Activists acknowledge they have no unified leadership or support from political parties but express hope the spontaneous nature of the current round of protests means they\u2019re gaining momentum.<\/p>\n
However, AP then admits [emphasis added]:<\/p>\n
One of Sudan\u2019s most prominent\u00a0opposition leaders, Sadiq al-Mahdi of the National Umma Party<\/b>, told worshippers at a mosque in the district of Omdurman that al-Bashir has been spending the state\u2019s budget on \u201cconsolidating power\u201d and failed \u201cto lift the agony off the citizens\u2019 shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the sermon, protesters marched through the district, a longtime opposition stronghold, chanting \u201cthe people want the downfall of the regime,\u201d the slogan heard in Arab Spring uprisings that began in late 2010 and have led to the ouster of the leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.<\/b><\/p>\n
Clearly, the \u201cactivists\u201d indeed have a leader \u2013 Sadiq al-Mahdi of the National Umma Party who was literally leading the protesters out into the streets. And while comparisons to the \u201cArab Spring\u201d invokes images of peaceful \u201cpro-democracy\u201d protests \u2013 AP admits that the protesters are already turning to violence:<\/p>\n
Angry protesters torched police and dozens of gas stations and government buildings, and students marched chanting for al-Bashir\u2019s ouster.<\/p>\n
AP, perhaps hoping readers would not bother researching the matter further, also quotes \u201clocal blogger and journalist Reem Shawka\u201d to bolster their narrative. Shawka\u00a0is a columnist at Sudan\u2019s 500 Words Magazine<\/a>. While 500 Words maintains that it is \u201ca Sudanese independent online magazine,\u201d it proudly advertises in the right column of its website an upcoming US Institute of Peace \u201cSudanese and South Sudanese Youth Leaders Program<\/a>.\u201d Like\u00a0Thailand\u2019s deceitful US-funded propaganda front Prachatai<\/a>, 500 Words is most likely directly funded by the US government, and is most certainly in tune with the US State Department\u2019s agenda and talking points regarding Sudan.<\/p>\n Image: Sudan\u2019s \u201cindependent online magazine,\u201d 500 Words proudly advertises for the US Institute of Peace on its website (right-hand side), exposing the predictable ties between its support for Western-backed opposition inside of Sudan and the US State Department through the National Endowment for Democracy and others, who most likely funds the online propaganda front.<\/p><\/div>\n Indeed 500 Words\u2019 editor-in-chief, Moez Ali,\u00a0has his own page on \u201cOpen Democracy<\/a>\u201d \u2013 funded by\u00a0Open Society Institute, the Oak Foundation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, TIDES,\u00a0and many others<\/a>.<\/p>\n It should be mentioned that the US Institute of Peace \u2013 advertised for on 500 Words –\u00a0has played an instrumental role in the Western-engineered \u201cArab Spring<\/a>,\u201d where it literally crafts the constitutions and structure of proxy regimes the West plans to create once targeted nations have been overthrown.<\/p>\n Who is Opposition Leader Sadiq al-Mahdi?<\/b><\/p>\n Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of Sudan\u2019s National Umma Party, is a member of the\u00a0EU-US-Saudi-Qatari<\/a>\u00a0run\u00a0Arab Democracy Foundation<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the Club de Madrid<\/a>\u00a0which features former US President Bill Clinton\u00a0as a \u201cfull member<\/a>\u201d amongst many others, and is backed by Wall Street and London\u2019s myriad of \u201cinternational institutions\u201d and foundations including the World Bank, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, Walmart, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Microsoft,\u00a0and many others<\/a>.<\/p>\n Al-Mahdi himself was Oxford educated,\u00a0according to his official Club de Madrid biography<\/a>, which also states [emphasis added]:<\/p>\n Al-Mahdi was elected president of the\u00a0Umma<\/i>\u00a0party in November 1964, and led a campaign to promote political activity, develop political Islam, and reform the party by expanding its base and promoting democracy behavior. Despite his efforts towards a democratic government, there was another\u00a0coup d\u00b4\u00e9tat<\/i>\u00a0in 1969 that led to a dictatorship referred to as the May Regime.<\/p>\n He was soon arrested by the military government, exiled to Egypt, and detained in Sudanese prisons repeatedly until 1974. Later that year, he traveled abroad and toured Arab and African Capitals where he delivered a number of lectures.\u00a0While in exile, he formed the National Democratic Front (NDF), comprised of\u00a0Umma<\/i>, the Democratic Unionist Party, and the\u00a0Muslim Brotherhood<\/span><\/b>. Through his efforts, the NDF was able to make an accord of national reconciliation in 1977 with the May Regime that mandated democratic reform.<\/p>\n His direct association with the Muslim Brotherhood is important, as this is the organization that as far back as 2007, under then US President George Bush, began receiving US-Saudi-Israeli support to prepare the violent overthrow of several nations, including in particular, Syria. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker article,\u00a0 \u201cThe Redireciton: Is the Administration\u2019s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?<\/a>\u201d would reveal US-Saudi-Israeli support behind funding and arming the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria:<\/p>\n \u201cthe Saudi government, with Washington\u2019s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n Hersh also reported that a supporter of the Lebanese pro-US-Saudi Hariri faction had met Dick Cheney in Washington and relayed personally the importance of using the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in any move against the ruling government:<\/p>\n \u201c[Walid] Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be \u201cthe ones to talk to,\u201d Jumblatt said.\u201d<\/p>\n The article would continue by explaining how already in 2007 US and Saudi backing had begun benefiting the Brotherhood:<\/p>\n \u201cThere is evidence that the Administration\u2019s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, \u201cThe Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.\u201d He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front\u2019s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.\u201d<\/p>\n That al-Mahdi, whose coalition included the Muslim Brotherhood that\u2019s played an instrumental role executing recent Western designs in Syria and Egypt, and whose uprising and calls for faux-reform is echoed by the likes of Sudanese extremist leader Hassan al-Turabi\u00a0(who had in fact invited Osama Bin Laden to Sudan)<\/a>, is now leading protesters through the streets of Sudan\u2019s capital, torching infrastructure, government buildings, and police stations (just as was done across Egypt and Syria), indicates another attempt by the West to overthrow the Sudanese government via proxy militancy.<\/p>\n That the West has once again \u201ccoincidentally\u201d arrayed its vast resources behind al-Mahdi\u2019s \u201crevolution,\u201d which includes Al Qaeda-linked leaders like al-Turabi, once again illustrates that so-called \u201cIslamic\u201d extremism is a geopolitical tool\u00a0both created and intentionally perpetuated by the West<\/a>, both as a pretext for direct military invasion and occupation (Mali, Afghanistan) and as an inexhaustible proxy mercenary force for overthrowing targeted nations (Libya, Egypt, Syria).<\/p>\n What to Watch For\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Sudan shares borders with NATO-overthrown Libya, destabilized Egypt, and US military proxy Ethiopia. It is also across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia itself. Both Libya and Egypt have sizable US-Saudi-Israeli-Qatari-backed terrorist organizations and their affiliated political arms \u2013 the Muslim Brotherhood being the most prominent. Sudan is a potential tinderbox made more volatile in recent years due to the Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s US-Saudi-Qatari-Israeli enabled rise, along with the Western-backed terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, that form it\u2019s armed factions.<\/p>\n The West\u2019s interest in Sudan is not causal or spontaneous. It was listed as one of several nations the US had intended to violently overthrow and subjugate as a client regime since at least 2001, revealed in a speech given by US Army General Wesley Clark in 2007.<\/p>\n httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TY2DKzastu8<\/p>\n With a recent terrorist attack by\u00a0US armed and backed Al Qaeda in Nairobi Kenya<\/a>\u00a0threatening to justify new joint African Union-US AFRICOM incursions into Somalia, and destabilizations ongoing in both Egypt and to a much greater extent in Syria, the words of General Wesley Clark are both prophetic and indicative of the true nature of both the so-called \u201cArab Spring\u201d and the attempted violent regime changes being organized behind the smokescreen of \u201cpro-democracy protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n While Sudan may not seem to have significance to most across the West, the geopolitical implications of an entire region from Mali to Pakistan under Western destabilization directly impacts oil, logistics, and stability across the globe. Nations like China which relies on African and Middle Eastern trade, are directly impacted by US attempts to destabilize and overthrow Sudan –\u00a0and is in fact one of the driving motivations of the West\u2019s so-called \u201cArab Spring<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Following\u00a0the \u201cArab Spring\u201d playbook<\/a>, we should expect attempts to justify the increased militarization of the so-called \u201copposition,\u201d who will at first be portrayed as \u201cpro-democracy\u201d moderates forced to \u201cdefend themselves,\u201d but will be fully revealed as Al Qaeda as full-scale proxy military operations get underway. The only way to avert a destructive military conflict is for the Sudanese government to swiftly and severely crush the opposition and secure the borders where NATO-backed militants and their equipment are most likely to flow.<\/p>\n Sudan\u2019s government must also make real attempts at reform, while exposing the foreign-backed nature of opposition leaders trying to divide and destroy the nation. By breaking the predictable \u201cevil dictator\u201d mold Sudan\u2019s leadership has been cast in by the Western media, it, and other nations targeted by Western regime change can even the odds leveled against them by the still formidable Western press and their partners in propaganda across Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel.<\/p>\n Unprecedented amounts of resources have been committed to the geopolitical reordering of North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. It would be a considerable mistake for any nation overtly listed by the US as \u201cpending regime change\u201d to underestimate any beginnings of unrest clearly backed by foreign interests. While some operations may be \u201ctesting the waters,\u201d the final push can come at any time with fully militarized proxies pre-positioned and prepared to sow the same genocidal destruction\u00a0US-backed terrorists in Syria are carrying out<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Image:](\"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/500words-300x248.jpg\")
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