US Aid to Somali Military 'Illegal'

A US lawmaker says Washington may be in violation of the law by providing military assistance to the Somali government, which employs children as soldiers.

Somalia should not try to bring stability to the country "on the backs of its precious children and certainly not with the help of the American taxpayer," said Democratic Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois on Wednesday.'

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U.S. Pushes for Somalia Offensive, But Settles for Starving Somali Civilians

The American-backed offensive in Somalia was supposed to be underway by now, based on months of Pentagon-planted stories in the corporate press. But there is, as yet, no offensive, because the puppet regime doesn’t even have enough soldiers to hang on to its little corner of Somalia’s capital city, Mogadishu. This is a big problem for the Obama administration, which is anxious to expand its imperial offensive from Yemen across the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa. Unfortunately for Washington, its Somali puppets have far too few troops to launch an offensive against anyone.

Unable to make headway against the Shabab Islamic militants that control 95 percent of south and central Somalia, the Americans step up their war against the civilian population, withholding food from the millions that depend on foreign aid to keep from starving.

The subjugation of Somalia is a Euro-American affair. The European Union is paying for the training of 2,000 Somali recruits in Uganda, Washington’s always-eager mercenary best friend in Black Africa. Uganda also provides thousands of its own troops to guard the Mogadishu airport, without which the puppet Somali regime would be cut off from the outside world.

Another 2,500 new Somali recruits are in neighboring Kenya, but there’s a problem getting them into action, as well. Many of the ethnic Somali recruits are Kenyan citizens. The traditional Somali homeland includes huge chunks of Kenya and Ethiopia, as well as the French and American outpost in Djibouti. The Kenyans are afraid they will lose control of these Somali soldiers if they are turned over to the regime in Mogadishu. Kenya wants their Somalis to guard the Kenyan border against other Somalis, and has refused to turn them loose for service to the U.S. -backed puppet government.

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America's First War in Africa. US AFRICOM Launches Large-Scale Offensive In Somalia

Over 43 people have been killed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in two days of fighting between Shabab (al-Shabaab) insurgent forces, who on March 10 advanced to within one mile of the nation’s presidential palace, and troops of the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government. The fighting has just begun.

The last ambassador of the United States to Somalia (1994-1995), Daniel H. Simpson, penned a column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on March 10 in which which he posed the question “why, apart from the only lightly documented charge of Islamic extremism among the Shabab, is the United States reengaging in Somalia at this time?”

He answered it in stating “Part of the reason is because the United States has its only base in Africa up the coast from Mogadishu, in Djibouti, the former French Somaliland. The U.S. Africa Command was established there in 2008, and, absent the willingness of other African countries to host it, the base in Djibouti became the headquarters for U.S. troops and fighter bombers in Africa.'

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Yemen and The Militarization of Strategic Waterways

Among Washington's strategic objectives is the militarization of major sea ways. This strategic waterway links the Mediterranean to South Asia and the Far East, through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

It is a major transit route for oil tankers. A large share of China's industrial exports to Western Europe transits through this strategic waterway. Maritime trade from East and Southern Africa to Western Europe also transits within proximity of Socotra (Suqutra), through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. (see map below). A military base in Socotra could be used to oversee the movement of vessels including war ships in an out of the Gulf of Aden.'

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Blackwater/Xe Mercenaries Arrive in Somalia, Al-Shabab Says

The bombings will be carried out in order to create a pretext to launch a campaign against Al-Shabab, a spokesman of the group, Sheikh Ali Mohammed Rage, told Reuters.

"We have discovered that US agencies are going to launch suicide bombings in public places in Mogadishu," he told reporters. "They have tried it in Algeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan… We warn of these disasters. They want to target Bakara Market and mosques, then use that to malign us."

At a meeting with tribal elders in Mogadishu on Monday, the Al-Shabab spokesman said that mercenaries of the Xe private security firm — formerly known as Blackwater — have arrived in the Somali capital, the Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported on Monday.'

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What is the Price of Your Childs Life?

In exchange for money, a certain group of people have agreed to let your kids be killed. That group is the United States Congress. And for the last several years, many of them have been accepting money from AIPAC, a supposed lobbying group that stands exposed as a spy operation for a foreign government, in order to promote that foreign government's agenda, which includes war in the Mideast, waged against that foreign government's enemies.

This selling of America's children to a foreign government to be that government's mercenaries has to rank as the greatest single betrayal of a people by their government in all of history.

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United States Invades Somalia

It is official now. According to the Associated Press, witnesses have spotted U.S. troops invading the town of Barawe, Somalia, near Mogadishu. Spelled out, the war on terror has found a new home front.

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Somalia: The Next Afghanistan

British intelligence chiefs have targeted war-torn Somalia as the next major challenge to their efforts to repel Islamic terrorism, after scores of youths left the UK for "jihad training" in the failed African state. MI5 bosses have warned ministers that the number of young Britons travelling to Somalia to fight in a "holy war", or train in terror training camps, has soared in recent years as the country has emerged as an alternative base for radical Islamic groups including al-Qa'ida.

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They have totally destroyed and raped Iraq, they are onto a no win and defeat in Afghanistan so they are lining up Somalia as their next rape and pillage of a Sovereign state!!!

Stand up and stop this total madness!!

The Crisis in Somalia: US-NATO Plans to Control the Indian Ocean

The national tragedy of Somalia didn't begin last summer with an increase in the seizure of foreign vessels off its coast; it didn't begin with the armed conflict between the Transitional Federal Government and the Islamic Courts Union in 2006 and the invasion by military forces of the US proxy government of Ethiopia; it didn't commence in 1991 with the ouster of long-time president Siad Barre and internecine fighting between militia groups.

It started in 1977.

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US Threatens to Invade Eritrea

The United States has reportedly threatened to invade Eritrea and subject it to “the same fate as Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks” for providing support to the al-Shabaab resistance movement in Somalia, which the US has since attempted to link with al-Qaeda.

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US Aircraft and Elite Navy SEALs Defeat Three Somalis in a Lifeboat

What a weekend for American foreign policy! The United States Navy, backed up by warships from 20 other nations, knocked off three Somali guys crouching with rifles in a lifeboat tied by a rope to a U.S. destroyer. To hear the U.S. corporate media tell it, the Americans had won a huge victory over the forces of evil. The sole surviving Somali was in custody – a 16-year-old who essentially gave himself up, earlier, after being hurt in a scuffle with the American cargo ship captain who is now celebrated as a hero of the seven seas and defender of United States national honor.

There is something obscene about a superpower whose media and population find great satisfaction, and some sick form of national catharsis, every time they manage to overcome a weak and desperate opponent.

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You are Being Lied to About Pirates

Who imagined that in 2009, the world’s governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the U.S. to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth.

But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as “one of the great menaces of our times” have an extraordinary story to tell - and some justice on their side.

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The Nightmare in Somalia

U.S.-BACKED Ethiopian troops withdrew from their remaining positions in Somalia at the end of January, bringing an end to a two-year occupation carried out in the guise of the "war on terror."

The Ethiopian Army invaded Somalia in December 2006, overthrowing the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) government and installing the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Two years later, approximately 10,000 people have lost their lives, and 1.1 million Somalis were turned into refugees, the victims of Ethiopian occupiers and an ongoing civil war.

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African Union Troops 'Shell Somali Civilians'

African Union troops in Somalia have been accused of indiscriminately shelling a Mogadishu neighbourhood after an attempted suicide bomb attack on their base.

At least 22 people were killed in the car bomb blast and an ensuing firefight on Saturday, witnesses and medics said.

Several homes were hit by artillery fire just minutes after the vehicle blew up, residents of the Hodan neighbourhood said.

"We are civilians - we don't have weapons - yet we are caught in the middle of the fighting from the African troops who allegedly came here for peacekeeping," Adam Abdi said.

"This area was bombed more than six times but there are no military bases here."

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UN Declares Open Season On Somalia

With this resolution, the entire world – the entire world – has turned its back on the people of Somalia. They have been abandoned as utterly, completely – and officially -- as any people in history.

We reported here last week about American plans to turn Somalia into a global free-fire zone, with powerful militaries from around the world given carte blanche to launch armed incursions into Somali territory and fill the nation's skies with bombers, fighters and missiles. This nightmare scenario --- an unlimited escalation of bloodshed and destruction in one of the most ravaged, shattered lands on earth – has now become a reality

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US Seeks to Turn Somalia into Global Free-Fire Zone

Not content with destroying the only vestige of stability that Somalia had known for almost two decades by arming, backing and participating in a brutal "regime change" invasion by Ethiopia, the Bush Administration now wants to turn the ravaged land into an international "free fire zone," a giant Fallujah where any powerful nation on earth can launch armed incursions on Somali soil, wreaking the usual "collateral damage" in the search for pirates -- or for those arbitrarily designated as pirates.

The Bush Regime is drafting a UN Security Council resolution that will give "the international community" carte blanche to "hunt down" alleged pirates on land in Somalia, the Guardian reports:

A draft resolution that would permit states fighting piracy to "take all necessary measures ashore in Somalia, including in its airspace" has been circulated to members of the UN Security Council. Prior consent for raids would be required from Somalia's weak and fractured government...

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Piracy In The Red Sea: Saudi Points Towards Israel

Not only do columnists and analysts openly accuse Israel of sponsoring acts of piracy that multiply off Somali waters, but they also do not hide their fears of an internationalization of security in the Red Sea, where Israel plays a decisive role.
“What is happening in the Horn of Africa is not a simple case of piracy. These acts of piracy raise various questions about the capabilities and equipment of simple outlaws who are seeking ransoms,” wrote Tuesday (November 25) Nawaf Al-Meshal Sabhan in the Saudi daily Al-Iqtissadia.

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'NOBODY IS WATCHING'

America's hidden war in Somalia

To glimpse America's secret war in Africa, you must bang with a rock on the iron gate of the prison in this remote port in northern Somalia. A sleepy guard will yank open a rusty deadbolt. Then, you ask to speak to an inmate named Mohamed Ali Isse.Isse, 36, is a convicted murderer and jihadist. He is known among his fellow prisoners, with grudging awe, as "The Man with the American Thing in His Leg."That "thing" is a stainless steel surgical pin screwed into his bullet-shattered femur, courtesy, he says, of the U.S. Navy. How it got there — or more to the point, how Isse ended up in this crumbling, stone-walled hellhole at the uttermost end of the Earth—is a story that the U.S. government probably would prefer to remain untold.

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China and the Congo Wars: AFRICOM. America's New Military Command

Just weeks after President George W. Bush signed the Order creating a new US military command dedicated to Africa, AFRICOM, events on the mineral-rich continent have erupted which suggest a major agenda of the incoming Obama Presidency will be for the son of a black Kenyan to focus US resources, military and other, on dealing with the Republic of Congo, the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea, the oil-rich Darfur region of southern Sudan and increasingly the Somali ‘pirate threat’ to sea lanes in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. The legitimate question is whether it is mere coincidence that Africa appears just at this time to become a new geopolitical ‘hot spot’ or whether it has a direct link to the formal creation of AFRICOM.

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Blackwater sends warship to Gulf of Aden

BLACKWATER Worldwide — the US private military contractor embroiled in controversy over its actions in Iraq — has sent a private sector warship equipped with helicopters to the Gulf of Aden, and is offering its services to shipowners concerned with Somali piracy.

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