Glen Ford / Black Agenda Radio – 2011-07-18 00:39:36
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28605.htm
(July 16, 2011) — Even as US militarization of the Horn of Africa has contributed massively to the threatened starvation of millions, the Americans have announced an escalation of drone attacks against Somalia and the establishment of a Marine task force for the region. A United Nations spokesman describes the food and refugee emergency in Somalia as the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” with millions at immediate risk.
Not coincidentally, the epicenter of the disaster is the area where Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia meet — which is also a focus of US Special Forces, surveillance and logistics activity.
The Americans blame the al-Shabab resistance for exacerbating the drought emergency, but for at least two years the Americans have used food as a weapon of war in Somalia, in an effort to starve out those who might be supporting the Shabab. The US has armed an array of militias operating near the Ethiopian and Kenyan borders, making normal agricultural pursuits all but impossible, and the current world-class catastrophe, inevitable.
Whenever the US rachets up its armed interventions in Somalia, disaster follows. Four years ago, after the Americans instigated an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia to overthrow an Islamist government that had brought a semblance of peace to the region, it set off what the United Nations then called “the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa — worse than Darfur.” Today, many of those same refugees are confronted with the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet — once again, largely courtesy of the United States.
“The Obama administration has upgraded Somalia and Yemen as hotspots in its endless war-making.”
The original crime — the one from which all the other horrors flow — was the theft of Somalia’s government, and the crushing of its people’s dreams for peace. The American proxy aggression, largely conducted through Ethiopia and now Kenya, and much of it directed from Djibouti, the actual headquarters of the US Africa Command, AFRICOM — is the root cause of the social disintegration of Somalia, which has pushed much of the population to the edge of extinction.
These are the crimes against humanity that international courts should be prosecuting. Instead, the International Criminal Court has become a tool of the aggressor, and even proposes to deploy the US military as its deputies, to enforce its warrants: justice turned upside down.
The newly activated Marine task force will augment America’s stepped up drone attacks against the Shabab, an escalation of Obama’s second shooting war in Africa, and war number 6, globally.
In addition to the Marines and the drones, the US recently committed $45 million to equipment and training for the Ugandan and Burundian soldiers that are all that props up the puppet Somali government in Mogadishu, the capital.
The Obama administration has upgraded Somalia and Yemen as hotspots in its endless war-making, claiming al-Qaida operatives in the region are even more dangerous to the US than their counterparts in Afghanistan and Pakistan — which essentially tells us that al-Qaida isn’t really all that relevant to why American is spreading war and misery all over the planet. What is clear, is that the world’s greatest humanitarian threat lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
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