Reporting from Washington and Nairobi, Kenya — After years of worldwide outrage over suffering in Darfur, the Obama administration will soon launch a new policy that could soften some longtime U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese government implicated in the large-scale killings and displacement of African tribespeople.

How exactly will policy change?

White House officials say that specific conditions would have to be met before sanctions would be lifted, and that Sudan could face even tougher sanctions if its leaders act in bad faith. But President Obama’s handpicked envoy to Sudan, J. Scott Gration, said in an interview Monday that the Khartoum government, which expelled humanitarian groups this year after an international court accused Sudan’s president of war crimes in Darfur, has shown a willingness to work toward stabilizing Darfur in order to allow aid to be delivered.

“We see that there is a spirit of cooperation and an attitude of wanting to help,” Gration said.

Guess I spoke a little too soon in blasting Obama’s Darfur policy…

Darfur activists are concerned that the latest comments by the Obama administration’s special envoy for Sudan are a sign the United States is easing pressure on Khartoum.

Say WHAT? Well hey, since when was Darfur a big priority for our government anyway? Our leaders have been focusing on *real* issues, like…

1. Finding a puppy that’s cute AND hypoallergenic
2. Making fun of handicapped people
3. Further inflating the already too-big Gates incident and turning a serious national discussion of racial profiling into a late-night beer jokes

Oh wait, *those* aren’t the issues! Those are the publicity stunts that Obama’s been using so people won’t pay *attention* to the economy, health care, and foreign policy! Not to mention Darfur…

On Thursday, the special envoy, Scott Gration, appeared to argue for easing sanctions when he told lawmakers at a Senate hearing that there is no evidence to back up the U.S. designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism. He said that the sanctions were hindering his work and called the terrorism designation “a political decision.”

*slaps forehead*

So let me get this straight.

Saddam Hussein’s government, which led the oil-rich nation of Iraq, killed Shi’ites and Kurds, and supposedly had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda circa 2003. That makes that government a terrorist government.

But the government of the oil-rich nation of Sudan has been slowly wiping out the Darfur region *since* 2003, with support from the landlord to America’s broke tenant, China. We’ve been hanging out in the apartments in the middle of the eastern section of its floor, but it really wanted to, it could crash Sudan’s kegger instead. But China will of course be at that party, so if we went, things would get even more awkward. So let’s *not* put the Sudan on our shit list of terrorists. And *not* designating Sudan’s government as a threat to human life for those reasons is totally NOT a “political decision”.

*Now* I get it.