Excellent new book about Darfur (&COIN criticism??)

This is an informative (about the book and about Darfur) review of a new book by Mahmoud Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror.

I am not tooting my own horn, but from the review, I am proud to say that the causes of the conflict he lists in the book (toward the end of the review) are the same as those I argued for in my thesis which was entitled "Genocide in Darfur: Economic Degradation, State-building and Ethnic Politics"

I will expand more on the causes of the conflict in Darfur at a later time bc it is late and I am busy with work stuff. But I have been wanting to do a posting on it for a while and this book is motivating me.

Understanding Darfur is crucial bc it so reflects many of the problems of the region - hollow ethnic politics, the nation state, exclusive governance, resource based conflicts. And of course it was veiled as an Arab v. African conflict which couldn't be further from the truth. Everyone there is Arab and African, and more importantly no one there identified themselves in ethnic terms. (Parallel here to Iraq and that the conflict there was never about Sunni and Shii hatred.)

I was particularly intrigued by the following claim:

"At his most provocative Mr. Mamdani questions the distinction between what is often labeled counterinsurgency and genocide, saying the former, even when it kills more people, is deemed “normal violence” while the latter is considered “amoral, evil,” and typically it is the West that does the labeling.

I wonder what Abu Muqawama and his fellow COIN (counterinsurgency) experts at CNAS (Center for New American Security) would think of this?

COIN (counterinsurgency) has become the fad of the day (I don't mean that in a bad way) - even for liberals, some academics, and development/ aid workers who need the security it is believed to be able to provide to do their work. Also, COIN methodology is humanitarian in the sense that its ultimate and only goal really is to protect the local population and pick/ rescue the good guys (David Kilcullen's 'accidental guerrillas') (see below) from the bad guys' (AQ, Taliban) troops.

Looking to know more about COIN? Here are some resources for starters: (list will grow)
Abu Muqawama (Andrew Exum) blog (includes a reading list)
CNAS
Small Wars Journal
Read David Galula Counterinsurgency:Theory and Practice (written by French officer with experience in Algeria, Greece, SE Asia...) and Pacification in Algeria
Read David Kilcullen's 28 Articles: Fundamentals of Company Level COIN (link to the pdf)
Read Kilcullen's Accidental Guerrilla
Read Army/USMC COIN Field Manual