Somalia's Terror War Suffering--Chris Floyd

Tweet Empire Burlesque on Somalia--click here: http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php and scroll down to One Eye Open: A Blinkered Glimpse of Somalia's Terror War Suffering

"Now that it's over, now that it can be portrayed as another "refugee crisis" to tug at the heartstrings, the American corporate media have deigned to notice the suffering of Somalia, the latest target of a military "regime change" operation in Bush's Terror War.

"Hundreds of innocent people were killed and hundreds of thousands were driven from their homes as the American-trained, American-funded troops of Ethiopia's brutal dictatorship swept into Somalia late last year and, with the aid of local warlords in the pay of the CIA, overthrew the only stable government the nation had known in the last 15 years of violent anarchy. American bombers attacked fleeing refugees, killing dozens in an ostensible attempt to kill a handful of alleged al Qaeda operatives -- none of whom were killed by the airstrikes or captured by the Special Forces troops that Bush also dispatched as part of the invasion. American security apparatchiks captured and questioned Somali refugees who made it over the border to Kenya -- and "renditioned" many of them to Ethiopia's infamous torture chambers, including an American citizen who was held in the dungeons of Bush's ally for months, although the FBI itself had declared that he was innocent. (He was only released last week.)

"(For extensive background on the Bush-backed slaughter in Somalia, see the compendium of our previous posts -- with copious links to sources -- after the jump.)

"Very little of this was even mentioned in the American media -- and when it was, it was almost always filtered through the Bush Administration's propaganda lens, which painted the rape and sacking of Somalia as a noble crusade against "al Qaeda-connected terrorists." This was not remotely true, but of course, that didn't matter; evoking the name of "al Qaeda," however speciously, is enough to justify any slaughter of civilians, any crime, any abuse of human rights these days.

"And so Somalia was conquered. The CIA's warlords have been installed in power. The most hardcore elements of the former broad-based Islamic government have turned to "asymmetrical warfare" against the foreign-implanted regime, joined in the insurgency by others radicalized by suffering and seeking revenge, leaving the majority of Somalis caught in the crossfire, their lives blighted by terrorist attacks and savage "counterinsurgency" actions by the occupying power -- the entirely predictable result of iron-fisted "regime change."