By Nicolas Leberer

The genocide in Darfur has been far from our thoughts recently. With the ongoing conflict in the Ukraine and civil unrest at home, it does not come as a surprise that Darfur is probably low on people’s priorities list. It is due to the lack of public attention on Darfur that many people do not know what is currently happening there and why so little is being done to stop it.

The genocide in Darfur can be brought back to three main drivers, ethnicity, oil, and desertification. The ethnic problem in the Sudan can be traced back to when the United Kingdom controlled the region of Sudan, south of Egypt. When the British left, the Sudanese borders were not drawn based on ethnic, religious, or geographical differences. This was the main catalyst for tension. Then, the region of Sudan was comprised of three main regions, divided by culture. The north, which is primarily Arabic and Muslim. The south, which is African and Christian. The Western region, also known as Darfur or the Land of the Fur, is comprised of many tribes. The tribes are either African and Muslim, or Arabic and Muslim. The Arabic tribes are nomadic herders, while the African tribes are farmers. The Arabs of the north looked down on the Africans of the south. Already, the ethnic tensions were already in place for the genocide to occur.

Oil is also a primary driver in the genocide. Southern Sudan is very rich in oil, but the oil is exported through the port, in the north. As a result the North makes all of the money, and instead of giving money to its entire population equally, the North gave it to the Arab population in the North. Upset over the lack of money being given to them, the south rebelled in the 2nd Sudanese Civil War in 1983. The Civil War ended in 2005, with the south splitting from Sudan and receiving half of the oil profits. The African tribes in the West followed the South’s example and revolted in 2003.

The North Sudanese strategy for dealing with the rebellion was a simple one. Catch the fish by draining the sea. In this instance, the fish are the rebels, the sea is the civilian population of Darfur. The North Sudanese aren’t acting alone, China, who is Sudan’s largest purchaser of oil, doesn’t want the rebellion to disrupt its oil flow, so they armed the Sudanese with guns, planes, and helicopters to put down the rebellion. An assault on the village usually goes like this. In the middle of the night, the village is bombed substantially. At dawn, a helicopter with a machinegun goes and starts shooting indiscriminately at the residents in the village. After that, the Janjaweed, the Devils on Horseback, an Arab tribe armed and funded by the Sudanese government, goes in and kills the men of the village and rapes or enslaves the women and children. They burn down houses, they dig up and burn food stores, and they throw dead bodies in the wells to ensure that the village never recovers.

How did the Sudanese government convince the Janjaweed to turn against their neighboring tribes? Resources. The Sahara Desert has been expanding into Darfur, with less and less arable land for farming and water for crops and livestock, there simply isn’t enough for their previous lifestyle. And their previous lifestyle wasn’t one of luxury, it was a hard, scares life. The desertification of the Darfur has destabilized the region, making it susceptible to rebellions and genocides such as this. Until the desertification stops and is reversed, stability will not return soon the region of Darfur.

So far, the attempts for peace have been unsuccessful, and the situation has fallen from the public’s attention, meaning aid programs are less effective than otherwise. The International Criminal Court has indicted several people involved in the situation, but the Sudanese government has replied by rejecting the request to hand over those responsible, and expelling foreign and domestic aid groups. The situation in Darfur looks bleak, but by learning and sharing your knowledge with others, can help the cause for peace in Darfur gain more support in the United States, and the world.

By Madeleine MacLean

The Senate Intelligence Committee recently uncovered millions of internal CIA documents, which bring to light The CIA’s program to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects in the years after 9-11. The Committee’s report revealed that the the program was more brutal than acknowledged to either the president or the public. The torture included depriving detainees of sleep for as long as a week and telling them they would be killed in American custody. The techniques were described as leading to “psychological and behavioral issues, including hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, and attempts at self-harm and self-mutilation.” The CIA often misled the White House and Congress about the information they obtained and didn’t provide basic oversight of the secret prisons it established around the world. According to the report, they restricted access to information about the program, as well as declined to answer questions about it. They also underreported the number of people detained and subjected to the torture. At least 26 detainees were “wrongfully held”, including one man who was used as leverage to obtain information from a family member. The agency records were often incomplete and some didn’t have enough information to justify keeping the detainees in custody. The committee also found that the CIA provided exaggerated information to journalists about the effectiveness of the program in order to gain public support.

The report has created much controversy, both in the United States and throughout the world. President Obama said the CIA’s techniques, “constituted torture in my mind” and were a betrayal of American values. Former president George W. Bush disagreed, saying that the CIA’s detention and interrogation was both humane and legal. He also said that the program was important in uncovering terrorist plots and finding Osama Bin Laden. Countries such as China, North Korea, Russia, and the UK have all condemned the CIA’s methods. Nations such as Poland have expressed a lack of trust in American after hearing the reports. Overall, the reports have been very damaging for the United States and eye-opening about what goes on inside our government.

By Saman Hasan

Admittedly, the world is feeling a bit of déjà vu right now. We find ourselves confronted with yet another menacing force at work in the Middle East, using the mantle of Islam as their propaganda. The United States is, as one would guess, heavily involved in this conflict, with recent drone attacks and airstrikes in Iraq against the sinister group that is the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria”, or ISIS.  With all this chaos and turmoil, people are overlooking a very real and serious issue playing out in the United States right now. Anti-Muslim sentiment, or Islamophobia, is on the rise once more, and it’s as ugly as ever.

The first question we must ask is this: has there truly been a resurgence in discriminatory sentiment against Muslims? The answer is undoubtedly yes.  Statistics from the NYPD tell us that anti-Muslim hate crimes have been up 143%, and steadily on the rise. As of September 18, there have been a total of 17 hate crimes in New York City, compared to a total of seven in the previous year. In one particular instance, a man allegedly pushed and spat on a 15 year old Muslim girl aboard a bus, calling her a terrorist because she was wearing a headscarf. What’s worse? Not one bystander helped her. When asked to comment on these crimes, Jerome Hauer, commissioner of the New York State Division of Homeland Security, said “As time goes on, [threats] to both the Jewish community and the Muslim community are going to be more organized. I think they’re going to be more targeted.”

These crimes are coupled with increased anti-Muslim sentiment in the media. The most outrageously blatant and horrifyingly racist example can be made of Bill Maher, whose recent panel regarding ISIS and Islam went viral on the web. On his show, Maher made the claim that Muslims will kill you for leaving their religion, backing up his statement by spewing out statistics that were laughably wrong. He went on a tirade about Islam being “the mother lode of bad ideas” and made another incorrect claim that jihadists made up 20% of the religion. His segment may be amusing in a shaking-your-head way for some people, but the sad truth still remains: Bill Maher’s audience was cheering him on.

So why is Islamophobia on the rise? The root of the problem is ISIS, but it is not the only answer.

ISIS has been wreaking havoc in the Middle East, and their level of violence and chaos has stirred a great amount of fear in the world. They identify as Muslims as a group, even though in reality they violate the very pillars on which Islam is based. Unfortunately, the association with other Muslims has already been made and the damage is done. With this mayhem comes the fear. Hauer says, “The more that happens in the mid-East, the more that the U.S. commits to try and go after ISIS, the greater the threat will grow here.” From the videotaped executions of American citizens by ISIS to U.S. involvement in Gaza, the fear of war grows.  Fear is a motivator, driving a person to help combat the fear in whatever way they can. It is human nature to place blame when something is going wrong, because people need an outlet to channel their fear and anger. Thus, the correlation of ISIS with Islam leads to the inevitable: the entirety of the Muslim population becomes the scapegoat of this crisis. Muslims somehow become accountable for crimes perpetrated by these extremists, even though these terrorists do not properly represent Islam. Spencer Ackerman, a senior correspondent at

Wired.com, said, “I’m an American Jew, and I have never had to explain or defend actions of Jewish people around the world. I realize I am in a privileged position. So why do American Muslims have to explain themselves or defend other Muslims’ actions?” It’s a staggering double standard, but a sad truth of American society nonetheless.

In all honesty, the media is the prime instigator of these sentiments. A person’s perception of the world is based heavily on how the media portrays it. The coverage of this crisis in Gaza has played a huge role in these skewed sentiments, because it gives the argument emotional support. NYPD deputy chief Michael Osgood said, “The Gaza Strip becomes a major news story and stays consistent in the media through July and August, every single day, every single morning, front page of the New York Times, front page of the Wall Street Journal. […]…the group ISIS becomes a major news story and they stay consistent in the news media, [and] that creates what I call an emotional surge.” The news about ISIS is often very charged, an example being the executions of the American citizens, and this generates a swell of emotion in the viewer. As Osgood says, “A person, who would normally not offend, now offends. He’s moved by the emotions.” Thus, these emotional stories lead to emotional people, who commit hate crimes in order to channel their feelings.

Politicians across the country, including President Obama, have gone on record to state that we are “not at war with Islam”. If this is true, then why do I have to cringe while watching supposedly liberal shows like Real Time with Bill Maher, where Islam is spoken of in the same way one might talk about a disease like Ebola? If this is true, then why is the death toll of innocent Muslims in the Middle East higher than the death toll for terrorists? If this is true, if we’re simply combating extremism, then why is there such blatant discrimination against Muslims in nearly every aspect of society?

What we need is a deeper understanding. We need awareness. Lack of exposure to the real Islam, the peaceful, loving, and beautiful religion that is Islam, is what lends towards the fear and hate. “Most Americans don’t travel, [they] only assume,” said Ackerman, who encourages the need for Americans to broaden their horizons and understand other people and cultures. Americans are poorly informed, and this in part is due to poor media coverage and politicians who propagate this fear and hatred. Knowledge is the only way to combat these perceptions, and everyone—people, politicians, and the media—needs to come together and be a more impactful force to counter this negativity. Whether or not Islamophobia decreases in the coming years is on us.

By Eli Troen

It’s backbreaking work to keep a garden looking nice. Planting the seeds, watering the sprouts, plucking the weeds. ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, is a weed, and it needs to be plucked. An Islamist extremist group centered in the Middle East, ISIS is attempting to establish a powerful, autonomous Islamic state. ISIS is a growing threat to the people of the Middle East, Islamists included, and is even considered by some to be a greater threat to the world.

Once a part of the extremist group al-Qaeda, ISIS splintered off due to differences in methods. By utilizing and purloining the abundant oil in the area to fund its campaigns and by amassing support from Sunni followers, ISIS has become self-sustaining, exploiting the resources and people unlucky enough to be within their reach. ISIS captures areas of land and extorts the people who “have no regular access to water, and are trapped between thirst and ISIS’ guns”. In one of his first attempts to help quell the unrest in the region, President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes on the group. In response, ISIS released videos depicting the public executions of American reporter James Foley and journalist Steven Sotloff, calling for the stop of those airstrikes. The situation seems to be escalating, with many Middle Eastern citizens being caught up in the chaos, many radicals joining ISIS’s cause, and many other countries preparing for action. So, should the United States of America meddle in Middle Eastern affairs, or would it be better to sit this one out?

I believe that we need to be and continue being involved with the turmoil in the Middle East. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says that ISIS is “beyond anything that we’ve seen”; ISIS represents a large enough threat that it is our duty to quell the group. We have to get involved with ISIS. The United States was the catalyst for this extremist group to rise to power (though, it is possible that the group could have risen without the U.S.’s involvement), and if we don’t clean up our mess, the issue could escalate even further. We need to find a balance. We can’t and shouldn’t go in with guns blazing, but we mustn’t sit idly by while a militant group endangers not only the lives of Middle Easterners but our own, as well. We need a middle-of-the-road plan,—one that will both snuff out the ISIS threat and keep our nation and its people safe—and President Barack Obama’s plan is just that.

Obama’s plan for dealing with ISIS is a “middle-of-the-road” attempt to deal with this situation. Instead of trying to amass a large force and export a plethora of troops to the Middle East, Obama has and will continue to send aid, in the form of weapons and money, to the Free Syrian Army (F.S.A.), in hopes of halting the growth and spread of ISIS. Congress was split over this decision, with the vote being 273-156 in favor of the plan. Many are not satisfied with the outcome.

Some think our effort is not enough. Representative Jack Kingston from Georgia said, “We can’t have a half-pregnant war…We have got to fight to win and wipe out this terrorist surge”. The problem with sending too much aid or with sending in our own troops is that it could easily turn into a repeat of President Bush’s “War on Terror”, with our forces being caught up trying to make changes and dealing with matters that are not our concern. The United States’ involvement in Iraq and Iran led to an even greater amount of civil unrest and brought about a new, bigger threat: ISIS. Who is to say a strong opposition won’t bring about an even worse situation and an even more gargantuan threat? Another issue with all-out war is money. If we put too much effort into this war, we will drain our supplies and place this nation in even greater debt than it already is. We also have to think of our fantastic troops. Our troops have fought hard over this past decade, and we should understand the situation better before committing them to war again.

Conversely, some think that our effort is too much.  Some argue that we shouldn’t enter the Middle East, that ISIS is either not a big enough threat or that we might worsen the situation. If we follow a non-intervention plan, our failure to act could result in more brutality and increased aggression from ISIS, endangering the lives of Middle Eastern inhabitants. Not intervening would allow ISIS to grow, absorbing more oil supplies, more land, and more peoples. The militant group might even become bold enough and try to attack our great nation.

Shawn Doyle of the Potomac Post thinks that “Allowing ourselves to be goaded into open warfare would be to fall straight into this trap”, a trap to lure our nation into a costly conflict that would only increase ISIS’s power. Too high a level of involvement—and none at all—could have adverse effects. The best solution is the middle ground. Sending aid to the Syrians could be the easiest and most efficient way to deal with the issue. We don’t have to endanger our troops, and the F.S.A. can stop ISIS’s growth. We also need to continue launching airstrikes aimed at ISIS’s strongholds and their money sources: oil fields. By cutting off their income, we can bring the group’s heinous activities to a halt. All of these actions, in combination with our alliances and the U.N.’s efforts, can solve this issue.

This is certainly not a perfect plan, but it could be the most effective.  Our ultimate goal is to stop ISIS and other terrorist groups that threaten our freedoms and our lives, but like those pesky weeds, they always grow back. You can’t destroy an idea. Right now, we need to continue our plan to halt ISIS, but there will always be another threat. As of now, we need to be content with plucking those weeds.