U.S. Wages Food War Against Somalia
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by BAR executive editor Glen FordIn Somalia, the United States has reverted to ancient siege tactics to starve the people into submission. The U.S. seeks to prevent food aid from getting to areas controlled by Shabab resistance fighters. However, “if international aid were restricted to areas controlled by the U.S.-backed puppet regime, only a few neighborhoods in Mogadishu, the capital, would be fed.”
U.S. Wages Food War Against Somalia
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“United Nations compliance with U.S. conditions would mean starvation for about three million people.”
While nearly half the population of Somalia teeters at the edge of starvation, the U.S. is preventing the United Nations from delivering desperately needed food. According to documents obtained by the New York Times, the Americans demand that aid agencies guarantee that no fees are paid “at roadblocks, ports, warehouses, airfields or other transit points'' controlled by Shabab resistance fighters. Since the Shabab and other militias control more than half of the area in conflict, United Nations compliance with U.S. conditions would mean starvation for about three million people.Indeed, if international aid were restricted to areas controlled by the U.S.-backed puppet regime, only a few neighborhoods in Mogadishu, the capital, would be fed.
America’s Somali puppets are incapable of even defending themselves, much less maintaining a functioning government and infrastructure. Five thousand African Union (AU) soldiers – comprised mainly of Ugandans, the U.S.’s shock troops in Africa – keep control of the airport, the regime’s main link to the outside world. According to the United Nations, AU soldiers engage in “indiscriminate shelling” of civilians.
As the Americans’ Somali puppets’ position becomes more untenable, the U.S. squeezes the UN’s food delivery system, in effect punishing the entire Somali people. U.S. food relief to the UN’s Somali operations in 2009 was only half that of 2008. In 2007, United Nations officials declared Somalia the “worst humanitarian crisis in Africa…worse than Darfur,” as a result of the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion in late 2006. Thus, the United States has been waging continuous war against the people of Somalia, directly or by proxy, for over three years under the guise of the “war on terror.”
The United Nations official in charge of humanitarian operations in Somalia, Mark Bowden, says Washington’s charge that Shabab militants are siphoning off UN aid are “ungrounded.” A White House spokesman claimed that it’s not the U.S., but the Shabab that are denying Somalis access to food aid through their war against the Mogadishu “government.” It’s a macabre variation on the excuse Americans routinely offer when they massacre civilians: that the “insurgents” use civilians as “human shields,” forcing the Americans to kill them.
“The United States has been waging continuous war against the people of Somalia, directly or by proxy, for over three years.”
When the UN’s Mark Bowden complained to officials in Washington about the withholding of food to Somalia, he was told, ‘This is beyond our pay grade.’” Meaning, the orders come from much higher up, likely from UN Ambassador Susan Rice, the administration’s most prominent acolyte of “humanitarian military intervention” – a doctrine Rice has twisted into the ultimate obscenity in the Horn of Africa.
“Humanitarian military intervention” maintains that it is the duty of greater powers – that is, the U.S. and its allies – to intervene in the affairs of weaker countries if their governments cannot, or will not, attend to the needs of their people. Also known as “responsibility to protect” – or “R2P” – the doctrine, by definition, requires no consent from the soon-to-be subject populations. R2P can be immediately invoked against “failed states,” as designated by the “protective” and “humanitarian” intervener. Indeed, once a state has been declared “failed,” the great powers are obligated to intervene, according to the logic of R2P. It is all the more convenient when the U.S. has, in fact, caused the “failure” of the weak nation’s state.
Such was the case in 2006, when a fledgling state had finally emerged in south-central Somalia, organized by a movement called the Islamic Courts. When the Islamic Courts defeated U.S-backed warlords and succeeded in bringing a modicum of peace, law and order to their part of Somalia, the Americans instigated and bankrolled an Ethiopian invasion, plunging Somalia into “humanitarian crisis.”
“Once a state has been declared “failed,” the great powers are obligated to intervene, according to the logic of R2P.”
As a Democrat on the political sidelines, Susan Rice ranted for greater U.S. military intervention in the Horn Africa, including an air and naval blockade of Sudan. Rice’s ravings, modulated for diplomatic purposes, became U.S. policy upon Barack Obama’s election. Thousands of ethnic Somalis in Kenya were recruited into the puppet Somali government’s forces across the common border (see “U.S. Sows Seeds of Wider War in East Africa,” BAR November 17, 2009) – although to little apparent military effect in Somalia. However, the recruitments cannot help but undermine Kenyan national cohesion, by encouraging ethnic Somalis to identify, not with Kenya, but with the neighboring state. More ominously, the U.S. has pressured the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against Eritrea for allegedly providing material support to the Somali Shabab – a charge Eritrea vehemently denies (see “Who Demonizes Eritrea and Why?” BAR February 16, 2010).
Every action the U.S. takes in the Horn of Africa seems calculated to undermine the stability of some of the region’s constituent nations or, in Somalia’s case, prevent a national state from emerging at all, unless it is handpicked by Washington. (In Sudan, the U.S. and Israel have long worked toward partition of Africa’s largest country.)
Unable to find or cultivate a Somali front man capable of defeating the Shabab, the U.S. lays siege to the Somali people, to starve them into submission. Refusing to authorize the release of grain piled high in warehouses in Mombasa, Kenya, the American regime reveals itself as somewhat less humanitarian than Genghis Khan.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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Blame America
Every nation should take their own destiny in their own hands. Blaming America for everything is not going to help anyone. However, politicizing aid is a very cruel thing to do. Refinance Mortgage
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I pity this people. Unicef
I pity this people. Unicef must do something about this, like special programs to feed them. online patio furniture
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Why is Blackwater/Xe in Somalia?
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor
Press TV reports that “There are . . . allegations of US-sponsored bomb plots in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. As of 12 Jan 2010, at least 18 people have been killed in clashes between rival factions in southern and central Somalia, and there are reports that Blackwater/Xe mercenaries have entered the country.” That’s for starters.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5478.shtml
Blackwater/Xe mercs arrive in Somalia, Al-Shabab says
At least 18 people have been killed in clashes between rival factions in southern and central Somalia, and there are reports that Blackwater/Xe mercenaries have entered the country.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115922§ionid=351020501
Blackwater sends warship to Gulf of Aden
BLACKWATER Worldwide — the US private military contractor embroiled in controversy over its actions in Iraq — has sent a private sector warship equipped with helicopters to the Gulf of Aden, and is offering its services to shipowners concerned with Somali piracy. The vessel, McArthur, is described as a multipurpose unit designed to support military and law-enforcement training, peace-keeping and stability operations.
http://lloydslist.com/ll/news/blackwater-sends-warship-to-gulf-of-aden/2...
OBAMA OKd USE OF DRONES OVER SOMALIA
Very little has been written about the recent incidents of the US sending predator drones over Somalia. One of the few articles I saw, claimed that the US government was invited by the Somalia government to do this. There was also one article reporting civilians being killed... Both articles have disappeared. Google has hundreds of links saying that the drones are flying near the coast of Somalia to protect the ships from pirates. Have found one recent article...that mentions in passing that predator drones are flying into Somalia...and not just up and down the coast:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33504539/
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, wants as many as 40,000 more troops while Vice President Joe Biden favors maintaining the current troop strength of around 68,000 and significantly increasing the use of unmanned drones and special forces for the kind of surgical anti-terror strikes that have been successful in Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere
http://crooksandliars.com/
Crooks and Liars
Sunday April 12, 2009 06:30 am
What The International Media Aren't Telling You About Somalia Pirates
By Susie Madrak
Johann Hari from The Independent:
In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".
No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would understand.
Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.
You can read the United Nations report here.
I wonder which principled member of our corporate media will point out that, in the big picture, the Somali pirates are acting in self-defense?
As al Shabaab would say:
"Foreign aid is part of an American stratagem to undermine Somali farmers and make the Somali people dependent on infidels."
Or how about this statement by U.S. Agriculture Secretary John Block at the start of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations in 1986:
“the idea that developing countries should feed themselves is an anachronism from a bygone era. They could better ensure their food security by relying on U.S. agricultural products, which are available, in most cases at lower cost.”
Ha!
Now the devil wants control of the whole world's food supply so he can intentionally starve people he doesn't like. Putting deadly chemicals in our water and food supply is not enough for the devil... The devil financed Stalin, who starved millions of people to death. The devil financed Mao who starved millions of people to death. The devil financed Hitler who starved the "undesirables of society" to death!
And they wanna kill you with deadly GM crops:
Beyond Golden Rice: The Rockefeller Foundation’s long-term agenda behind Genetically Modified Food
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13944
One of the few articles I
One of the few articles I saw, claimed that the US government was invited by the Somalia government to do this. There was also one article reporting civilians being killed... Both articles have disappeared. Google has hundreds of links saying that the drones are flying near the coast of Somalia to protect the ships from pirates.
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Somali Americans
There was a recent story of 20 Somali young men went to fight will al-shabab this past fall, FBI is investigating but no follow up story has tracked down these 20. My question is, Could recent devolopments in Somalia incite local Somali's( I live in the Twin Cities) to acts of terror. And Are Somali Americans more supportive of Al-shabab or the central government. How likely is it that America will invade Somalia in the near future, and do Somali Americans have a place in that war?
Now the devil wants control
Now the devil wants control of the whole world's food supply so he can intentionally starve people he doesn't like. Putting deadly chemicals in our water and food supply is not enough for the devil... The devil financed Stalin, who starved millions of people to death. The devil financed Mao who starved millions of people to death. The devil financed Hitler who starved the "undesirables of society" to death! web phone