American killed in war against aid in Sudan

AP/CNN:

A U.S. diplomat and his driver were shot to death Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy said.

It was unclear whether the early morning attack on the unidentified diplomat with the U.S. Agency for International Development was targeted, or a random crime.

"This afternoon, the American officer succumbed to his injuries and passed away," said Walter Braunohler, the spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum.

Both U.S. and Sudanese officials said they were investigating but could not yet provide details on the circumstances surrounding the attack.

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Crime is fairly high in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, although much lower than in other east African cities like Nairobi, Kenya.

Other than the crime of murder, the story omits elements that make this a crime story. It could just as easily be a war story and probably is.

You need to understand tribal strategies in desert warfare in Africa to get the connection. Most of the famines in places like Somalia and Sudan are man made for the purpose of starving opponents into submission or extinction. This type of logistic warfare is little understood by the media which tends to see the starvation as an unfortunate by product of the warfare rather than a goal of the dominant warring party.

When Westerners or the UN come in to aid the victims of the man made famine, they are trying to implement a strategic defeat on the warring party responsible for the famine. That is why aid workers and those trying to solve the food shortage are killed. Just like in Somalia, one side will resist those trying to defeat his starvation strategy.

The lesson should be that if you are going to defeat one sides war strategy, you better be prepared to go to war with him.