WSWS
The Obama administration is preparing a new military intervention in Somalia under the pretext of humanitarian concern for starving drought victims. The media has fallen into line with a campaign mixing crocodile tears and hand-wringing with denunciations of the Islamist movement al-Shabaab, which is blamed for the deepening crisis.
Just as the bombing campaign in Libya was launched with appeals to save the civilian population of Benghazi from slaughter, so now a fresh intervention is being prepared in Africa supposedly to save the starving children of Somalia. This is a cynical exercise in public deception.
Al-Shabaab is at most 10,000 strong, according to a report produced for the US Council on Foreign Relations. Its most loyal forces probably amount to only a few hundred fighters. It has no organisational connections to Al Qaeda, according to the National Counterterrorism Center.
Yet US officials blame this organisation for the present famine. "The relentless terrorism by al-Shabaab against its people has turned an already severe situation into a dire one that is only expected to get worse," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared last week.
In fact, it is Washington that has denied aid to all areas of Somalia that are not under the control of the US-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), meaning that aid is restricted to a few square miles. "We are committed to saving lives in Somalia and we are already working in any area not controlled by al-Shabaab," Donald Steinberg, deputy administrator of USAid told a press conference in London. "Unfortunately, about 60 percent of people affected are in al-Shabaab territories." [...]
The Obama administration is preparing a new military intervention in Somalia under the pretext of humanitarian concern for starving drought victims. The media has fallen into line with a campaign mixing crocodile tears and hand-wringing with denunciations of the Islamist movement al-Shabaab, which is blamed for the deepening crisis.
Just as the bombing campaign in Libya was launched with appeals to save the civilian population of Benghazi from slaughter, so now a fresh intervention is being prepared in Africa supposedly to save the starving children of Somalia. This is a cynical exercise in public deception.
Al-Shabaab is at most 10,000 strong, according to a report produced for the US Council on Foreign Relations. Its most loyal forces probably amount to only a few hundred fighters. It has no organisational connections to Al Qaeda, according to the National Counterterrorism Center.
Yet US officials blame this organisation for the present famine. "The relentless terrorism by al-Shabaab against its people has turned an already severe situation into a dire one that is only expected to get worse," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared last week.
In fact, it is Washington that has denied aid to all areas of Somalia that are not under the control of the US-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), meaning that aid is restricted to a few square miles. "We are committed to saving lives in Somalia and we are already working in any area not controlled by al-Shabaab," Donald Steinberg, deputy administrator of USAid told a press conference in London. "Unfortunately, about 60 percent of people affected are in al-Shabaab territories." [...]
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