Somalia’s Horrific Famine Due To US/NATO Overthrow of a Fine Conservative Islamic Courts Gov. and 16 Years of War
In Somalia, already during the 1980s, the US backed a brutal dictatorship without regard to famine on a massive scale resulting in the deaths of more than 300,000 Somalis, mostly children.
In 1992 US Marines and Rangers killed many Somalis before being pulled out of danger after Blackhawk helicopters were shot down. Over the next decade years, the US government attempted overtly and covertly with funding and arming to keep the warlord most cooperative for US investment banking interests in power.
2003-2005, Increased US funding and support for the warlords who were being defeated by a new and immensely popular conservative Islamic Courts Union government.
June 15, 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan,
“it was wrong for the United States government to support warlords in Somalia.”
In 2006, the Islamic Courts reopened Mogadishu International Airport,. The first airplane chartered by the Arab League flew from the airport for the first time in 11 years picking up Islamic Courts delegates to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.
When the popular Islamic Courts Union government forces finally defeated the warlords despite foreign troops and US helping the warlords, the US trained Ethiopian Army and Air Force invaded and murderously temporarily defeated the Somalian Islamic Courts.
January 3, 2007 – Ethiopian, U.S. airstrikes forced Islamic Courts Union government withdrawal from Kismayo. On February 9, 800 Somali demonstrators in Mogadishu, burned U.S., Ethiopian, and Ugandan flags. Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi and Burundi had committed troops to the “peacekeeping mission’,
By the end of March, 2007,the fighting intensified in Mogadishu – more than a thousand people, mostly civilians killed. Al Shabaab, the militant youth wing of the Islamic Courts rose to leadership role. Ethiopian helicopters attacked, while over mosque loudspeakers the people of the city were called upon to resist.
On March 3, 2008, the United States air strike killed the leader of Al-Shabab Aden Hashi Eyrow, but did nothing to slow down the resistance.
July 1, 2008, Somali fighters ambush Ethiopian army convoy.
August 22, 2008, Al-Shabaab retake Kismayo. US warplanes from aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in strikes (Associated Press); AC-130 plane rained gunfire down on the southern village of Hayo – “many dead bodies and animals.”
The Islamic Courts’ Youth Wing, al Shabaab (Shabaab = “youth’ in Arabic), with great cost in deaths and casualties to themselves heroically pushed the heavily weaponized Ethiopians back out of cities, though UN authorized African Union “Peace Keeping’ forces invaded as well to protect the remnants of a revamped warlord coalition,
January 25, 2009 [oft defeated] Ethiopian troops completely pull out of Somalia.
2011, Kenyan armed forces enter Somalia with US attack aircraft support, to combat al-Shabaab. Result: More death, maiming, destruction and more importantly creating
STARVATION
“Between 2010 and 2012, more than a quarter of a million people died in the famine in Somalia” ” Famines are not natural phenomena, they are catastrophic political failures” (Oxfam).
In Somalia’s case, it was because the United States of genocide destroyed Somalia’s chosen government, a normal colonial procedure.
During all these above decades famine relief has taken second priority to Western exploitive business interests in Somalia with genocidal consequences.
U.N. declares famine in southern Somalia
August 2011, the United Nations, African Union’s AMISOM ,United States, and the Transitional Federal Government[1] battling Al Shabaab claim control of Mogadishu.
“corrupt TFG[1] had foreigners defeat Islamic Courts.”
(July 24 Christian Science Monitor)
In October, US launches drones from Ethiopia (BBC)
The release of WikiLeaks cables in 2010 documented the plans and the role of the State Department in Kenya’s invasion of Somalia.
(In addition to U.S. NATO and the UN involvement in Somalia and Kenya, the state of Israel has close ties with the government in Nairobi and has contracts to train the Ethiopian Armed Forces.)
The US increased its military activity; in the first three months of 2020, it conducted twice as many airstrikes as in the same period of 2019. Many US actions killed and injured civilians. During 2020, US special forces killed a number of al-Shabab leaders through a series of air and drone strikes, cruise missile launches and even a helicopter-borne commando raid.
Dec 5, 2020 US President Donald Trump orders the withdrawal of nearly all US troops from Somalia by 15 January.
In January, following then-President Donald Trump’s orders, the US withdrew approximately 700 ground troops from Somalia. While US airstrikes significantly decreased, AFRICOM continued its strikes.
(https://www.newsnow.co.uk › World › Africa)
SOMALIA 2021. All parties to the armed conflict carried out indiscriminate attacks killing hundreds of civilians. The right to freedom of expression was suppressed; two journalists were killed and others were beaten, threatened, harassed and intimidated, and subjected to arbitrary arrest.(Amnesty International)
Sep 7, 2022 — Specter of famine Somalia currently is facing a humanitarian crisis, brought on by the worst drought in at least 40 years. Some 7.8 million require food assistance.(UN-FAO)
CIA controlled media [1] heartlessly has never reported the US years of war causing present nor past starvation death in Somalia. May the new multipolar world produce truthful and humane media able to eventually awaken even Americans themselves to demand laws that bring to an end to the criminally complicit monopoly of a few giant news and entertainment corporations overseen by the Central Intelligence Agency.
End Notes
- The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG) was formed in October–November 2004 in Nairobi, Kenya and established 2004 in Djibouti. Earlier, the officially dubbed the 2002 Somalia National Peace Conference(SNPC), and sometimes called the Djibouticonference, this was a series of meetings held in Arta, Djibouti, on April 20 – May 5, 2000. The conference was aimed at bringing together representatives of the warring warlord factions of Somalia to end the civil war that had claimed over 300,000 lives. The name Transitional National Government (TNG) was selected for the movement at this time. It wasn’t until February 26, 2006 the TFG parliament first met inside Somalia, in the city of Baidoa, 260 kilometers northwest of Mogadishu. 210 lawmakers of the 275-member parliament met in a grain warehouse temporarily converted into a meeting hall.[10] For this reason the Transitional Federal Government was sometimes referred to as the “Baidoa Government.”
The popular conservative Islamic Courts Union government forces initially defeated the warlords despite foreign troops and US helping the warlords.
- “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A,” December 26, 1977, New York Times
Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents in 67 countries; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Kerala, India; Minority Perspective, UK; Dissident Voice, Uruknet; Voice of Detroit; Ethiopian Review; Palestine Chronicle; India Times; Come Home America; OpEdNews; HistoryNews Network; Vermont Citizen News have published his articles; 300 of which are available at: click http://www.opednews.com/author/author1723.html ; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign : (King Condemned US Wars) http://kingcondemneduswars.blogspot.com/ and website historian of Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/ featuring a country by country history of US crimes and laws pertaining.
