From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Aug 10 2009 - 07:56:15 EDT
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2009/080909Floyd.shtml Tons of Imperial
Fun: Hellfire Hillary Pours Oil on Somalia's Fire *Capitalism profits from
suppression, and the U.S. public pays and pays* by Chris Floyd
Originally published in Empire Burlesque on Friday, 7 August 2009
There is apparently no path blazed by George W. Bush that Barack Obama will
not eagerly follow. Surges, assassinations, indefinite detention, defense of
torture, senseless wars and rampant militarism -- in just a few short
months, we've seen it all.
To this dismaying record of complicity and continuity, we can add an
increasing direct involvement in the horrific, hydra-headed conflict in
Somalia, whose latest round of fiery hell was instigated by the
American-backed invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia in late 2006. Under Bush,
U.S. forces were deeply and directly enmeshed in the murderous action,
dropping bombs on fleeing refugees, "renditioning" other refugees to the
tender mercies of Ethiopia's notorious prisons, and even sending in death
squads to clean up after missile strikes and bombings. (For background, see
"Silent Surge: Bipartisan Terror War Intensifies in Somalia.")
The result of that intervention has been the deaths of thousands of innocent
people, the displacement and ruination of hundreds of thousands, and the
creation of what many experts call the most dire humanitarian crisis in the
world today. It has also resulted in the empowerment of violent sectarian
groups and criminal gangs, who have stepped forth to fill the gaps of the
fledgling state that the American-Ethiopian "regime change" operation
destroyed.
So what do we see from the administration of "hope and change"? We see --
wait for it -- a new "surge" of direct American involvement in the war, with
Obama's most ferocious war hawk -- sorry, his top diplomat -- Hillary "The
Obliterator" Clinton leading the charge. As Jason Ditz at Antiwar.com
reports, Clinton has pledged to double the recently announced supply of
American weapons to Somalia's "transitional government" -- a weak reed
cobbled together by Western interests from various CIA-paid warlords and
other factions, and now headed, ironically, by the former leader of the
aforementioned fledgling state overthrown by Washington. (Yes, it *is* hard
to tell the players without a scorecard -- or even with one. But if you
follow the weapons and the money, you can usually tell who is temporarily on
which side at any given moment.)
Clinton, bellicose as ever, accompanied the shipment of 80 tons of
death-dealing hardware with a heavy dose of the wild fearmongering rhetoric
we've come to know so well in this New American Century. As AP reports, she
declared that the radical faction al-Shabab, now leading the insurgency
against the transitional government, has only one goal in mind: bring in al
Qaeda and destabilizing the whole entire world.
Yes, dear hearts, once again the survival of the planet -- not to mention
the sacred American way of life -- is under imminent threat from a gang of
evil maniacs; a threat requiring the urgent enrichment of the U.S. arms
industry -- sorry, I mean the urgent intervention of American know-how. For
as the history of American foreign policy in the last 60 years has clearly
shown us, there has *never* been an internal conflict in any country of the
world that was not actually, deep down, a direct threat to all the sweet
American babies sleeping in their cribs.
The interim Somali president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed -- an Islamist who
only a few years ago was considered by Washington as, well, an evil maniac
in league with al Qaeda -- agreed with Clinton, saying that al-Shabab aims
to "make Somalia a ground to destabilize the whole world." This would be the
same al-Shabab that Ahmed has spent most of his presidency trying to
negotiate a power-sharing agreement with. (Where's that scorecard again?)
As usual, the AP story buries some of the most blazing, salient facts way
down in the uncritical regurgitation of official rhetoric. But credit where
it's due, the story does finally note that the new American assistance is
not confined to stuff that can kill more Somalis; it also includes - wait
for it again -- U.S. military "advisors" to help "train" the forces of the
ever-collapsing transitional government.
Clinton also shook a sword at neighboring Eritrea, accusing it of supporting
al-Shabab and "interfering" in Somalia's internal affairs. This, while she
was announcing the delivery of 80 tons of American weapons to be poured into
Somalia's internal affairs. This line is of course just an echo of the
continual Bush-Obama warnings against "foreigners" interfering in Iraq. The
gall of these gilded poltroons -- denouncing foreign interference while
standing on mountains of corpses produced by the endless American
"interference" in other countries -- is truly sublime. Clinton said that if
Eritrea doesn't start toeing the imperial line, "we intend to take actions."
(All you future Gold Star mothers and war widows out there better get out
your atlases: your loved ones could soon be dying in yet another part of the
world you never heard of.)
What will be the effect of this new "humanitarian intervention" of weapons
and advisers? Same as it ever was: more death, more ruin, more suffering,
more extremism, more hatred, more sorrow -- and more money for the war
profiteers. That *is* the point, isn't it?
------------------------------
[image: Chris Floyd at his desk]Chris Floyd has been a writer and editor for
more than 25 years, working in the United States, Great Britain and Russia
for various newspapers, magazines, the U.S. government and Oxford
University. Floyd co-founded the blog Empire Burlesque, and is also chief
editor of Atlantic Free Press. He can be reached at cfloyd72@gmail.com.
This column is republished here with the permission of the author.
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