Bush's Rampage in Somalia: "They Are Slaughtering Somalis Like Goats"
By Mike Whitney
Created Jul 9 2008 - 10:14am
While George Bush was breezing through photo-ops at the G-8 summit in
Japan;
his Ethiopian proxy-army in Somalia was grinding out more carnage on the
streets of Mogadishu. More than 40 civilians have been killed in the last
48
hours.
On Sunday, Osman Ali Ahmed, the head of the UN Development Program in
Somalia, was shot gangland style as he left a mosque after prayers. He
died
before reaching the hospital with wounds to the head and chest. Ali Ahmed
is
just the latest of the peace-keepers who have been killed in the ongoing
battle between Bush's Ethiopian occupiers and the Somali guerrillas.
US foreign policy in Somalia has resulted in disaster. Millions of Somalis
have been forced to flee their homes and relocate to tent cities in the
south to escape the fighting.
The latest surge in violence has been the worst in a decade and the
security
situation continues to deteriorate despite the arrival of 2,600 troops
from
the African Union and a tentative truce that was signed in June between
some
of the warring factions.
The western media has stubbornly refused to re****t on the rising
death-toll
in Somalia, choosing instead to focus all of their attention on America's
"villain du jour", Robert Mugabe. Mugabe appears to be next on the
neocon's
list for regime change. (Paul Wolfowitz even composed a postmortem for
Zimbabwe's president in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial "How to Put
the Heat on Mugabe")
In 2006, the United States sup****ted an alliance of Somali warlords known
as
the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) who established a base of
operations in the western city of Baidoa. With the help of the US-backed
Ethiopian army, western mercenaries, US Navy war****ps, and AC-130
gun****ps;
the TFG was able capture Mogadishu and force the Islamic Courts Union
(ICU)
and their allies to retreat to the south. But, much like Iraq and
Afghanistan, the resistance has coalesced into a tenacious guerrilla army
which has returned to the capital and resumed the fight making it
impossible
for their Ethiopian adversaries to govern.
As the struggle continues, the humanitarian situation has gone from bad to
worse. At least 2.6 million Somalis are now facing famine due to acute
food
shortages spurred by a prolonged drought, violence and high inflation. UN
monitors have warned that the figure could hit exceed 3.5 million by the
end
of 2008. The UN Security Council has helped facilitate the violence by
failing to condemn US sup****t for Ethiopia's invasion and by promising to
send peacekeepers to mop up after fighting ends. They've shown no interest
in stopping the bloodshed or threatening sanctions against the aggressors.
The UNSC has become little more than an accomplice in Bush's rampages.
In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Salim Lone, a columnist
for the Daily Nation in Kenya and a former spokesperson for the UN mission
in Iraq explains the UN's role in providing the "go ahead" for the US
invasion:
"The lawlessness of this particular war is astounding; the most lawless
war
of our generation. You know, all aggressive wars are illegal. But in this
particular one, there have been violations of the UN Charter and gross
violations of international human rights. But, in addition, there have
been
very concrete violations by the United States of two Security Council
resolutions. The first one was the arms embargo imposed on Somalia, which
the United States has been routinely flaunting for many years now. But
then
the US decided that that resolution was no longer useful, and they pushed
through an appalling resolution in December, which basically gave the
green
light to Ethiopia to invade. They pushed through a resolution which said
that the situation in Somalia was a threat to international peace and
security, at a time when every independent re****t indicated, and Chatham
House's re****t on Wednesday also indicated, that the Islamic Courts Union
had brought a high level of peace and stability that Somalia had not
enjoyed
in sixteen years. So here was the UN Security Council going along with the
American demand to pass a blatantly falsified UN resolution. And that
resolution actually was a violation (of the) the UN Charter. You know, the
UN Charter is like the American Constitution and the Security Council is
not
allowed to pass laws or rules that violate the Charter. And yet, who is
going to correct them?" (Democracy Now)
The Bush administration has predictably invoked the "terrorist" hobgoblin
to
justify its involvement in Somalia, but no one is buying it. The ICU is
not
an Al Qaida affiliate or a terrorist organization despite the absurd
claims
of the State Department. It is true that the ICU was trying to enforce
Sharia Law, but a much milder form of Sharia than America's ally, Saudi
Arabia.
The ICU was the first government in over a decade to restore security and
order to Somalia and--generally speaking--the people were sup****tive of
the
new regime.
Political analyst James Petras summed it up like this:
"The ICU was a relatively honest administration, which ended warlord
corruption and extortion. Personal safety and property were protected,
ending arbitrary seizures and kidnappings by warlords and their armed
thugs.
The ICU is a broad multi-tendency movement that includes moderates and
radical Islamists, civilian politicians and armed fighters, liberals and
populists, electoralists and authoritarians. Most im****tant, the Courts
succeeded in unifying the country and creating some semblance of
nationhood,
overcoming clan fragmentation."
The real motives behind the invasion were oil and geopolitics. According
to
most estimates 30 per cent of America's oil will come from Africa in the
next ten years. Bush's new warlord-friends in the Transitional Federal
Government (TFG) have already indicated that they are ready to pass a new
oil law that will encourage foreign oil companies to return to Somalia.
The
same oil giants that are now lining up in Iraq will soon be making their
way
to Somalia as well.
The Horn of Africa is also critical for its deep-water ****ts and its
strategic location for future military bases. It's all part of the Grand
Schema for reconfiguring the region to accommodate America's hegemonic
ambitions.
Humanitarian Catastrophe: "The Ethiopian invasion has destroyed all the
life-sustaining systems"
Heavy fighting and artillery fire have reduced large parts of Mogadishu to
rubble. More than 700,000 people have been forced to leave the capital
with
nothing more than what they can carry on their backs. Entire districts
have
been evacuated and turned into ghost towns. The main hospital has been
bombed and is no longer taking patients. Ethiopian snipers are perched
atop
rooftops across the city. Over 3.5 million people are now huddled in the
south in tent cities without sufficient food, clean water or medical
supplies. It is the greatest humanitarian crisis in Africa today; a
man-made
Hell entirely conjured up in Wa****ngton.
Just weeks ago, Amnesty International re****ted that it had heard many
accounts that Ethiopian troops were "slaughtering (Somalis) like goats."
In
one case, "a young child's throat was slit by Ethiopian soldiers in front
of
the child's mother."
In another Democracy Now interview, Abdi Samatar, professor of Global
Studies at the University of Minnesota, had this to say:
"The Ethiopian invasion, which was sanctioned by the US government, has
destroyed virtually all the life-sustaining economic systems which the
population have built without the government for the last fifteen years.
And
the militia that are supposed to protect the population have been looting
shops. For instance, the Bakara market, which is the largest market in
Mogadishu, has been looted repeatedly by the militias of the so-called
Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, sup****ted by Ethiopian troops.
And the new prime minister of Somalia, Mr. Hassan Nur Hussein, has himself
announced in the BBC that it was his militias that-who have looted this
place. So what you have is a population that's hit from both sides--on one
side, by the militias of the so-called Transitional Federal Government,
which is recognized by the United States, and on the other side, by the
Ethiopian invaders who seem to be bent on ensuring that they break the
will
of the people to resist as free people in their own country.... What you
have is really terror in the worst sense of the word, a million people
have
been displaced that the Ethiopians have been denying humanitarian aid, and
the United States which seems to just watch and let it happen.
It's like there's has been a calculated decision made somewhere in the
world, maybe in Wa****ngton, maybe in Addis Ababa, maybe in Mogadishu
itself,
to starve these people until they submit themselves to the whims of the
American military and the Ethiopians, who are acting on their behalf."
Amnesty International has called for an investigation of the United States
role in Somalia.
Regrettably, neither the United Nations nor the establishment media are at
all interested in Bush's war crimes in Africa. All they care about is
Mugabe.
--
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an op****tunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are
at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
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