U.S-Instigated War Brings Mass Death to Somalia
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"If the rulers of the United States were searching for a
plan that would kill hundreds of thousands of Africans, they have found it."
American foreign policy is the direct cause of the
humanitarian crisis in Somalia - the worst in all of Africa, according to
United Nations officials. That's why, until recent days, U.S. corporate media
said little or nothing about the hundreds of thousands of Somalis - now
numbering at least half a
million - who face death by starvation and disease because of a war
instigated and facilitated by Washington. The corporate press methodically
avoid - and thereby, cover up - stories that contradict the mythical American
narrative: that the U.S. means to do good in the world, and only does wrong by
mistake.
The horrific wrong inflicted on Somalia was absolutely
premeditated, an integral aspect of American plans to bring the bogus "war on
terror" to Africa, as a cover to dominate the continent and its wealth. Ever
since the end of formal European colonialism in Africa, U.S. policy has been to
spread chaos wherever Washington failed to impose rule by its own favored
strongmen. When Muslim groups early last year subdued the warlords of Somalia -
a nation that is 99 percent Muslim - a semblance of peace and at least some
hope for the future took root. By all accounts, life was getting back to
something like "normal" for a people that had known only brutal warfare since
1991. Such a peace was unacceptable to George Bush's crew, who whipped up an
hysteria in the United States, claiming Al Qaida was establishing a base in
Somalia, and urged the regime in neighboring Ethiopia, Somalia's historical
rival, to attack last December.
"U.S. policy has been to
spread chaos wherever Washington failed to impose rule by its own favored
strongmen."
The U.S. worked hand in hand with the Ethiopian invaders
at every level of the Ethiopian military, while U.S. jets relentlessly wreaked
terror from the air. Once the Ethiopians had planted themselves and their
puppet Somali "government" in the capital, Mogadishu, the Americans sent their
other African proxies, the Ugandan military, to make up most of the puny
African "peacekeeping" force in Somalia. The Somali resistance to the Ethiopian
invasion consider the African peacekeepers in Mogadishu to be agents of the
U.S. - and, regarding the Ugandans, they are right.
If there were ever a formula for bloody and protracted war
in Somalia, it is Ethiopian occupation, which is already unifying diverse
elements of the Somali population in resistance. The war will also destabilize
Ethiopia, which is more than a third Muslim and home to many peoples that
oppose the dictatorial regime in Addis Ababa. If the rulers of the United
States were searching for a plan that would kill hundreds of thousands of
Africans, they have found it. This time, however, as in Iraq, Washington has
created more chaos than it can handle.
The United Nations found it necessary to arrange trips for
American journalists to witness the carnage that the Americans have wrought in
Somalia - the same Americans that claim to care so much for the people of
Darfur, and who promise that the new U.S. Africa Command will bring peace to
the continent.
The Americans, like the Europeans before them, bring only
the peace of the dead.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Melanie Dominguez is lead organizer for the Katal Center for Equity, Health and Justice.
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