you think the money that the UAE offer precludes all other incentives to ignore mass slaughter? Surely by this metric we would be more allied with Venezuela than Israel. Or, perhaps, you have not fully articulated yourself.
It’s dumb to frame every foreign policy issue through Israel. It’s simple. It will get views. But it’s dumb.
> Do you think the money that the UAE offer precludes all other incentives to ignore mass slaughter?
Precludes? No. Politically balanced. Absolutely. You’re not going to win votes promising higher oil prices and stalled construction projects to plant a moral flag in Africa so the guys backed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey win. Abu Dhabi is more than just geopolitically convenient.
> It’s dumb to frame every foreign policy issue through Israel. It’s simple. It will get views. But it’s dumb.
Why? I get nothing from views, and much of our foreign policy is based around Israel, which serves the needs of our state in almost uncountable ways. Is it not just as dumb to ignore this? Acting as if our relationships with foreign countries appear in a vacuum seems.... absurd, to put it charitably.
Even if Israel literally didn’t exist, we’d still be doing the same thing with the UAE. Maybe even more, since Israel is sucking up capital that would otherwise go to Dubai.
As always, conflicts are much easier to understand when viewed through the lens of materialism.
Factors such as ethnicity or religion are never the reason for these conflicts. Those are simply the excuse. It’s what’s used to fuel the fire.
The heart of this conflict is Sudan’s gold that’s laundered via Dubai then Switzerland.
The culpability of Western powers including the US cannot be ignored either. The RSF is supplied with diverted arms shipments from the West to the UAE.
Just like in Gaza the US could stop this at any time with a phone call.
This is almost exactly wrong. Like, if you wanted to invent a plausible-on-its-face position that formed a perfect -1 dot product with the truth, this is what you’d come up with.
Polite western society has become so disconnected from what earnest religious belief feels like that they have become unable to comprehend the world around them, which hasn’t. They project their own materialism onto the own world and conclude that sectarian hatred is overblown because after all, who could really get that worked up about some dusty book? The idea that the Sudanese are just innocent victims of big evil powers fighting over gold is the kind of thing that makes a good theme in English class. We’re now dealing with an entire generation that was only taught this “counter-narrative”, and simply pattern matches it to every single thing. Yes, you can always construct sentences that recast any bad world events as being caused by our own callous indifference to the beleaguered and noble savage. No, that is not an automatic shortcut to truth and wisdom. The West does not have a monopoly on making terrible, short-sighted, violent choices.
But putting aside the diminishing of African agency, even if you do focus on the involvement of outside forces, the Sudanese civil war is notably characterized by the involvement of _middle_ powers, and not particularly Western ones. They are there for varying reasons, all of them nihilistic but only some of them materialistic. Ukrainians are there, for instance, because Russians are there, and it’s a lawless place where you can kill Russians. That’s a lot of things, but a simplistic gold grab it is not.
> Factors such as ethnicity or religion are never the reason for these conflicts
Economics motivates. But these divisions dominate in determining magnitude. You don’t need genocide to control mines, farms and oil fields. (You need labour.)
The dial turns from enslavement to extermination when there is deep-rooted fury. That sort of fury can really only be channeled on divisions of race and religion. (You need a way for poorly-trained, uneducated troops to mostly reliably identify the enemy.)
> heart of this conflict is Sudan’s gold
Why not oil, too?
> Just like in Gaza the US could stop this at any time with a phone call
This hubris fuels our forever wars, both in trade and militarily.
We don’t have that influence. If we tried restricting both Qatar and the UAE in Africa, we’d put serious economic and military interests at stake. Interests American voters care about enough that our leaders have even less free rein than our geopolitical limits circumscribe.
So Arabs fly planes into the world trade center, commit mass genocide at darfur and are still support this dude and his band of thugs with their colonialist rape of Africa?
The US could drop a nuke on UAE and tell them to stop funding colonialist expansion. The war against evil is never ending playing nice is a fools game.
'Visible from space' loses its bite when you see they're using cameras that can practically read your mail from space.
Yes, this is terrible, but atrocities like this happen all over Africa on a daily basis for innumerable reasons, and Sudan specifically has been in civil wars longer than I have been alive. The piece's structure: 'look at how terrible this is, don't you just feel soooo bad?' + 'by the way the UAE has been accused of facilitating this' signals to me that the writer is primarily motivated by a desire to make the UAE and all muslims by comparison look bad. Notice how they focus on the atrocities by the RSF, ignoring the fact that all sides in this war are complicit in slaughter.
America, Europe, Russia, China, and their satellite countries have been starting and fueling wars in Africa since before these countries became independent.
They deliberately draw borders that cut ethnic populations and religious groups in half.
They flood these regions with weapons and mercenaries.
They replace incentives to develop stable societies, robust agricultural industries, and infrastructure with 'just good enough to survive' aid.
They bribe local warlords with collective billions of dollars.
Global power blocs have effectively enforced a continent of lawlessness where you're only safe from war in the immediate vicinity of resource extraction sites, and lucky for you those sites are the kinds of places small children handle mercury without PPE and die of exhaustion and chemical burns. All of this to give you fiber optic cables.
Yes, the UAE is complicit, but so are you if you're reading this. This is not a 'muslim' problem. This is not a 'UAE' problem. This is a structural problem driven primarily by increasing population, materialist consumer habits, and the geopolitical reality that if any bloc stopped doing all of this horrible stuff the only outcome would be that the other blocs get a bigger share.
This article is not written with the intention of solving these problems, it is written with the intention of keeping you just angry enough to do what they tell you, without making you so angry that you replace the ones making these decisions.
> ...the United Arab Emirates (UAE) accused of backing the RSF with supplies and mercenaries...
And also helping to launder Hemedti's gold via Dubai. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-resources/ex...
China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, (EDIT: the UK, indirectly) and Egypt have each also supplied weapons into this conflict [1]. Presumably due to Sudan’s position on the Red Sea. (China and the UAE seem to be alone in supplying the RSF, though.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_civil_war_(2023%E2%80...
From that Wikipedia (2023-):
- Significantly more than 150,000 total killed
- Estimated 522,000 children dead due to malnutrition
- 8,856,313 internally displaced
- 3,506,383 refugees
The other complication is the surprising contributions of various African countries. Ethiopia had supported the RSF until 2024, and Kenya hosted an RSF conference in Feb 2025. Haftar in Libya supported RSF before the war, but may have changed positions as his Russian backers turned against the RSF in 2024. The RSF also has some ties to rebels in South Sudan as well as in Chad. Chad in particular gave shelter to the RSF at the behest of the UAE, but has also seized arms shipments that were intended for the RSF. Russia as noted was sympathetic to the RSF until mid-2024, when they switched sides.
When the war initially broke out, some articles in The Economist seemed somewhat agnostic between the two sides, noting that both had serious corruption issues and had committed many abuses. But as the war has progressed, the RSF seems to have revealed itself to be the far more vicious faction, and the red E along with the rest of the Western media now sees their advances as a tragedy. Unfortunately, the one constant here is the general failure of foresight among nearly all countries of the global North (whether aligned with the West or Russia) getting involved in Africa. If the brutality of the RSF had been better anticipated in 2023, the current situation might have been prevented.
I don’t think there was, or is, a lot of stomach to more serious intervention in Sudan. Libya and Haiti went sideways.
You forgot US and UK.
Got evidence that they supplied weapons? GP’s Wikipedia article does not seem to say that they did (apart from an unclear reference to US military aid, which I don’t think refers to US military aid to Sudan specifically).
China never directly supplied weapons either. Yet its weapons have been found on both sides. The RSF got them through the UAE and the SAF got it through Iran.
If GGP is going to count China as a supplier it's only fair to count the US. Js. Fwiw, both China and the US place sanctions on the RSF and denounce it as a genocide. Neither directly does business with either side.
Russia is involved directly in the conflict however, literally sending in Wagner mercenaries. They used to back the RSF but in early 2024 switched sides and now fully back the SAF. The sad truth is that most major international players don't care about the Sudanese people. They just want to have the support of whichever side comes out on top so they can continue exploiting the gold reserves of the country like they did before the dictator Omar al-Bashir was overthrown by a popular revolution.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/oct/28/u...
says it was not supplied by US/UK but rather UAE.
UK|US weapons via an intermediary has been an ongoing handwashing pretence for many decades.
eg: Very British bribery: the whistleblower who exposed the UK’s dodgy arms deals with Saudi Arabia
~ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/07/long-read-brit...
discusses some of that history back to the 1970s. It has gone on far longer than that.
Both the US and UK governments are aware of where their weapons are destined for, both pretend to have no knowledge or control.
I didn’t know British weapons made it to the RSF. Wow. Have American weapons been used in the war?
It would be very strange if American weapons weren't used in a conflict this big, which is a very different question from "did the US government sell weapons into this war".
Guess you are on the wrong side of things if you know your weapons are getting laundered through other countries to get to a conflict. And of course uk, us and china know this and always knew this.
How come dubai hasn’t experienced any sanctions yet? They’ve been laundering everything for ages, esp Russian oil. How are they so immune to this?
> How come dubai hasn’t experienced any sanctions yet?
The UAE has crafted itself as a new Switzerland. (Qatar is trying to copy, but clumsily.)
They buy American weapons and financial assets, making them influential. They’ve also established themselves as a logistics hub in an important logistics channel to the West and Asia. (They also pitch their balancing effect on Saudi Arabia skillfully.)
Also invested in soccer clubs.
> The UAE has crafted itself as a new Switzerland
And whenever someone is talking fondly about UAE that's all you need to know about that person
The comment merely said UAE has become strategically influential in finance, transport (cargo shipping (#5 in world), world's busiest international passenger airport), tourism. Nothing about being fond.
5% GDP growth in non-oil. More diversified than Saudi. #2 globally for being "easy to do business in and with". Top-10 in Global Soft Power Index since 2023 [0], rose from #18 in 2020. Dubai has become a global influencer capital.
Looks like the US is backing UAE as Saudi wanes, and as a regional counterweight.
If we're talking about Switzerland, yes it's a federal republic with semi-direct democracy, but it also happily supplied mercenaries to mainland Europe for several centuries.
>Looks like the US is backing UAE as Saudi wanes
How exactly are they waning? Last I heard everyone there was still as rich as ever due to the oil money.
I never said anything about the OP, just merely adding to his point on what has UAE become
> whenever someone is talking fondly about UAE that's all you need to know about that person
I’ve heard that line about Qatar, Uruguay, Singapore, Malta, Cyprus, the Maldives, and countless other small states.
I grew up in Switzerland. Folks like to compare themselves to us, mostly due to complete ignorance of our actual history and culture.
It’s true in part and misses the point in others. Geopolitically, however, the observation is sound. Small states need a powerful protector far away or to balance their position between nearby large states. The latter only works in mountainous hellholes and on peninsulas (provided your larger neighbor(s) can’t blockade you; if they can, you need a foreign guarantor with a blue-water navy, of which historically there have only been one or two at a time).
(You know Switzerland is a weapons exporter, right? To the U.S. But also to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Hungary. One could almost say that folks who conclude intent from a place of ignorance communicate “all you need to know about” themselves.)
I think the connotation of 'being Switzerland' has less to do with the modern state of Switzerland and more to do with the ... Unsavory things Switzerland has historically been a part of.
It's way more basic than that if you ask the average person. "Swiss neutrality/ banking"
Most of them are patently incorrect, and most of those don't even care to educate themselves since they keep repeating cheap stuff they heard from other bright people and that's it. How many heard about accepting refugees despite being literally surrounded by axis and facing starvation of their own people (how many nations would do that including yours), or not-so-secret massive collaboration with western allies while on surface acting as neutral ie Campione d'Italia, and so on and on).
They were neutral in WWII like ie Spain was, think a bit what does it actually means. Not participating in conflict in any way. So they accepted both jewish and nazi gold or art, and everybody's else. If you want to understand why some of that was kept around after the war maybe reading about numbered accounts would enlight you. If you actually care to understand history as it happened.
Hitler had plans to conquer Switzerland after dealing with Russia, he was aware that they were 'most free and most armed nation in the world', fiercely independent and taking them would cost him dearly not only due to terrain.
Literally nobody had come out of WWII with properly clean slate, you just need to dig (not even deep) to find abhorable stuff on everybody, to different volume of course. Swiss have no problem acknowledging their mistakes, much more than most other nations.
Perhaps, but that comment did not speak fondly about UAE.
One might say your own comment tells everyone all they need to know about you.
> Perhaps, but that comment did not speak fondly about UAE.
Where did I say I'm referring to OP? I'm merely adding to his point on what UAE is today
And Qatar is sponsoring and hosting Hamas. Everyone looks the other way, where billions of dollars are.
They are stable and predicable. If you lend them some money, you can expect to still have it next year.
Not calling Dubai the devil but you could make deals with the devil if the devil was known to religiously fulfill his contracts.
There are a lot of places where you don’t know whether their currency or political system could be rocked next year.
The UAE is pretty good at playing both sides so they always come out ahead. They act as a key diplomatic intermediary and host a major US military base which is essential to projecting power in the region.
the CIA hired the mafia to assassinate castro in the 60s. these things are not so black and white. stated goals are often independent of behavior
Just wanna plug the most thorough and useful video I've seen on the history of this conflict. The US, Russia, and many other players are more heavily involved in this conflict than is often discussed in media. It breaks down the specific ways many international players are profiting from the conflict and helps makes sense of the motives driving it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqIMES53rsY
It's not a conflict, it's a genocide
Yes ofc. The RSF is just the rebranded Janjaweed which were legally classified as having committed genocide. But they never faced any international consequences and here they are committing genocide once again. It's also a major conflict though as the SAF is the major oppositional force fighting against the RSF. SAF was the military that took control after a democratic revolution pushed out the dictator Omar al-Bashir
Genocide these days can only be committed against a certain oppressed class following a certain religion by others who don’t follow this religion. If the same religion goes and commits genocide against other people like yazidis or Hindus it’s kosher. That’s the power of media investments that oil rich barons did.
Horse manure. On the one hand, you say "oppressed class following religion". On the other hand, you claim "another religion" is killing x y z.
The TRUTH is that those of the "other religion" who are committing crimes in Syria and Sudan - in other words ISIS in Syria & UAE in Sudan - ARE THEMSELVES ALLIED WITH your "oppressed class", aka Israel.
The links between Israel/CIA and ISIS have been documented by many, and now is out in the open since 2024 Syria. And the UAE's alliance with Israel has been on open display during the Palestinian Holocaust, even down to them running supply convoys to them.
When you strip away all the propaganda and outright lying (as copious real journalism has done over the past few years), then you continuously see members OF THE SAME ALLIANCE on THE SAME SIDE of genocide.
The 2020's have truly stripped away DECADES of propaganda, leaving behind a simple picture of good vs evil. Twas ever thus ...
Sudan is the 3rd largest producer of gold in Africa but it remains the poorest country in Africa because the companies that exploit those resources are never Sudanese.
The RSF got their weapons by acting as mercenaries for the UAE to fight against the Houthis in Yemen. Fighting as a mercenary is pretty much the only reliable source of income for many people in the country.
From wikipedia :
On examination of photos and videos of weapons used in the conflict that were posted on social media, the rights group identified that companies registered in China, Iran, Russia, Serbia, and the UAE were associated with the weapons provided to RSF.[96] Human Rights Watch reviewed images of show crates with markings indicating they were manufactured in 2020 and initially acquired by the UAE Armed Forces in through a contract with Adasi, a subsidiary of UAE-based weapons manufacturer Edge Group. A January 2024 report by the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan deemed the UAE's alleged support to the RSF as "credible"
According to Business Insider, "The two generals helped Russian President Vladimir Putin exploit Sudan's gold resources to help buttress Russian finances against Western sanctions and fund his war in Ukraine."[108]
Yes, to clarify the primary international players:
Russia: initially supported the RSF, then at one point was trading with both sides, and in 2024/2025 fully switched sides to back the SAF
Iran: stayed out of it until 2024 when it finally backed the SAF which caused a major turning point in the conflict
UAE/the US: the main player responsible for RSF's rise. It hired out RSF mercenaries to fight the Houthis in Yemen. At one point there were more than 40,000 RSF mercenaries (mostly between the ages of 14-17) in Yemen. It continues to be the primary funder of the RSF
Israel: the RSF buys surveillance tech and weapons from Israel
Saudi Arabia: the largest smuggler of (illegally acquired) gold from RSF. A major source of funding for the RSF
China: doesn't directly deal with either side but Chinese-made weapons were found in the hands of the RSF mostly through the UAE reselling them. The SAF also has some Chinese made weapons through Russia and Turkey
tl;dr: it's a very complex disaster but international players simply don't have an interest in ending it. The SAF is the main opposition to the genocidal RSF, but they are also uninterested in maintaining the democracy that the people fought for and the sides backing the SAF (mostly Iran, and now Russia) are likely hoping to continue their exploitation of gold if they defeat the RSF
Modern Belgian congo
This is truly horrible and I don't want to detract from the original aim of the article, but can we just establish that 'visible' from space doesn't really mean much anymore given the resolution of satellites? My garage is also visible from space, doesn't make it worthy of a headline.
Sudan has multiple forces at play right now. There’s the Islamic Arabs committing genocide on the non-Arabs. The RSF, largely composed of Arab nomadic groups (evolving from the Janjaweed militias), has been accused of systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, such as the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit. These attacks involve mass killings, rape, and village burnings.
There’s also the Islamic Arab monarchies (RSF) vs the Muslim Brotherhood (SAF).
The common denominator is the Islamic Arab presence from Islamic conquests. Sudan’s ethnic tensions trace back to the 7th-century Arab-Islamic conquests, which Arabized the northern Nile Valley, creating a dominant Arab-Muslim elite that marginalized non-Arab, indigenous groups in the periphery (e.g., Darfur’s Fur, Masalit, and Nuba).
> There’s also the Islamic Arab monarchies (RSF) vs the Muslim Brotherhood (SAF).
Qatar is an Arab monarchy and they are backing the SAF.
RSF are described as anti-islamist on Wikipedia. Is that wrong?
Typical Hasbara lying. The victims ARE THEMSELVES MUSLIMS, which you are trying to disguise in your very first sentence, just to construct a narrative.
The conflict has NOTHING to do with Islam. It's a resource grab, by (ostensibly Muslim) certain Arab states which ARE ALLIED WITH ISRAEL (in a general sense).
Birds of a feather flock together ...
I don't see the original comment tying the tensions to Islam anywhere. And yes, the conflict is heavily tied to ethnicities - RSF is Arab-dominated and has been systematically genociding other ethnicities, and both sides are effectively enabling a resource grab for their backers.
Arab vs non-Arab conflicts are also nothing new. See Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, etc.
It's worth noting there are islamists on both side. Anyone who characterizes this as purely religious or ethnic has a bridge to sell. This conflict would have died years ago if it weren't for foreign actors putting their hands up Sudan's ass
The number of violent conflicts initiated by various islamist groups is insane [1]. There is something wrong here that goes beyond funding. It's possible to acknowledge that without being islamophobic.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict...
The heatmap may as well represent a map of recently decolonized areas with unresolved political issues, and just so happens that many of these places have significant Muslim populations.
If you read the Koran and Hadiths, there are numerous statements about the true Muslims duty being to spread Islam - at the point of the sword being a well supported one, scripture wise.
Abu Bakr [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bakr] and even Mohammed himself [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_expeditions_of_Muhamma...].
It has never been a particularly ‘turn the other cheek’ religion.
If you're in the Silicon Valley you sit on the land of one of one of the most brutal genocides that's ever occurred. Let's not act like Catholic and Christian missionaries haven't committed some of the largest genocides we have records of.
Besides these debates about religion are an obvious distraction when we know EXACTLY why this is happening. The previous governor was propped up by international players because they allowed them to exploit the countries gold reserves. They are the 3rd largest producers of gold but the poorest country in Africa because none of the resources being extracted from Sudan is going back to the Sudanese people. The UAE (which is funded by the US) is currently the largest player but even Russia was funding the RSF until early 2024 (Russia has since switched sides).
Looking into the past everyone looks like a barbarian. And yes, the use of the word was meant as sarcasm.
Wait until you hear about how europeans behave—it makes the islamists look downright civilizing
https://archive.is/H0WYu
UAE backed RSF's doing.
There is another article on that topic: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/31/sudans-latest-...>
I'm constantly impressed that we are a civilisation that can look down from space and see this kind of barbarism.
"Visible from space" used to mean "by astronauts". If high-resolution sensors are allowed, then the term applies to things like a tree and a car, and doesn't signify much.
Well, maybe it signifies that nobody wants to go and take photos in person.
> Well, maybe it signifies that nobody wants to go and take photos in person.
I'd happily do it if someone pays for my ticket
Start a gofundme, I'll chip in.
"Analysis by the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), which has been tracking the siege using open source images and satellite imagery, found clusters of objects “consistent with the size of human bodies” and “reddish ground discolouration” thought to be either blood or disturbed soil."
The "visible from space" here is clearly dumb click bait from The Telegraph.
> Well, maybe it signifies that nobody wants to go and take photos in person.
That sounds slow and expensive.
“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.”
Having a foot in both the future and the past. Or at least I wish it were in the past.
Murder is timeless (apparently).
Yes, the ISS as a sadistic Christof
It's a libertarian paradise.
Just enough funding to view suffering. No funding to end it.
What do you want to do? Send in troops from somewhere else to die too?
Well we are currently sending funding. Except that funding is going to further the conflict. Sudan's gold reserves are critical materials. The previous dictator, Omar al-Bashir, was propped up by foreign powers exactly because they allowed those countries to extract the gold reserves. The RSF is the same thing. they are the evolution of the Janjaweed militias that the ICC found to be committing genocide. The international community did nothing to stop them or hold them accountable so they are once again committing genocide. International players want this to continue. Russia was at some point funding both sides and sending in Wagner mercenaries. UAE has been funding the RSF since the very start and continues to be the largest importer of (illegal) gold. Israel benefits because the RSF is a major importer of its surveillance tech as well as weapons. Both Israel and the US fund the UAE despite knowing that the UAE is fueling the RSF because they both ultimately benefit. American and even Chinese weapons have been found on both sides (mostly through the UAE reselling weapons to the RSF). Even if the SAF wins, it'll just be another military junta whose top priority is to exploit the gold reserves to the benefit of whichever nation is funding it and NOT giving any of that wealth back to the people.
ideology plays little role in these conflicts, they are partially religio-ethnic but mostly about pure power, where religion and ethnicity are levers pulled to leverage power.
the people seeking power would sell out their own mothers if that's what it took.
the ideologies here are the ideologies of the HN commenters who try to fit the facts into their predetermined narratives.
and "visible from space" means absolutely nothing meaningful. can we read license plates from space or not yet? I don't know, but in this context, who cares
(way back in the 1980s a china-zealot was telling me that the Great Wall of China was "the only manmade thing visible from space." I had the presence of mind to say back, "isn't it more significant to be able to get to space to see what's visible?")
This is horrible but I feel like the "visible" from space headline is becoming increasingly less impressive as satellite imagery becomes more impressive.
You could say, I drink so much coffee it's visible from space and it's literally just a coffee mug sitting on a park bench.
I presume there will be protests at Columbia University?
I take it that’s supposed to be funny. Most people have absolutely zero agency over what happens beyond their own city’s borders, proclaiming your views loudly in public is one of the very few ways you can influence society.
There’s nothing funny about the evil at Columbia University, subsidized by billion in taxpayer dollars.
Agree or disagree this post is clearly about which genocide they choose to protest.
They never protested any genocide at Columbia. Instead they cheer on terrorism while ignoring actual atrocities in Sudan and elsewhere.
Apparently nobody cares if there's enough melanin on both sides.
It's because the US clearly is the main supporter of Israel who is the Goliath in that conflict.
In Sudan the US is not clearly propping up one side.
People are reasonably more mad in the US about Gaza since their taxes directly fund it and the US seemingly could exert influence on Israel if there was political will.
It is not clear how the US would improve Sudan without wading into some massive peacekeeping / reconstruction mission - which no one has the appetite for.
It’s the religion not the color that’s the factor. If oppressor belongs to a certain religion it’s all kosher. If the roles reverse it’s genocide.
Sadly, yet another bloody chapter of the Abu Dhabi (al Nahyan) - Doha (al Thani) feud that has been going on since the 2011 coup attempt [0], which itself is part of a longer multi-generational blood feud going on between the royal families [4]. The Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and Balkans are all burning because of this saga [1].
The UAE backs the RSF [2] (formerly known as the Janjaweed of the Darfur Genocide), and Qatar supports the Sudanese Army [3]
[0] - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/united-arab-emirates-pala...
[1] - https://lobelog.com/doha-and-abu-dhabis-incompatible-visions...
[2] - https://www.wsj.com/world/how-u-a-e-arms-bolstered-a-sudanes...
[3] - https://www.africaintelligence.com/eastern-africa-and-the-ho...
[4] - https://gulfif.org/changing-alignments-in-the-lower-gulf/
The bargain the US has made with Qatar continues to prove itself as conceptually flawed and generally terrible. While the UAE deserves plenty of blame here, the Qataris are as usual up to their elbows in other people’s blood.
> bargain the US has made with Qatar continues to prove itself as conceptually flawed and generally terrible
They buy our weapons and financial assets. We get base. I’m not sure we’ve ever particularly cared about what anyone is up to in Africa. Yemen became of interest because it was fucking with the Red Sea.
Destabilizing the region, working with Hamas, facilitating terror financing, working with Iran, and a bunch of other stuff should concern us. There’s plenty of flat sand to park aircraft on without doing business with those filthy slavers.
> plenty of flat sand to park aircraft on
Then someone else parks there. Barring a Saudi takeover of Qatar, we’re stuck there to keep the Russians and Chinese out.
Qatar already deals with Iran and Russia by proxy. Qatar’s largest trading partner now is China and Qatar supports the one China policy.
> Qatar already deals with Iran and Russia by proxy
So does the UAE. They’ve played their game well.
It doesn’t mean we need to be their staunch defenders. But it’s in our government’s interest to not piss them off for no gain. And we’re not in a place in America where foreign policy swings power.
We should wash our hands of both places and their petty feud. They offer us nothing but problems and moral stain by association.
Much of Europe and Asia is dependent on Gulf sourced ONG and Gulf sourced FDI.
And the current crisis is happening because the last time we were hands off with Middle Eastern affairs shortly before the Arab Spring, a number of conflicts spiraled into proxy wars between KSA, UAE, Qatar, Turkiye, and Iran.
We just have to keep protecting them and give them weapons, otherwise somebody else will do it.
Quite a high moral ground to be on, I tell ya. I know I know, realpolitik and all, but then lets stop pretending there is some higher ground and treat say china-us conflict as something that literally doesn't concern Europe at all (seems like US has still military upper hand but who knows for how long, seems like China will steamroll ya economically/technologically pretty soon). Especially given this year developments when we saw that US military equipment cannot be trusted, US IT infra cannot be trusted and so on.
Europe would be more concern if there was more trust in the current US government. Besides, European politicians have been so naive they have let China use their financial power to exert pressure, they are slowly waking up to it, but not fast enough.
OK I'm not a Qatar apologist or anything, but Qatar is obviously on the less-bad side here. What are you suggesting is better? Letting RSF ethnic cleanse whatever portion of Sudan they want?
In this conflict Qatar isn't supporting the genocidal and unrepentant RSF, but previously in Syria it was Qatar that backed the hardliners in Jabhat al-Nusra who committed similar atrocities that the RSF are doing except on Druze, Alawites, and Shia.
There are no good guys or bad guys - everyone is bad, and that's how proxy wars are.
A major reason Gaza and the West Bank spiraled was due to this Qatar-UAE feud as well - Qatar has historically supported Hamas whereas Abu Dhabi has historically supported the Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, and the former head of Fatah in Gaza is now the 2nd in command in Abu Dhabi (Mohammed Dahlan)
Like I said, I'm not apologizing for any of the many bad things Qatar has done, but I don't understand how this, where Qatar is supporting the legitimate-ish and not-especially-genocidal side, is being used as evidence by the "Qatar sucks" camp.
Becuase this is one proxy war that is part of a larger proxy war across the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia.
I'm jaded because I've been following this for 15 years, and looked at the Arab Spring with hope, but now all I've seen is the entire movement swung into a transnational proxy war.
> The Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and Balkans are all burning because of this saga
Balkans, you say?
The UAE backs Vucic and is the primary FDI source for Serbia's real estate and armaments industry. A major reason Vucic's administration slid into authoritarianism was because the opposition began asking hard questions about the Belgrade Waterfront Project.
Right on mate, but that's hardly "Balkans is burning", if you know at least a bit of recent European history...
You think the Abu Dhabi Qatari rivalry began in 2011? 1700s more like it.
> When we go to see the Emirates, what number on our to-do list do you think Sudan is? It is not on our to-do list. What we have to do is keep the Emirates onside with Israel and onside against Iran.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/radio-war-nerd-131258413
> What we have to do is keep the Emirates onside with Israel and onside against Iran
This is so incredibly dumb.
The UAE is a spigot of oil and money. (Secondarily, a massive buyer of American goods, services, weapons and financial assets.) Sudan isn’t on our to-do list because it doesn’t directly affect American voters. Oil prices and capital do.
I don't understand what you find dumb. Can you explain what you're disagreeing with? Do you think the money that the UAE offer precludes all other incentives to ignore mass slaughter? Surely by this metric we would be more allied with Venezuela than Israel. Or, perhaps, you have not fully articulated yourself.
It’s dumb to frame every foreign policy issue through Israel. It’s simple. It will get views. But it’s dumb.
> Do you think the money that the UAE offer precludes all other incentives to ignore mass slaughter?
Precludes? No. Politically balanced. Absolutely. You’re not going to win votes promising higher oil prices and stalled construction projects to plant a moral flag in Africa so the guys backed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey win. Abu Dhabi is more than just geopolitically convenient.
> It’s dumb to frame every foreign policy issue through Israel. It’s simple. It will get views. But it’s dumb.
Why? I get nothing from views, and much of our foreign policy is based around Israel, which serves the needs of our state in almost uncountable ways. Is it not just as dumb to ignore this? Acting as if our relationships with foreign countries appear in a vacuum seems.... absurd, to put it charitably.
Even if Israel literally didn’t exist, we’d still be doing the same thing with the UAE. Maybe even more, since Israel is sucking up capital that would otherwise go to Dubai.
As always, conflicts are much easier to understand when viewed through the lens of materialism.
Factors such as ethnicity or religion are never the reason for these conflicts. Those are simply the excuse. It’s what’s used to fuel the fire.
The heart of this conflict is Sudan’s gold that’s laundered via Dubai then Switzerland.
The culpability of Western powers including the US cannot be ignored either. The RSF is supplied with diverted arms shipments from the West to the UAE.
Just like in Gaza the US could stop this at any time with a phone call.
This is almost exactly wrong. Like, if you wanted to invent a plausible-on-its-face position that formed a perfect -1 dot product with the truth, this is what you’d come up with.
Polite western society has become so disconnected from what earnest religious belief feels like that they have become unable to comprehend the world around them, which hasn’t. They project their own materialism onto the own world and conclude that sectarian hatred is overblown because after all, who could really get that worked up about some dusty book? The idea that the Sudanese are just innocent victims of big evil powers fighting over gold is the kind of thing that makes a good theme in English class. We’re now dealing with an entire generation that was only taught this “counter-narrative”, and simply pattern matches it to every single thing. Yes, you can always construct sentences that recast any bad world events as being caused by our own callous indifference to the beleaguered and noble savage. No, that is not an automatic shortcut to truth and wisdom. The West does not have a monopoly on making terrible, short-sighted, violent choices.
But putting aside the diminishing of African agency, even if you do focus on the involvement of outside forces, the Sudanese civil war is notably characterized by the involvement of _middle_ powers, and not particularly Western ones. They are there for varying reasons, all of them nihilistic but only some of them materialistic. Ukrainians are there, for instance, because Russians are there, and it’s a lawless place where you can kill Russians. That’s a lot of things, but a simplistic gold grab it is not.
>As always, conflicts are much easier to understand when viewed through the lens of materialism.
That no doubt does make understanding things seem easier.
> Factors such as ethnicity or religion are never the reason for these conflicts
Economics motivates. But these divisions dominate in determining magnitude. You don’t need genocide to control mines, farms and oil fields. (You need labour.)
The dial turns from enslavement to extermination when there is deep-rooted fury. That sort of fury can really only be channeled on divisions of race and religion. (You need a way for poorly-trained, uneducated troops to mostly reliably identify the enemy.)
> heart of this conflict is Sudan’s gold
Why not oil, too?
> Just like in Gaza the US could stop this at any time with a phone call
This hubris fuels our forever wars, both in trade and militarily.
We don’t have that influence. If we tried restricting both Qatar and the UAE in Africa, we’d put serious economic and military interests at stake. Interests American voters care about enough that our leaders have even less free rein than our geopolitical limits circumscribe.
So Arabs fly planes into the world trade center, commit mass genocide at darfur and are still support this dude and his band of thugs with their colonialist rape of Africa?
The US could drop a nuke on UAE and tell them to stop funding colonialist expansion. The war against evil is never ending playing nice is a fools game.
You should not be posting here if you think that is a serious suggestion. Go play Civ or something
You know if we nuked the UAE, everyone would just start funding the folks that make Hamas seem like the church social committee right?
'Visible from space' loses its bite when you see they're using cameras that can practically read your mail from space.
Yes, this is terrible, but atrocities like this happen all over Africa on a daily basis for innumerable reasons, and Sudan specifically has been in civil wars longer than I have been alive. The piece's structure: 'look at how terrible this is, don't you just feel soooo bad?' + 'by the way the UAE has been accused of facilitating this' signals to me that the writer is primarily motivated by a desire to make the UAE and all muslims by comparison look bad. Notice how they focus on the atrocities by the RSF, ignoring the fact that all sides in this war are complicit in slaughter.
America, Europe, Russia, China, and their satellite countries have been starting and fueling wars in Africa since before these countries became independent.
They deliberately draw borders that cut ethnic populations and religious groups in half.
They flood these regions with weapons and mercenaries.
They replace incentives to develop stable societies, robust agricultural industries, and infrastructure with 'just good enough to survive' aid.
They bribe local warlords with collective billions of dollars.
Global power blocs have effectively enforced a continent of lawlessness where you're only safe from war in the immediate vicinity of resource extraction sites, and lucky for you those sites are the kinds of places small children handle mercury without PPE and die of exhaustion and chemical burns. All of this to give you fiber optic cables.
Yes, the UAE is complicit, but so are you if you're reading this. This is not a 'muslim' problem. This is not a 'UAE' problem. This is a structural problem driven primarily by increasing population, materialist consumer habits, and the geopolitical reality that if any bloc stopped doing all of this horrible stuff the only outcome would be that the other blocs get a bigger share.
This article is not written with the intention of solving these problems, it is written with the intention of keeping you just angry enough to do what they tell you, without making you so angry that you replace the ones making these decisions.