Somalia Spinning
December 4, 2007
by William P. Meyers

In an article titled "Somali President Hospitalized," published December 4, 2007 in the New York Times, attributed to Associated Press writer Tom Maliti, by way of background readers are informed:

 

"Yusuf's government, with help from neighboring Ethiopia, has been battling a ferocious Islamic insurgency that has killed thousands of people this year in what U.N. officials call a major humanitarian crisis."

 

Talk about turning black into white. Abdullahi Yusuf's "government" is a creation of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), established in  a tradition going back to the CIA-engineered coup that brought the Shah to power in Iran in August 1953.

 

Somalia entered the 21st century with clan-based or warlord rule. U.S. policy makers installed Abdullahi Yusuf in 2004 and nearly everyone else in Somalia went about their businesses as if the new government did not exist. It was a mere fiction. But in 2005 a democracy and justice movement started sweeping the country. It has started because people were tired of the fighting, corruption, and theft of the warlords and clan leaders. It was called Islamic Justice Courts. In areas controlled by the people themselves, through the Islamic Justice Courts, peace and even a bit of prosperity prevailed. Other Somalis looked at the situation and joined the Islamic Justice Courts in droves. Only a few CIA-backed thugs like Abdullahi Yusuf stayed with what the U.N., U.S., and global media conglomerates called the "provisional government."

 

The U.S.'s pro-Christian, pro-economic injustice, anti-Islam, policy is exceptionally clear in Somalia. The U.S. paid the Ethiopian government to invade Somalia and sent CIA agents and special forces troops to aid in the effort. The result was a slaughter; no one could even count the bodies of the good citizens of Somalia who were slain by the U.S. Government and its puppets.

 

At first it looked, from the U.S. imperial point of view, that all was well. Many of the warlords and clan leaders who had lost power to the Islamic Justice Courts gave tentative backing to the new regime. The roadblocks and thefts started back up. And so those who backed the Islamic Justice Courts saw they had no choice but to fight the new, U.S. backed tyranny.

 

Read Maliti's statement again: "Yusuf's government, with help from neighboring Ethiopia, has been battling a ferocious Islamic insurgency that has killed thousands of people this year in what U.N. officials call a major humanitarian crisis." The CIA itself could not have written a finer piece of propaganda. The major humanitarian crisis was caused by the U.S., U.N., and Ethiopia.

 

And while George W. Bush haters will simply add this to the list of reasons for impeachment, please notice that this all happened with a Democratic Party majority in the U.S. House and Senate. The Democratic Party leadership wants the Peace vote, but they aren't against taking any anti-Islamic or pro-war votes they can get, and certainly intend to dip into the rich gravy of Pentagon contracts now that they control key Congressional committees.

 

Note the phrase: "ferocious Islamic insurgency." After a peaceful, democratic, justice oriented movement is crushed, radicals and those who like to fight tend to come to the forefront of any resistance movement. But given the history here, I'll take the insurgent side over the CIA side.

 

We really need a Green Party president and Congress if we are ever to have peace and justice in the world.

 

See also my Somalia page.