Somalia Gets U.S. Military Advisors

Without asking or informing the American People, the Barack Obama administration has ordered American professional gunmen to Somalia. There are not many of these "advisor" soldiers, we are told, just three so far. But since the U.S. has long had a network of CIA operatives in Somalia, has frequently sent in special forces to assassinate local leaders, and has used various forms of aerial bombardment. The U.S. also pays for Somalia to be occupied by multiple African nations' armies of U.S. trained gunmen. Given the context, this new development should be taken seriously.

This new secret of a long-simmering secret war was released by Tom Davis of the United States Africa Command, on Friday, January 10.

Somalia is not so much a nation as an area defined by European imperialist powers. Within the area of Somalia are many ethnic groups, which get along or conflict with each other in ever-shifting patters. During the Cold War the Communist Block got the upper hand in Somalia, but then the U.S. encouraged the overthrow of the one stable government the area has ever seen, that of Mohamed Siad Barre, in 1991. The U.S. tried to install a puppet government, and invaded along with other U.N. forces, only to suffer a disastrous military defeat in the Black Hawk Down battle (aka Battle of Mogadishu) in 1993. The massive, purposeful, and well-documented slaughter of civilians by U.S. Special Forces in that battle has never been brought before a War Crimes tribunal.

Following a period of clan and war lord rule (which the CIA manipulated as best it could) the people of Somalia got fed up and established a moderate, multi-ethnic form of governance usually called the Islamic Courts Union in the West. The idea that people could govern themselves according to common sense without a strong central government or war lords terrified the U.S. government, business, and defense establishments.

So we (U.S. citizens should bear some responsibility for what our government does ... don't you think?) smashed up the Court system, paid Ethiopia to invade, re-invigorated certain war lords, and set up a puppet "national" government of Somalia that seldom controlled more than the backyards of the "ministers" in its "Cabinet."

As a natural reaction, moderates in Somalia were shoved aside and the most radical Islamic military faction, Shabaab, came to represent the vast majority of people in Somalia (whether they liked it or not). For a few years Shabaab defeated everything the U.S. could pay to have thrown at them, but invasions from multiple U.S. "partners" eventually pushed the Shabaab out of Mogadishu and some other major towns. Some ethnic groups that did not like Shabaab also managed to expel them, though that has not translated into loyalty to the U.S. puppet government.

In the usual fashion U.S. taxpayer money has flowed to the puppets, who have mostly just lined their pockets with it.

Unless they are laying the groundwork for a more massive U.S. intervention, it is hard to see how 3 U.S. military advisors in Mogadishu are going to change the situation.

If a pro-U.S. regime did rule Somalia, and anti-U.S. troops from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda had invaded the nation, every news outlet in the U.S. would be letting you know that a great war crime was being committed.

To see how the rest of the world really views our nation, take a look a look at what Sri Lanka has to say about war crimes. By the way, the CIA is now working on how to overthrow the government of Sri Lanka and place U.S. puppets in control there. Yippee! Another Asia War. All we need now is to draft all those young American boys living at home with nothing to do into the Army.

[This first appeared as an editorial at www.mendoday.com]

Mali Sees French in Action

The French, or the government of France, are now fighting a war in Mali, which used to be a French colony. Officially it is the Republic of Mali, but it isn't really a republic. It was a French colony until 1960. Mali is a multiethnic state created by Europeans drawing lines in the sand in the 19th century, butting up against the colonies of other predator nations, notably those of the British Empire.

The current leader of France is Francoise Hollande, of the French Socialist Party. He is not religious.

One of the militias that took over northern Mali is both ethnic (Tuareg) and religious, the Ansar Dine, which is Sufi Islamic. Ansar Dine is allied with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mghreb, which Salafist (ultra-orthodox) Islam. One of the militias is mainly ethnic Tuareg, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad.

President of the United States Barack Obama is believed to have encouraged the French, who are supporting a military junta imperialist-backed "government" of Mali who have so far shown themselves to be utterly incompetent in everything but overthrowing the previous incompetent, corrupt government.

If ever there were a situation showing that "politics makes strange bedfellows," this is it.

In the United States the Tea Party Republicans, and for that matter the entire corporate security state, Democrat and Republican alike, have based their claims for legitimacy and looting the public till on the danger of the new post-communist enemy, militant Islam, as best known from the poster child Al-Qaeda. Extremists on the right accuse the President of being a socialist and secretly a Muslim, and they hate France and everything socialist France stands for, with the possible exception of foie gras.

It should be noted that the current "government" of Mali is Islamic. 90% of Malians are either Sufi or Sunni Islam. Only about 5% are Christian and 5% subscribe to traditional African pagan beliefs. Atheists and agnostics are rare in Mali.

My guess is the Tea Party will rally around French military intervention, while continuing to criticize socialism and atheism. American liberals will rally around the President.

The key factor here is the propaganda about the cruelty and human rights abuses of the "rebels", in particular of those associated with Al-Qaeda. The cruelty and human rights abuses of the government of Mali will be ignored, because they are western puppets, not Al-Qaeda, and hence Good Fellows. Liberal American and French women in particular can be counted on to believe any anti-feminist tale told about the male puritanical Islamic fighters.

The ongoing oppression of women in France and other American-allied nations will be ignored. A woman in France can't even make a traditional face covering a fashion choice any more without being bullied and arrested by French police. Instead of sending predator drones to take out, say, Irish bishops for their stomping on the rights of women, we send the drones into Islamic nations. We must send the drones somewhere, since the drone makers must have their profits. There is not much of an Islamic vote in these United States.

Al-Qaeda was a small gang of nutter criminals when Bill Clinton started going after them in the late 1990s. I am pretty sure they would still be a small gang of criminals today if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Now with their network of allies they effectively control a large part of Pakistan, most of Somalia, a chunk of Yeman, and northern Mali. They have friends all over the Islamic world.

Like most Puritan sects, their real hatred is reserved for non-Puritans of their own basic pursuasion. Leave them alone and they will spend all of their energy fighting more liberal brands of Islam, and the modern secular people of their own nations. Fighting Al-Qaeda decreases U.S. security, but it increases the defense and homeland security budgets, which is the real objective.

The French once were a very tough people. They defeated Islamic invaders at the Battle of Tours, in 732, thus preserving the Roman Catholic Church and the burning of women as witches and heretics. Under the atheist Napolean they conquered most of Europe in the early 1880s. But lately their fighting skills have been laughable. The Vietnamese defeated them at Dien Bien Phu, and they lost most of their empire in the next few years. Today they should stick to cooking and fashion design.

If the Tauregs and Islamists in Mali are defeated, it won't be by the French. It will be because their puritanical culture alienates their fellow citizens, who eventually chose to follow a different course.

Francoise Hollande should be arrested and tried for war crimes, but he won't be. Only weak Africans and Balkan leaders are ever arrested for war crimes.

Poisonwood Congo, Imperialism, and Diamonds

"Two hundred different languages," he said, "spoken inside the borders of a so-called country invented by Belgians in a parlor." — The Poisonwood Bible

A few days ago the United Nations announced it was attacking rebels in the Congo with modern attack helicopters. Imagine thousands of bullets per minute flying at you. You would think that would stop a rebel.

Instead the army of the Congo disintegrated and U.N. peacekeepers stood down while the rebels, known as M23, triumphantly entered Goma. The government of the Congo, and the U.N., claim that M23 is being aided by the army of Rwanda. The U.S. is being careful about criticizing Rwanda, at least for the moment.

The prize? Minerals, potential land for international corporate farming, and geopolitical positioning.

To the extent that Americans are interested in the Congo, they don't have the factual background to understand the situation. Consider this a primer on what your governing corporate security state does not want you to know about the Congo and Africa in general.

First, a bit of illuminating fiction, and I don't mean what will be coming out of the mouths of Hillary Clinton and other professional story tellers. If you have not read it already, you might want to read Barbara Kingsolver's novel, The Poisonwood Bible. In it an American preacher takes his family to a remote village in the Congo and tries to convert the natives to his version of Christianity.

The preacher, and his suffering wife and daughters, cannot translate their American beliefs into Congolese. The preacher's barking translates poorly into the native tongue. Among other mistakes, he pushes the villagers to baptize their children in a river that is dangerous because of crocodiles. "'Tata Jesus is bangala!' declares the Reverend every Sunday at the end of his sermon ... Bangala means something precious and dear. But the way he pronounces it, it means the poisonwood tree." While the family is there Congo gains independence and its first elected leader, Patrice Lumumba, is murdered in a CIA and Belgian plot.

It is important to recall that the United Nations was formed as a military organization during World War II and has always been controlled by three imperialist powers: the United States of America, the British Empire (now just Great Britain), and France. The Congo was a Belgian colony, but the French had major interests there and of course after World War II the American jackals moved in for the feast. Oh, wait, that's US. After independence honest U.S. business men helped the Congo by introducing more efficient methods for extracting minerals and other forms of wealth and shipping them back to America. It must be the lack of Christian go-getter culture that has kept the natives impoverished these last five decades. [Sarcasm alert]

But you can't just look at the biggest parts of the picture, the U.S. global business and governance system, of which the U.N. is a cog. You need to see the role played by Rwanda and Somalia, or rather U.S. strategic interests in those nations, at the very least.

U.S. equipped armies from Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and Ethiopia are currently operating in Somalia, trying to bring that nation back into the U.S. fold, and aiding a government of warlords also backed by the U.S. They are fighting Shabaab, who may have degenerated into a nasty lot, but at least they are a nasty Somali lot. Shabaab would not have amounted to anything if the U.S., its local bribe-taking warlords, and the Ethiopians had not ousted the prior, grassroots-built, moderate Islamic government known as the Islamic Union or Islamic Justice Courts.

Rwanda, of course, is mostly known for the genocide that happened there. It is a small, overpopulated nations of 12 million, or over 1000 per square mile, despite being mostly rural. It is bordered by both Uganda and Burundi, both also important to U.S. plans to dominate Africa, as shown by their willingness to send their soldiers to die for U.S. pay in Somalia. Rwanda was colonized late by the Germans, who because of its remoteness were mainly content to be puppet masters. After World War I the Belgians grabbed it. Gaining independence in 1962 coincided with the splitting off of Burundi.

It is a delicate set of dominoes the U.S. seeks to keep in line. U.S. objectives in Africa are to minimize Chinese inroads, stamp out Islam and native pagan beliefs in favor of Christianity, and covert small freeholders into agricultural slaves on giant corporate farms. In addition to controlling the mineral wealth. But Africans have their own issues, including ethnic, religious, and economic rivalries.

Note that all these nations are members of the African Union, which was formed in 2002. While ostensibly a goal of the AU is "To defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its Member States," the problem is its governments are easily bribed and corrupted, including by military and "humanitarian" aid from the United States.

Back in the Congo, the U.S. is particularly interested in the supply of cobalt, an element with many uses and critical to making jet engine parts. The Congo contains 80% of the world's cobalt ores. It produces large amounts of copper, industrial diamonds, tin, and tantalum, which is particularly important to the electronics industry. Its agricultural potential is enormous. Hence the U.S. is training an elite Congolese military force, and the U.N. has a major military presence.

Why was a small group of rebels able to defeat the Army of the Congo backed by U.N. forces with advanced helicopter gunships in the fore? Because the government of led by Joseph Kabila is corrupt and incompetent, but also because the Congo is not really a nation, but is really just lines on a map. Kabila is corrupt partly because he has to be to survive.

Best historical parallel? The "government of China" under Chiang Kai-shek. No matter how much money the U.S. poured into the "Nationalist" Chiang regime in China between 1932 and the communist takeover, it went into luxuries for warlords, not bullets to fight the Japanese or communists. What the U.S. called the "democratic" regime of China was so hated in the end that entire armies simply turned on Chiang Kai-shek and joined the communists.

It seems likely now that the Shabaab will be defeated in Somalia and the pro-U.S. regime will survive as long as the U.S. keeps providing money. The problem with this form of imperialism is that it does not build up the strength of the fatherland. It gradually sucks the home nation dry, as the British Empire learned.

U.S. imperialism is in an advanced stage of collapse. Let's just hope the collapse does not take down our economy with it. The Phony Fiscal Cliff negotiations. should be about the cost of imperialism, but instead will be worked to the benefit of investment bankers and the military industrial complex.

The Poisonwood Congo is difficult for people like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to understand. Do they even remember that Joseph Kabila himself was backed by Rwanda and Uganda when he overthrew Mobutu? The problem with the U.S. trying to buy clients is that such people may not stay bought. China will soon be able to outbid the U.S. What then?

Barack Obama's Darkest Africa

"Two hundred different languages," he said, "spoken inside the borders of a so-called country invented by Belgians in a parlor." — Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

What can we expect following another ruling class victory in the U.S. elections? Just enough relief for the (upper) middle class to keep it aligned with the capitalist corporate security state.

Deception is at the heart of American governance. Want to fight a war that is none of your business? Elect a peace candidate for President, like Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon Johnson, or Barack Obama.

The ignorance of the American electorate is so vast that the databases that keep track of it are a major contributor to global warming. Among the darkest of dark areas is U.S. policy in Africa. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama seemed to talk about African policy when they debated about the successful assassination of U.S. embassy officials in Libya. The candidates agreed that while it is a fine thing for the U.S. to kill anyone who disagrees with us in Africa, it is a horrible crime for anyone in Africa who disagrees with the U.S. to fight back. That is the level of sophistication that the typical undecided voter can comprehend.

Your average African citizen, of course, is no better informed than your average American. By all accounts many if not most Africans love Barack Obama, or at least love the concept of an ethnically part-African man running the most powerful nation in the world.

Africa, of course is a big place. It has many nations, and most of those nations were carved up by European colonial powers with no regard to ethnic lines or even natural geographic boundaries. Africa includes the ancient city of Alexandria and numerous new cities that have arisen in the past hundred years, as well as vast rural areas, some of them densely populated, while others are nearly deserted.

What is U.S. policy in Africa? Aside from killing anyone who disagrees with U.S. policy in any way (which is only a means to an end) our policy is to maximize corporate profits while gaining as much political control as possible. Right now there are three concrete objectives being pursued.

The most visible objective is the destruction of Anti-American forms of Islam. Islam is the new communism. It is important to realize that President Obama and friends do not care about the degree of radicalness. Radical Islamists who support the American agenda, like the dictator of Saudi Arabia, are fine. Moderate Islamists, or even secular cultural Islamists, are not fine if they support a local nationalist or anti-corporate business agenda. Nor is brutality, in itself, considered to be anti-American. Brutal pro-U.S. regimes, like the U.S. puppet government of warlords in Somalia, are promoted. The former, moderate, peaceful Islamic Courts Union of Somalia was considered insufficiently pro-America, and so was destroyed.

One item of this week's African news is a threat by Uganda to pull out of Somalia. As if Somalia did not have enough problems, the U.S. has paid the brutal governments of Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia and Kenya to invade Somalia. Uganda has, nevertheless, been accused of aiding a rebellion in the Congo. The brutal warlords who rule the Congo are considered pro-U.S., so aiding a rebellion against them is not allowed.

Extracting wealth from the Congo is an age-old game, with a history well worth studying, though I can't take the time to recount it here. Today Americans think we are a generous people who send our excess food to starving people in Africa, to nations like the Congo. But the U.S. no longer has food surpluses. Our over 330 million citizens slurp up more food than the U.S. can produce, even in the eco-damaging manner used here.

We need our diamonds and our minerals, which traditionally have been dug out of Africa with little benefit to the natives. Controlling mining and oil extraction remains the second U.S. objective. The third, and newest, objective is to create giant American-style farms where ever possible in Africa. These farms will not feed hungry Africans. They will employee a few native workers, while throwing many more off their land. The food will be sold to the highest bidder in international markets, which means to the United States, Japan, China or Europe.

Let any African stand in the way of U.S. businessmen, be they a local war lord, national dictator, or democratically elected Prime Minister, and the United States Department of State and its adjuncts, the CIA and Marine Corps, will treat them like a pothole in the road that needs to be paved over. Bribes are always tried before bullets. We can even show dictators how to have elections they can be guaranteed to win, with opposition parties that seem to offer a choice but really don't. We borrowed those skills from the British Empire in 1776 and have honed them for over two centuries now.

President Obama sends Gunmen to Uganda

The Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda are a nasty lot. Imprisoned, hanged, or shot dead in combat, it is hard to imagine anyone shedding a tear for them. What better excuse for his imperialist majesty Barack Obama to insert U.S. troops into east Africa. Apparently bribes and proxy troops are not getting the job done.

Most diplomatic and military analysts believe the U.S. military presence in Uganda actually has little to do with the Lord's Resistance Army. They are there to train the army of Uganda, and may use killing or "interrogating" any LRA soldiers they can catch as an exercise. Their real role is to reward Uganda for sending soldiers to act as U.S. proxies in Somalia, and to prevent the further spread of anti-Americanism in Africa. A look at the map of the region reveals the interlocking parts:

Note Uganda's proximity to the Republic of South Sudan, with its vast oil fields waiting to be tapped. To the east in Kenya, which is more of a region left over from Great Britain's imperial conquests than a nation. Kenya is a mostly Christian identified nation, but has substantial Islamic and (indigenous) pagan minorities. Further due east we have southern Somalia, including the "capital" Mogadishu, where Ugandan troops are stationed to prop up the unelected, corrupt and incompetent puppet U.S. "provisional" government. Note also Ethiopia to the north of Kenya. The U.S. paid Ethiopia to invade Somalia in 2006 and overthrow the Islamic Courts Union system (earlier referred to as the Islamic Justice Courts). While the Somalis eventually ran them out of the country, the peaceful and moderate backers of the Islamic Courts were radicalized by the struggle, leading to the emergence of Al-Shabaab as the most popular de facto government in Somalia (though it has done a lot since then to make itself unpopular).

So we can expect Barack Obama's soldiers to train the Ugandan gunmen who will be going to fight the people of Somalia. At the same time President-for-Life Yoweri Museveni's regime will be propped up. As leaders go Mr. Museveni started as a considerable improvement on his post-colonial predecessors. Somewhere along the way he decided that he was indispensable, and democracy had to play second fiddle (just like Franklin Delano Roosevelt). Instead of training and empowering the next generation of leaders, he is determined to take Uganda to the grave with him. In addition, he has supported harsh anti-homosexual laws.

Perhaps the Pentagon just wants to get in some real-life jungle training. American gunmen have a poor record in jungle warfare, as demonstrated by the Viet Cong. The Lord's Resistance Army might be easy prey, and then again they have already survived for a couple of decades and may be more adaptable than I, or anyone, expects. As to Somalia, only idiots like George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and their brutish henchmen think that playground has room for anyone besides the natives.

Barack Obama Sanctions Assassinations

Barack Obama yesterday announced he plans to impose sanctions on Iran for the alleged assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Adel A. Al-Jubeir. For all I know Mr. Al-Jubeir is a well-intentioned man, but he represents one of the most oppressive dictatorships on earth. Iran, on the other hand, is a democracy, at least as much as the United States can be said to be a democracy.

Note that President Obama is in no position to express moral outrage. Since bluffing his way into the office of President in 2008, Obama has become the number 1 murderer and war criminal in the world. Why anyone would expect anything less from a graduate of Harvard Law School, where the cooking the Gruel of Law is continually taught to the next generation of vipers, I don't know.

Democratic Party apologists (is there any other kind of Democrat Party activist?) say that Obama inherited his wars from President George W. Bush. They want us to forget that the Democrats won the 2006 congressional elections mainly by playing to anti-war sentiment. The war in Iraq was essentially over by the time Barack took office, but he escalated the war in Afghanistan at a time when it would have been easy just to pull out U.S. troops. Further, he has waged illegal wars against Pakistan and the people of Somalia, while U.S. assassins have murdered alleged U.S. enemies and innocent civilians in Yemen and throughout northern Africa.

President Obama said, "The second thing that we’re going to continue to do is to apply the toughest sanctions and continue to mobilize the international community to make sure that Iran is further and further isolated and that it pays a price for this kind of behavior."

This kind of behavior? Note a few facts: the Saudi ambassador was not harmed. It was a homeland security bureaucrat who actually planned to kill the ambassador. Homeland Security found an unstable, incompetent, greedy man, Mansour Arbabsiar, to claim to be the bagman for the plot. Can the U.S. manufacture evidence to implicate Iranians in the plot? Our physical manufacturing plants have mostly moved to China and Mexico and India, but one thing we can still manufacture is phony evidence. I think they teach that at Harvard Law, or maybe at Langley.

I agree that the ancient principle that all ambassadors are, in effect, sacred cows, is a good one. Peace emissaries would never be able to end wars otherwise. The pragmatic problem is that embassy personnel often use this fig leaf as a cover to commit a wide variety of crimes. The U.S. embassy in Iran existed largely to help murder opponents of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the self-styled Shah of Iran. Just like the employees of the U.S. embassy in South Vietnam existed to help murder opponents of the U.S. puppet dictators in the 1960s during the Vietnam war. And ... oops, this could easily devolve into the historic role of U.S. embassies and the CIA in murdering people who opposed U.S. imperialism. A subject for a 9 volume encyclopedia, not a blog posting.

War crimes are still war crimes even if you are POTUS and no one has the ability to try you and hang you like the Democrats used to hang unregistered potential Republican voters in the Solid South up until around the time Obama was born.

Barack Obama, and his top subordinates, should be tried by an impartial tribunal for each and every one for the numerous assassinations they have carried out in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and around the globe.

The American people should impose sanctions on the Democratic Party and Republican Party, the two greatest war crimes organizations in the world. Not one cent or one vote until both parties dry up and are replaced by a new politics of peace and prosperity.

See also: Saudi Arabia at Wikipedia

Barack Obama's remarks about Iran on October 13, 2011

Somalia Famine: There's a History

I read an article today at the Christian Science Monitor, U.N. Declares Famine in Somalia: How to Help. While Somalis may need some help, the article claims in the drought region "Somalia is worst-off because of perpetual government instability and the threat of [the] Islamist militant group Al Shabab." That is probably believable to people who read only U.S. propaganda, which is most Americans.

Somalia was not a nation in 1400, but it was a prosperous area with many wealthy, high-civilized city states. Roman Catholic pirates from Portugal began destroying those cities after Vasco da Gama discovered them in 1498 [See also Portuguese Catholics destroyed peaceful Islamic societies in eastern Africa in 1500's].

Intermittent warfare between native freedom fighters and their Portuguese would-be masters lasted for centuries, with the Portuguese often enslaving port cities. In the later half of the 1800s the British tried to add Somalia to their vast empire of slave nations in Africa. Muhammad Abdullah Hassan rallied the Somalis against the British, but in 1920, when his Dervish state collapsed, it was fascist Italy that turned northern Somalia, or Somaliland, into a colony. As usual, the Somali peoples resisted, the Italian armies sometimes suffered heavy casualties, and the British held southern Somalia more in name than in substance. When World War II began the Italians conquered British Somalia, but the British won it back in 1941.

After World War II the victorious nations gave part of Somalia, Ogaden, to Ethiopia. The U.N. gave Somalia back to Italy in 1949! After all, Catholic Italy was now an ally against the atheist Communist block of nations.

Finally, in 1960, Somalia was granted independence. But the lines had not been drawn around a nation, but around a diverse group of people. In 1969 a coup installed a socialist president and declared an end to "tribalism, nepotism, corruption, and misrule." The regime eventually made itself unpopular and finally fell from power in 1991. The United Nations, led by the U.S., invaded in 1992, only to face fierce resistance and withdraw in early 1995.

Since 1995 there has been anarchy, that is no central government that ruled the entire country. While life went on, American presidents and the CIA plotted. They really, truly hate people they cannot control. At one point the Somali people themselves set up a judicial system, the Islamic Courts Union. It seemed to be working well, bringing peace and justice, ending war between clans. That really ticked off the U.S. corporate security state. So the U.S. paid the government of Ethiopia to invade Somalia and destroy the Islamic courts in 2006. A lot of people died, the economy was again destroyed, and a U.S. puppet government was again established. The Somali people, at first overrun by Ethiopian tanks, drove the invaders out by 2009 (See War in Somalia, 2006-2009).

Not happy with that outcome, the U.S. government paid the African Union to invade Somalia. The actual troops were mainly "donated" by the nation of Uganda. That did not work either. The U.S. puppet government and the AU troops typically control little except themselves, though they do divert aid money sent to Somalia into the hands of their leaders.

So how can you help with the famine in Somalia? You can donate money for food, or for medicine (which I do through Doctors Without Borders), but the real problem is the leaders of the United States of America. Which means the real problem is the people of the USA. We are responsible for the leaders we choose. We are responsible for allowing them to bankrupt our nation with vast military expenditures and schemes to put and keep puppet governments in power.

If anyone running for office does not pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops to back inside U.S. territory, don't vote for them. Don't worry about their other campaign positions, which tend to be lies anyway. If they aren't for a peaceful America, they are war criminals, and should be imprisoned, not elected.

Democracy with Imperialism: the British Empire

In 1500, when the Turkish Ottoman Empire and China were the world's greatest powers, before Spain had established its empire in the Americas and while the Portuguese were still pirating their way around Africa to Asia, the English were a backward and unimportant people. They had a king, Henry VII, who had come to power through violence. There were no pretensions to having a democratic government run for the sake of the people; holding Parliaments was an ancient but seldom-honored tradition.

What was the evilest empire in the history of the world? The Mongols? The Romans, the Ottomans, the Nazis? For my money it was the British Empire. Which did not exist in any meaningul sense in 1500.

We are not supposed to think that way in these United States of America. The British are supposed to be a good force of history, the main source of the American ruling class and culture, nice people who brought civilization to half the world.

Sure, that is how it must have gone. Hi, would you like to trade almost all of your land for some lessons in how to drink high tea? Welcome to English civilization.

The Brits were a brutal lot. For centuries they just fought each other or, after the Norman conquest, tried to conquer another lot of civilized brutes, the French. United, they conquered Wales, then Ireland. They fought with the Scots for centuries, too, before the two clans were united by royal marriage.

Even before the unity known as Great Britain (or United Kingdom) was formed, the English began mixing trade with piracy. Their royally sponsored pirates became national heroes and provided much of the capital for both colonialism and modern capitalism. The British Navy and Army, working with missionaries, businessmen, and diplomats, became a rather efficient imperial machine. They never did the grand invasion routine beloved by conquerors from Darius the Great to Napoleon. They used political and economic leverage quite effectively to eat the Indian subcontinent bite by bite. They would graciously accept a colony or two from bankrupt Eurotrash kings they had loaned some money or troops to for local wars, or who had lost to the tyrants backed by Britain.

It was a centuries-long process, but over time the people of the British empire murdered millions in war and in cold blood, stole half the world's real estate, and destroyed most of the native economies of their colonies. You might also ask the Irish about how civilized British rule has been.

Which brings us to the issue of democracy. During the development of the British Empire the "middle class" (here I use older, more accurate sense of the term, those above the working class but below the aristocracy) struggled for power with the kings (really Emperors) and their aristocratic inbred idiot relatives. Guess who won? Over the centuries Parliament became stronger, and the House of Commons came to prevail over the House of Lords. Eventually even ordinary, lower-class British men got the vote. Socialist parties and then, more successfully, the Labor Party came to play an important role in politics. By the 20th century, we are supposed to believe, democracy was triumphant in merry old England.

Look at World War I. We are taught in American schools that the U.S. was a democracy and fought with France, Italy, and Britain, collectively the Democracies, against Germany, Austria, and Turkey (still then the vast Ottoman Empire), the Monarchies. That is a load of swill.

Almost no one in the British Empire could vote to elect politicians to set its policies. Only those living in the British Isles could vote. Africans could not vote, nor could Indians or Burmese or the Chinese in Hong Kong. Even the Canadians and Australians could not vote for members of the British Parliament (as white neo-Brits they did have their own Parliaments).

Is that democracy? A billion or so people, and less than 100 million have a say in governance.

I think not. I somehow doubt the citizens of the Indian subcontinent would have voted to have themselves shot when they demanded independence or self-rule.

In Iran (then Persia) they still speak of the nefarious British. They have better memories than Americans, or perhaps less reason to forget what actually happened over the past five centuries.

Class room exercise questions:

Are there any parallels between the British Empire and some other benevolent empire closer to home?

If a minority like the Irish within a political empire vote for their independence, but are voted down by the English majority, is that democracy? Is majority rule the sole test of democratic governance?

Somali Puppet Government Shrinking

The American-created "government of Somalia," today announced that it is shrinking the cabinet from 39 to just 18 ministers. That is about right, because this group headed by Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has has very few Somali supporters. It takes money from the United States and uses it to pay soldiers, at least in theory. In reality reports are that the money is ripped off by the upper ranks, so the soldiers, many of whom are children, desert at the first opportunity.

This government is sanctioned by the United Nations and African Union as well. It controls, in the vast territory of Somalia, a few square blocks of the city of Mogadishu, in concert with Ugandan troops. By some standards, it is not a bad lot of people. But almost no one in Somalia wants to support a puppet government set up by the United States and other foreigners. Most of the nation's territory is now controlled by fundamentalist militant Islamic groups, notably Al-Shabaab.

There is no better example on earth on why the United States, or any other nation for that matter, should not try to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations. Both under President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama, American interference has consistently made the situation in Somalia worse (if by worse you mean more radically Islamic. If you like fundamentalist Islam, I guess you could say the U.S. has really helped the people of Somalia).

The United States has assassinated politicians, dropped in bundles of money for bribes, and paid Ethiopia and Uganda to invade Somalia. U.S. policy has only served to discredit moderates, like the old Islamic Courts Union that restored some semblance of order to Somalia in 2006. The U.S. has made Somalia an Al Qaeda poster child. The U.S. comes off as brutal and stupid ideological thugs. Which is about right, if you look at our history.

I have to wonder if this is really just an extremely stupid CIA and "Defense" cadre, or if it was done on purpose. By destabilizing Somalia the CIA has created a permanent threat to the U.S. that did not exist in 2006. That guarantees nice fat budgets for the CIA, Pentagon, and Homeland Security apparatcniks.

One could argue, I guess I am starting to argue, that Somalia is a textbook case of creating an enemy where none previously existed. A reasonable conclusion is that someone was following a textbook in this operation. So it was done on purpose. I can't prove it, but I sure would like to get my hands on the archives.

Here's a sound policy: seal the borders of Somalia, withdraw all foreign troops and operatives including aid groups, and let the Somalis work things out among themselves. Recognize any government that seems to have the support or control over, say 50% of the population. Then restore normal trade and diplomatic ties. My guess is that culturally Somalis are moderate people and won't support puritan versions of Islam for long.

Meanwhile, hold tribunals to try George W. Bush and Barack Obama for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Somalia. With those two guys in jail, the rest of the people of the world might feel safer and act friendlier towards Americans.

More Somalia articles by William P. Meyers

Kidnapping, Slavery, and Islamic Terror: To the Shores of Tripoli

Earlier today I had a discussion with a military guy, in this case a defense contractor highly-paid consultant type, I think.

Soon I was saying, "The U.S. military has always been used for aggression. It has never been used for self defense. First it was used to steal native American tribal land. No, first it was used to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion and establish the Federal Government's authority to collect taxes under the new Constitution. Then we did our first attacks on the Islamic nations, under President Thomas Jefferson. You know, the raids on the Barbary 'Pirate' states."

That was in 1801, I now know because I looked it up in my Bailey's The American Pageant, A History of the Republic. Tripoli is a city in present-day Libya.

"That was self-defense," my new friend said. "They were capturing American ships and citizens and holding them for ransom!"

"So," I said, having a thought I never had before, "if you kidnap people, that is a pretext for a just war?"

"Of course it is," he said. "All U.S. wars have been just wars."

"Let's stick to the war against the Pasha of Tripoli for a moment. At that time, was slavery legal in the United States of America."

"Slavery is a different issue. I am not for slavery, and I am not a racist."

"Fine, but slavery was legal, right?"

"Yes."

"And importing slaves was legal, right?"

"But at some point we made importing new slaves illegal."

"But not at that point. I could be wrong, but I think that was later. [it was 1808] So where did these slaves come from?"

"Africa."

"And Tripoli was in?"

"Africa."

"So the United States of America was kidnapping Africans, by proxy anyway, and keeping them as permanent slaves. Whereas the Islamic states just were taxing the passing of ships in their waters, and when Jefferson decided he would not pay the tax, they confiscated our ships, and in effect kidnapped some of our citizens."

"We weren't taking slaves from Tripoli," he countered. "The slaves we were taking had a right to fight back, and probably a lot of them did. And we had a right to send in the Marines at Tripoli."

"Nice parting of the waters, there," I admitted. "But that just leaves Jefferson and the U.S. military as hypocrites. We could have used military force to shut down the slave trade in Africa, and we could have gone ahead and had a civil war in the U.S. to end slavery here. Instead we attacked an Islamic state because we did not want our merchants to have to pay taxes to sale ships through their waters."

"And we kicked their butts. Right or wrong, we always kick their butts."

And we are always the defenders of all that is good and just. A few white people landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts and Jamestown, Virginia in the early 1600's, and using only-self defense and hard work ended up with an empire that includes not just 50 states and a bunch of territories, but military bases and political puppets all around the world. Semper Fidelis.

[quotes are to the best of my memory. The other guy probably remembers how he won the argument.]

Recognize Shabab in Somalia

By all reasonable precedents the United States of America and other nations of the world should recognize Shabab (aka Al-Shabaab) and its allies as the de facto government of Somalia.

Shabab is labeled as a terrorist group by the US. Big deal. Allies of the U.S. who use armed force to create governments are labeled freedom fighters; any group not allied with the U.S. that uses armed force gets the terrorist label. Let's look past the propaganda and consider the reality.

The U.S. has tried to install a variety of governments in Somalia over the past two decades, using force and economic aid. That is more than terrorism: that constitutes war crimes. Every attempt to install a pro-U.S. government has failed, including the U.S. financed invasion by Ethiopia in 2006 (major war crime authorized by President George W. Bush).

The recognition of de facto governments is an ancient and almost universal practice. One nation is not obliged to like another nation. Diplomatic recognition is a pragmatic affair. It does not involve an alliance with the nation or government recognized.

The United States of America has a bit more of an uncivilized, brutal history in this regard than the more civilized nations. Most notably, the U.S. failed to recognize the government of China from 1950 until 1972.

On the other hand, the United States has not only recognized, but has propped up, a wide variety of unsavory regimes over the centuries. At first these tended to be South American kleptocrats allied with American business interests. Later, during the cold war, they included any brutal but aspiring military officer who promised to kill communists, socialists, democrats and freedom of speech in general. In other words, neither lack of elections nor brutality precluded American recognition of governments — as long as they were our governments.

There are dangers to leaving the Somalis to themselves, but they are outweighed by the advantages and the likely cultural trajectory. When idealistic groups like Shabab come to power they usually start off with a puritanical regimen. Their subjects will pretend to also have become puritans, if only to escape punishment. But having achieved power, the leaders will begin to relax over time. With an orderly regime trade and industry will pick up again, and Shabab will start growing fat on taxing that. In other words, after 10 years or so they won't be much different than any other government. They are unlikely to develop a military that can successfully invade their neighbors. Somalia has neither the wealth nor the industrial base for that sort of thing.

There are so many examples of this in history, let me remind you of a couple. In the American Revolution terrorist tactics were used against the pro-British Tories. But as soon as Washington & crew were accepted by the international community they calmed down and lived peacefully happily ever after. Except for attacks on American Indians. And the attempt to conquer Canada in 1812. And grabbing half of Mexico in 1848. Well, maybe the U.S. is not such a great example.

But we could always declare war on Somalia later, or engage in yet another undeclared war. Right now the best way to relieve the suffering in Somalia is to withdraw African Union troops, recognize the de facto governance by Islamic fighters, and leave them to stew among themselves. Maybe even Shabab won't be able to govern Somalia. But if, say, the Saudis offered to build a mosque or two to celebrate the great Islamic victory, and threw in some luxury snacks and free trips to Mecca, pretty soon the government of Somalia would not look very different than any other government. Meddlesome and incompetent, but slightly better than living in an ongoing civil war.

U.S. Government of Somalia Collapsing

The U.S. government of Somalia installed against the will of the vast majority of the people of Somalia appears to be falling apart. Aside from an actual invasion by U.S. or allied troops (beyond the current occupation forces from Ethiopia and Uganda), there seems to be little the U.S. government can do to impose its will on Somalia. While no actual U.S. invasion is likely until after Barack Obama is elected President of the United States, it would not be surprising if the U.S. resumed bombing Somalia before the end of the Bush adminstration.

The tiny group of men styling themselves the government of Somalia (not long ago known as the Provisional Government of Somalia, and probably soon to be know as the former warlords financed by the CIA who briefly got the world press to call them a government) just split up. According to the Associated Press, a majority of the cabinet ministers resigned on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008. They were led by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who had a dispute with Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein over who should be the warlord, I mean mayor, of Mogadishu.

This follows the collapse of peace talks with the democratic opposition. The opposition had restored a semblance of good government in Somalia in 2006, but called itself the Islamic Justice Courts. Fearful that the establishment of justice in the Horn of Africa would endanger U.S. military and economic interests, the U.S. CIA (directed, of course, by President George W. Bush) picked a favored warlord told him and his friends to call themselves the Provisional Government. Detested by the people of Somalia, this provisional Government was later propped up by an invasion of marauders from Ethiopia and Uganda, financed by the U.S.

Somalians are used to foreigners. As I wrote in Portuguese Catholics Destroyed East African Islamic Societies in 1500's, the role of "civilized Europe" in the Horn of Africa has always been one of piracy. Colonial rule only ended in 1960.

The only civilized approach to the Somalia mess (this is a mess that means millions of people are starving, without housing or medical care) is to withdraw all foreign troops and let the people decide the issue for themselves. That may mean anarchy. It may mean a patchwork of warlord-dominated regions. It might mean an Islamic state. It might even mean a peaceful democracy. Left to themselves, the people of Somalia will find a solution to their problems. Short-term solutions will evolve into long-term solutions. Short term, the issue will be settled partly with guns. But who the people point their guns at will depend on the popular consensus. Elections might make sense, but no outside government can be trusted to run fair elections. When the people themselves organize elections, they may be ready to rely upon the results of those elections.

For more insight into the history of what has been happening in Somalia since 2006 see my main Somalia page.

For New York Times (registration required) archives (mostly Associated Press articles) see NYT Somalia archives (but note these are highly biased in their descriptions of factions in Somalia).

Somalia: Another Day, Another U.S. War Crime

Was the CIA-created government of Somalia even consulted? I can't tell from the reporting. Everyone agrees that on Monday March 3, 2008 the U.S. Navy launched a missile attack on Somalia. That would be a war crime. Since civilians were killed, that would also be a crime against humanity.

The alleged target was a Kenyan, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. No attempt was made to capture Mr. Nabhan. Execution without trial is the new U.S. way of doing things. Unfortunately, while no one was killed, three civilians were wounded. Mr. Nabhan was not hurt. For once, we can applaud the Navy's incompetence.

Those who would rant against President Bush might want to not that none of the remaining presidential candidates deplored the war crime. It is just business as usual for the ruling class and their carefully bought politicians. Congress will do nothing.

Meanwhile, the perception among 1 billion Muslims that the U.S. is at war against Islam has been re-enforced.

Mr. Nabhan is accused of helping to kill 3 Israeli tourists in Kenya. The U.S. attack looks like the sort of execution of civilians without trial that the Israeli government is so fond of.

Meanwhile, the U.N. and CIA-backed "provisional" government of Somalia does not seem to be able to govern at all. It is not so much that the U.S. government never learns. The U.S. could have given aid to moderates in the Islamic Justice Courts. By now there would be peace and prosperity in Somalia. But that is not U.S. government policy. Our policy is to keep African nations and Islamic nations weak and helpless. That policy has not changed in 200 years.

See also: my Somalia page
Wikipedia Somalia page

Somalia and Failed Nation States

A phrase we hear often lately is "failed nation-state." The term is used for Iraq, and now it is an apt term to describe Somalia. But I question the universal value of nation-states. Why can't some people be organized on some other basis?

According to this week's Economist article "Somalia: Breaking into even smaller bits?", in addition to the U.S./Ethiopian/U.N. imposed chaos in southern Somalia and the capital, Mogadishu, now Somaliland and Puntland are splintering as well. The "governments" of the two areas fought a small batlle over the town of Los Anod.

One problem in Somalia and much of Africa is that today's nations have artificial borders that were created when European powers carved up the continent into colonial territories. Most of these nations have multiple tribal groups within them. In many cases a tribal group will find itself half on one side of a border and half on the other side. This is also true of Iraq, where, for instance, the Kurds form a natural nation that occupies only a fraction of Iraq but also includes sections of Iran and Turkey.

In the past empires typically consisted of multiple tribes or nations. Often nations, for instance Germany, were broken down into multiple states. There is a pragmatic belief that if a national grouping, defined by language and culture, is incorporated into a single state, the result tend towards peace, stability, and harmony. Such nation-states are rare in their pure form, since most contain one or more minorities.

Somalia was never a nation state. It corresponds roughly to the Horn of Africa. There were ancient civilizations there as old as any on earth. But for the most part Somalia in the past consisted of city-states and smaller tribal regions (See Portuguese Catholics Destroyed East African Islamic Societies in 1500's). Even in the colonial era Somalia was not a single colony, the British have grabbed some and Italy having grabbed the rest.

So why try to unite this vast area with not-particularly related tribal groups? For the convenience of the U.S. war on "terror?" To keep it from having multiple seats at the U.N.?

Switzerland is a good example of a state that is not a nation is the classic sense. At least four languages are spoken there. It works as a state because the inhabitants have something else in common: living in the Alps and valuing freedom and prosperity over meddling in other people's affairs.

The problem in Somalia is in local "big men" not being content to be local. Everyone wants to be king, or at least President. It is true that grouped together, united in a nation, it might be easier to resist outside preditors. But that is just a choice of preditors.

The recent government like substance known as the Islamic Justice Courts had found a way for the people of varying clans to get along with each other. By stripping the warlords of their power and turning power over to a popular court system they briefly allowed for peace, freedom to travel without robbery, and renewed economic activity. That freaked out the CIA, which got the Ethiopians and U.N. and various thugs to reimpose chaos.

All the foreign troops in Somalia are war criminals, and all of the leaders who sent them there are war criminals.

But think beyond that. If there is peace, if there is trade between areas, and if there is some system of justice, do we really need a nation state? Do the people benefit from any state based on elevating a minority to power over a majority?