America Brings Hell to Somalia

[Truth2Tell]

This little conflict has been too much overlooked IMHO.

With the World Bank http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3397.aspx">turning it's headlights on the region and the U.S. Military http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071119/glover_lee">bolstering it's presence at a fast clip, North Africa promises to be the Middle East of our future.

It's not too late to avoid the same old mistakes - supporting tyrants (like in, say, http://hrw.org/englishwr2k8/docs/2008/01/31/ethiop17755.htm">Ethiopia), committing abuses, and generally turning everyone in sight against us. But so far it doesn't look good.

Black Agenda report has a great piece up on the subject:

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

"The Muslim religion is used as a convenient scapegoat to further the aims of war."

What does the word "Islamist" mean? The millions of people around the globe who practice Islam are called Muslims, but this new term has crept into the language without question or investigation. It seems to apply to Muslims who fight against the occupation of Iraq, or Somalians who don't take kindly to the U.S.-backed Ethiopian government invading their country and killing their countrymen and women. In short, an Islamist seems to be any Muslim who has the nerve to act in opposition to the American government. Like anyone else deemed an enemy, a new word has to be invented in order to dehumanize. If Somalian resistance fighters were called just that, then Americans might question their government's decision to keep killing them.

America's intervention gave Ethiopia license to invade Somalia and begin a horrific cycle of violence. According to Amnesty International, more than 600,000 Somalis have fled from their homes, at least 6,000 are dead and 90,000 children in refugee camps are in danger of death from starvation and lack of hygiene and medical care.

-snip

If American warships are sending cruise missiles into Somalia, shouldn't Congress have authorized this use of force? Obviously they should have, but they aren't interested in fighting the lame duck Bushies. There will be no impeachment, no investigation of torture, and no pesky questions about military attacks on the Somali people. Like the Iraqis, Somalians have done America no harm but die in large numbers at the hands of Americans nonetheless.

More at: http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=620&Itemid=1

Will we ever learn?

[elocs]

1. Bringing hell-that's our specialty. It's a thankless job, but somebody has to do it. n/t

[PDJane]

2. Dying empires tend to thrash around

and take the whole world down with them. This one will be more destructive than most.

[stillcool]

3. It's all so familiar...

lots of articles like these at Third World Traveler...
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/North_Africa/North_Africa_page.html

More Blood For Oil

by Carl Bloise, Black Commentator
www.zmag.org, January 16, 2007
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Africa/MoreBloodOil_Somalia.html

'Pentagon to train sharper eye on Africa,' read the headline over a January 5 report by Richard Whittle in the Christian Science Monitor. 'Strife, oil, and Al Qaeda are leading the US to create a new Africa Command.'

'Africa, long beset by war, famine, disease, and ethnic tensions, has generally taken a backseat in Pentagon planning - but US officials say that is about to change,' wrote Whittle, who went on to report that one of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's last acts before being dismissed from that position was to convince President Bush to create a new Africa military Africa command, something the White House is expected to announce later this year. The creation of the new body, he quoted one expert as saying, reflects the Administration concern about 'Al Qaeda's known presence in Africa,' China's developing relations with the continent with regards to oil supplies and the fact that 'Islamists took over Somalia last June and ruled until this week, when Ethiopian troops drove them out of power.'

Currently, the US gets about 10 percent of its oil from Africa, but, the Monitor story said but 'some experts say it may need to rely on the continent for as much as 25 percent by 2010.' Reportedly, nearly two-thirds of Somalia's oil fields were allocated to the U.S. oil companies Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in January, 1991.

Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, said the division for African military operations "causes some difficulty in trying to ... execute a more streamlined and comprehensive strategy when it comes to Africa." According to the plan, the Central Command will retain responsibility for the Horn of Africa for about 18 months while the Africa Command gets set up. The Pentagon's present Horn of Africa joint task force, headquartered in Djibouti, includes about 1,500 troops.

America's interests in Somalia:
Four major U.S. oil companies are sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions
http://www.globalresearch.ca/i, January 3, 2007
But corporate and scientific documents disclosed that the American companies are well positioned to pursue Somalia's most promising potential oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified. And the State Department and U.S. military officials acknowledge that one of those oil companies has done more than simply sit back and hope for peace.
Conoco Inc., the only major multinational corporation to mantain a functioning office in Mogadishu throughout the past two years of nationwide anarchy, has been directly involved in the U.S. government's role in the U.N.-sponsored humanitarian military effort.
Conoco, whose tireless exploration efforts in north-central Somalia reportedly had yielded the most encouraging prospects just before Siad Barre's fall, permitted its Mogadishu corporate compound to be transformed into a de facto American embassy a few days before the U.S. Marines landed in the capital, with Bush's special envoy using it as his temporary headquarters. In addition, the president of the company's subsidiary in Somalia won high official praise for serving as the government's volunteer "facilitator" during the months before and during the U.S. intervention.
Describing the arrangement as "a business relationship," an official spokesman for the Houston-based parent corporation of Conoco Somalia Ltd. said the U.S. government was paying rental for its use of the compound, and he insisted that Conoco was proud of resident general manager Raymond Marchand's contribution to the U.S.-led humanitarian effort.
John Geybauer, spokesman for Conoco Oil in Houston, said the company was acting as "a good corporate citizen and neighbor" in granting the U.S. government's request to be allowed to rent the compound. The U.S. Embassy and most other buildings and residential compounds here in the capital were rendered unusable by vandalism and fierce artillery duels during the clan wars that have consumed Somalia and starved its people.
----------------------------------
Of the four U.S. companies holding the Siad Barre-era oil concessions, Conoco is believed to be the only one that negotiated what spokesman Geybauer called "a standstill agreement" with an interim government set up by one of Mogadishu's two principal warlords, Ali Mahdi Mohamed. Industry sources said the other U.S. companies with contracts in Somalia cited "force majeure" (superior power), a legal term asserting that they were forced by the war to abandon their exploration efforts and would return as soon as peace is restored.
"It's going to be very interesting to see whether these agreements are still good," said Mohamed Jirdeh, a prominent Somali businessman in Mogadishu who is familiar with the oil-concession agreements. "Whatever Siad did, all those records and contracts, all disappeared after he fled. . . . And this period has brought with it a deep change of our society.
"Our country is now very weak, and, of course, the American oil companies are very strong. This has to be handled very diplomatically, and I think the American government must move out of the oil business, or at least make clear that there is a definite line separating the two, if they want to maintain a long-term relationship here."
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/North_Africa/Somalia_US_OilCorp_Fortune.html

[Rage for Order]

4. Can I ask you a question?

How do you hyperlink a word in your post, e.g. 'turning its headlights', 'bolstering its presence', 'Ethiopa'?

[Truth2Tell]

5. Sure

I just figured it out myself so I've been overusing them just for fun... :)

Inside of the squared off parentheses you say "link:", and then the link, then a vertical line, like |, then the text, then close the parentheses. You can also click the HTML Lookup Table link that you can see above the message window. That will explain it too, better than me.