Washington’s World Order
Bombs Somalia – Why? Why Care?
By Carolyn Bennett
I’ve been wondering why the Bush administration
is bombing poor people on the east coast of Africa.
Reports indicate that Somalis had already achieved a peace among themselves.
But even if they had not, they had clearly indicated in the past that
they did not want U.S. soldiers in their country – whether on the
ground or by air or sea. U.S. citizens would feel the same, I expect;
we wouldn’t want foreigners invading or destabilizing our country.
And even if the Somalis, or a faction of Somalis, had asked for help
from the United States, the U.S. government would be morally and legally
wrong – as it was in Iraq – to use military force against
a people or their land.
So why is the U.S. attacking Somalia? And why should Americans concern
themselves with yet another act of aggression against a sovereign nation
in the Near Eastern or Middle Eastern region of the world?
Contrary to pop-psych or psychotic American opinion U.S. bombing of
Somalia in early January was not about retribution for the deaths of
U.S. soldiers ordered by the Clinton administration to descend on Somalia.
The more likely answer is that the Bush II administration is continuing
to advance the post-Cold War “New World Order”: militarily
forcing nations into submission – throwing them into perpetual
chaos, destroying their infrastructures, oppressing their peoples, all
for the purpose of advancing U.S. domination.
Though it is not an Asian nation, but an African nation, Somalia is
part of the Near or Middle East. Though a poor nation, thanks for historical
use and abuse by Northern countries, Somalia has strategic geography,
its peninsula juts into the Gulf of Aden, slightly south of Washington’s
corporate oil partner and pet undemocratic dynasty, Saudi Arabia. Bordering
Saudi Arabia, of course, are core Middle Eastern states and passages,
all of which host U.S. military might: Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Persian
Gulf, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen, the Red Sea.
Situated on the Horn of Africa, Somalia “is very much a part of
the Middle East,” Salim Lone said in an interview with Democracy
Now last week. Lone is a former spokesman for the UN mission in Iraq,
now a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya. It is “one of the
most strategic regions in the world, after the Middle East.” Because
of the wars in the Middle East, “scores of oil tankers and warships”
pass back and forth daily through the Red Sea. The Horn of Africa is
also “newly oil-rich,” he said.
The Horn “is a crossroads,” and “the U.S. wants to make
sure it dominates it fully.”
This is not the first time the U.S. has abused its power and abused
Somalia. In the late 1970s Somalia became “client/proxy for the
U.S,” taking over from the Soviets, Phyllis Bennis writes in her
2000 book Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN.
After the fall of the USSR the U.S. government dropped this poverty-stricken
country, leaving weapons on the ground to ensure factional fighting
over “scarce resources.”
When the Cold War ended so ended all viable and credible checks on U.S.
power-grabbing militaristic extremism. States needed economic assistance
and protection and found themselves at the mercy of the U.S. government.
Washington bribed, threatened, beat and browbeat them into submission
to its will. Resisters were punished. Washington wanted a “new
world order” pronounced by the first George Bush. That meant a
Middle East arranged to Washington’s whimsical preferences and
prejudices (“Radical Islamists,” as defined by Washington,
need not apply). Power to countries of the North, and their allies;
perpetual poverty to countries of the South.
Somalia is South and poor. Its people Muslim. But it is geographically
golden, geopolitically significant, situated between sub-Saharan Africa
and the countries of Arabia and southwestern Asia. Washington’s
madness says Somalia must heel or be destroyed. So U.S. bombs strike
Somalia and kill its people.
Why is it important to think about U.S. lawlessness in the world? Why
especially as President Bush and others before him declare their commitment
to spreading “democracy” and “liberty?”
“In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American
people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of
the enemy, by advancing liberty across a troubled region,” President
George W. Bush driveled last week.
But while the president conducts a kind of holy war of rhetoric with
his true believers, he hides from Americans egregious wrongs, policy
flaws and contradictions which endanger the world including the American
people.
“Throughout the [Arab Middle East] region, Phyllis Bennis writes,
it is common knowledge that ... the call for democratization that shapes
U.S. policy toward so many other countries is virtually absent regarding
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and most other Gulf
states.”
In Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis,
Bennis continues: “In the context of September 11th, U.S. arrogance
takes the form of hypocrisy. The U.S. purports to champion democracy
as the linchpin of U.S. foreign policy, while continuing to prop up
governments famous for denying any hint of democracy to their own peoples.
... We may not know for sure the exact motives of the architects of
the September assault. But it is a pretty good bet that the fury of
those who cheered them on – in Saudi Arabia, in Indonesia, in Gaza,
in Uzbekistan – was fueled not by hatred of American democracy,
but at least in part by American support for far-flung governments denying
their people the same democracy the U.S. claims to stand for.”
We should object strongly, not only to Washington’s misrepresentation
of U.S. principles embedded in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence,
but its breach of human values, moral values, the rule of law everywhere
– abroad and at home.
We should care about Somalia and the conduct of U.S. foreign
policy and our government’s use and abuse of nations and the United
Nations. Bennis has documented that post-Cold War U.S. domination at
the United Nations has caused the UN General Assembly to de-emphasize
or desist in “economic development, decolonization, democratization
of technology access, control of multinational corporations, fighting
for a more equitable international division of resources.”
Americans should care that the deadly pattern playing out in Somalia
played out in Iraq. UN opposition to military force against Iraq did
not stop U.S. unilateral aggression. Somalis had achieved peace among
themselves. But U.S. military forces bombed Somalia under Washington’s
flimsy and ludicrous pretext of their “hateful ideology” and
their “radical extremists.” Terms the President used in his
January 10 speech.
“What happened in Iraq and what happened in Somalia, Salim Lone
said, “is that the UN is once again being used by the United States
to give ... political cover,” to stamp the UN imprint, give international
justification for absolute lawlessness. Madness.
Americans should be concerned that United States foreign policy oppresses
poorer Southern nations, sacrifices them to further enrich Northern
nations and peoples and corporations. Concerned that Washington’s
real campaign is not a campaign for or against one or another ideology,
but it is a deadly crusade in the cause and continuance of what Bennis
calls “American-style law of empire.” The New World Order:
Washington’s World domination.
If we care about ourselves, we must care about Somalia – and Sudan
and Palestine and Indonesia and Colombia and Cuba and Mexico. We must
support – and perhaps establish in some country other than the
United States – a truly internationally representative organization
that lifts and serves all nations. ?
Sources used in this article: Encyclopedia Britannica; http://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2007/01/20070110-7.html;
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat.htm;
Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis
Phyllis Bennis, New York: Olive Branch Press, 2003; Phyllis Bennis Calling
the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN Olive Branch Press,
updated edition 2000; http://www.democracynow.org.
Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is an independent journalist
living in Rochester, New York.
Author of Missing News & Views in Paranoid Times (Xlibris.com).
No Room for Despair & Talking Back to Today's News (Publish America.com).
http://journals.aol.com/cwriter85/TodaysMissingNews/.
Email: cwriter85@aol.com.
