"United States Has Hidden Hand in Kenya-Somalia Crisis of Relations – Attack on Westgate Mall in Nairobi related to White House funding of Mogadishu occupation....The Role of the U.S. in the Somalia Crisis The attack on the Westgate Mall is being portrayed by the corporate and capitalist government-controlled media in the U.S. and Europe as a new episode in the so-called “war on terrorism.” Yet the role of the White House through the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) goes without mention. U.S. imperialism has been involved in attempts to influence the political situation in Somalia and the Horn of Africa for many decades. During the late 1970s, former Somalian military leader Mohamed Siad Barre was courted by the Carter administration and convinced that an invasion of Ethiopia, then in alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba, would result in Washington’s economic and military support to the beleaguered state which had attempted to adopt a socialist-orientation in 1969. The invasion of the Ogaden region of Ethiopia in 1978, where a large population of Somalis lived, proved to be a monumental disaster for Mogadishu. Cuban internationalist forces then in Ethiopia to assist the government of Mengistu Haile Mariam fought alongside the national army of Addis Ababa defeating Barre’s forces. This ill-advised military adventure plunged Somalia into a deeper economic and political crisis that lasted for well over a decade. By early 1991, the Barre regime had collapse leaving a vast security and political vacuum inside the country. Later in December 1992, the administration of George H.W. Bush sent 12,000 Marines into Somalia in what was called “Operation Restore Hope.” The intervention was sold to the people of the U.S. and the world as a “humanitarian mission” designed to address problems stemming from the drought and famine which had long plagued the country. Nonetheless, by early 1993, Somalians had risen up against the intervention by the U.S., other western-imperialist states and United Nations forces occupying the nation. Dozens of Pentagon and UN troops lost their lives in a humiliating defeat that drove these military occupiers from Somalia in 1994. Since this defeat in Somalia, the U.S. has never given up on controlling this region of Africa. With the overthrow of the socialist-oriented government of Mengistu in 1991, Washington enhanced its influence through working with the federal government in Ethiopia then headed by Meles Zenawi. By 2006, the U.S. “war on terrorism” was well underway with occupations taking place simultaneously in Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. In order to avoid the political fallout of another direct intervention, the Bush II administration encouraged Ethiopia to invade Somalia in order to displace the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) which had begun to consolidate its influence and stabilize the country after years of war and factional strife. The main problem the U.S. had with the Islamic Courts was that it was operating outside of Washington’s influence. After two years of the intervention by Ethiopia, Somalia was again facing famine with the worst humanitarian crisis in the world at that time. Ethiopian military forces withdrew in early 2009 and sections of the Islamic Courts were won over to a Washington-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG). A youth wing of the Islamic Courts arose known as Al-Shabaab (the youth) and began to wage war against the TFG demanding that all foreign forces be withdrawn from Somalia.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 06:16:10 +0000
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