By Ben Barrack
If there is one cause Hollywood actor George Clooney supports, it’s ending the genocide in Sudan and putting a stop to President Omar al-Bashir. If there’s one president Clooney supports, it’s Barack Obama. In May of 2012, Clooney held a Hollywood fundraiser for the Obama campaign and raised $15 Million.
Approximately two months before that fundraiser, on March 16th, Clooney was arrested while protesting outside the Sudanese embassy. Prior to his arrest, he gave this short speech. Note what he says about the government of Sudan (Omar al-Bashir):
Here’s where Mr. Clooney should be having a bout of cognitive dissonance. President Obama’s half-brother Malik Obama is the Executive Secretary of the Islamic Da’wa Organization (IDO), which is an extension of the Sudanese government. Essentially, Malik works for the Sudanese government, led by Omar al-Bashir, to spread Wahhabist Islam in Africa. This is the same Sudanese government that Clooney has been very outspoken against.
Malik and Barack are very close, and have been for years. Malik was the best man at Barack’s wedding in 1992:
Malik has also made several visits to the White House:
In a news report entitled, George Clooney’s Sudan focus should be ours too, posted by CNN which covered Clooney’s protest / arrest at the time, the Hollywood actor called for:
“get(ing) aid to them (Sudanese people)”
…and for…
“…the government in Khartoum to stop randomly killing its own innocent men, women and children. Stop raping them and stop starving them.”
Here is the corresponding video:
Clooney isn’t the only leftist who stood against Bashir and the government of Sudan that day.
Again, via CNN:
Those arrested included United to End Genocide President Tom Andrews; Democratic Reps. Jim McGovern, Al Green, Jim Moran and John Olver; Martin Luther King III; and NAACP President Ben Jealous.
Jealous directed a message to the Sudanese president: “This is what beginning of the end looks like.”
“We are protesting to make sure the Sudanese government knows that the world is watching,” McGovern said. “The United States Congress is watching. And we will be back again and again until they stop using food as a weapon; stop slaughtering innocent men, women and children; and stop spitting in the face of the world community.”
This pits far-left wing congressmen, the head of the NAACP, and the son of Martin Luther King, Jr. squarely against Malik Obama, who is collaborating with a man who is both the head of a U.S. State Department-designated State Sponsor of Terror and wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity.
The Clooney clan understood this, via CNN:
The group stood calmly as they waited for the police to apply plastic handcuffs as the crowd of protesters chanted “al-Bashir to the ICC,” referring to the International Criminal Court, where Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been indicted.
Of al-Bashir and the Sudanese government, Clooney testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and said the following, again, via CNN:
“They are proving themselves to be the greatest war criminals of this century by far.”
A little more than a week earlier, a group known as Invisible Children released a video entitled Kony 2012 that went insanely viral, thanks to the Hollywood Celebrities’ social network. The Invisible Children producer – Jason Russell – who narrated the video, can be heard saying that, Kony “is supported by no one”.
This is a demonstrably false statement. Considering that the Obama administration expressed public support for this video as well as support for the effort to have Kony arrested by the ICC, it is curious that Russell would make this claim in a video endorsed en-masse by the Obama-adoring, Hollywood celebrity culture.
Kony is supported by Omar al-Bashir.
A day prior to Clooney’s arrest on March 16, 2012, he met with President Obama to discuss Sudan on March 15th. Clooney seemed interested in capitalizing on the success of Kony 2012 to call more attention to Sudan. Based on Clooney’s understanding of Bashir’s atrocities, this likely had to be managed very carefully by the Obama administration. The administration had already demonstrated little interest in focusing on more than Kony, who is also wanted by the ICC but is a smaller cog in the al-Bashir genocidal machine.
Malik’s involvement with al-Bashir is not something the administration would want out. Clooney’s involvement in the matter raised the possibility of that reality. Soon after Clooney’s arrest, Kony 2012 seemed to die down, as did concerns over Sudan.
Incidentally, on the same day that Clooney visited with Obama on March 15th, Russell had a meltdown and ran naked in the streets of San Diego in broad daylight. This is apparently what can happen when you crash after a meteoric rise: