Is It All About Sudanese Oil ?

Neat post from Expat Yank on the BBC's Sudan coverage.

But it isn't necessarily just about "oil". Oh, no, it might be those pestering, fundamentalist Christians again ...

. . . Other issues are more likely to be driving Washington's policy.

One is the pressure from right-wing Christian groups in the US, who have taken up the cause of their fellow Christians in Sudan.

Their nagging - on the issues of slavery and the forcible imposition of Sharia law - helped get sanctions imposed on Sudan in 1997. . .

"Nagging"? She actually wrote, "nagging." Well, darn it, but slavery and sharia tend to make the open-minded, democratic and, yes, even "right-wing Christians", a bit tense.

Lo, the BBC stealth editor strikes again. Expat blogs Thursday, by Friday pm 'nagging' has mysteriously changed to 'lobbying'.

This could be a win-win scenario for Guardianistas. Who needs geologists ? I predict liberals will discover oil in Sudan if Bush sends troops, but not if he doesn't.

So if he sends troops, he doesn't care about anything except oil. If he doesn't, it's because (unlike Iraq) there is no oil.

Anybody seen that trans-Afghanistan pipeline yet ?