Volgens Reuters heeft de VS afgelopen zondag een luchtaanval uitgevoerd op al-Shabaab in Somalië. Regeringswoordvoerders van de VS gingen niet specifiek in op wat voor soort aanval het ging, een aanval met drones, of een 'normaal luchtbombardement'.
Zoals gewoonlijk berichtten de reguliere media over deze zaak
*, zonder ook maar te hebben gevraagd naar het waarom en hoe (zoals gezegd). (en vaak zonder te vragen naar het aantal onverdachte slachtoffers, onverdacht daar de VS zich het recht voorbehoudt mensen die zij verdenken, met drones standrechtelijk, dus zonder enige rechtspraak, te vermoorden)
Vreemd genoeg is de invloed van al-Shabaab in Somalië bijna tot nul gereduceerd, ook heeft deze islamitische terreurgroep nooit enig westers doel aangevallen.......
Reuters sprak over al-Shabaab als zijnde gelinkt aan Al Qaida. Als zodanig zou al-Shabaab een doelwit zijn van de VS, dit vanwege de aanslagen van 911 in 2001. Echter in 2001 bestond al-Shabaab niet eens!!
Vreemd genoeg, volgens een artikel van Shahtahmasebi op Anti-Media, zijn alle terreurgroepen in Syrië geen doel van de VS, hoewel ze allen zijn gelinkt aan Al Qaida, behalve één dan: IS.........
De VS verdedigt haar terroristische aanslagen (middels drones, luchtbombardementen en/of terreur via troepen op de grond) altijd met het argument, dat men deze uitvoert vanwege zelfverdediging, echter de VS troepen lopen alleen gevaar als ze weer eens illegaal een land binnenvallen (= extreme terreur!), waar ze niets te zoeken hebben, dan wel militair foute regimes steunen.
Saoedi-Arabië heeft de corrupte Somalische regering omgekocht en voor 50 miljoen dollar heeft deze regering de banden met Iran verbroken en assisteert S-A bij haar genocide op de sjiitische bevolking in Jemen....... Ook de VS biedt S-A hulp bij deze genocide, met drone aanvallen (die het ook al vanaf Obama op Somalië uitvoert), raketbeschietingen, bombardementen en geheime militaire acties op de grond.......
Shahtahmasebi maakt één kapitale fout in zijn artikel, volgens hem is Somalië een tussenstation voor wapenleveranties uit Iran voor de (sjiitische) Houthi rebellen. Ten eerste is dat in tegenspraak met zijn eerder genoemde deal tussen S-A en de Somalische regering en ten tweede zijn er nooit bewijzen geleverd voor deze wapenleveranties, al houden de westerse afhankelijke massamedia en het merendeel van de westerse politici vol dat dit wel zo is.........
Somalië is strategisch uiterst belangrijk gelegen, één van de hoofdoorzaken voor het geweld van de VS en haar terreurpartner S-A...... Hetzelfde geldt overigens voor Jemen.
Lees dit verder prima artikel van Shahtahmasebi, waarin hij verder spreekt over een groot aantal militaire bases van de VS op Afrikaans grondgebied:
What
You Aren’t Being Told About The US’ War in Somalia
July
5, 2017 at 2:34 pm
(ANTIMEDIA) — On
Sunday, the U.S. military carried out an airstrike in Somalia against al-Qaeda-linked terror group al-Shabaab, U.S. officials said on
Monday, as reported by Reuters.
Officials
did not specify whether it was a drone strike, and the Pentagon has
not disclosed any additional information about the strike. The U.S.
has been drone-striking Somalia
for some time now, a policy Barack Obama escalated.
As
is usually the case, the media reports these
developments without questioning the underlying narrative, and
millions of ordinary Americans go about their day without so much as
batting an eyelid. Just another day in Africa, right?
However,
even Reuters acknowledged
that al-Shabaab has been pushed out of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital
city, and has lost control of most of the country’s cities and
towns. Further, according to
the Guardian, al-Shabaab
has never been implicated in any plots to strike the U.S. or Europe.
So
why is this group a concern for the United States? Is it simply
because they are aligned with al-Qaeda?
Consider
this passage from
the Intercept’s Glenn
Greenwald from March of last year:
“Since
2001, the U.S. government has legally justified
its we-bomb-wherever-we-want approach
by pointing to the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force
(AUMF), enacted by Congress in the wake of 9/11 to authorize the
targeting of al Qaeda and ‘affiliated’ forces. But al Shabaab did
not exist in 2001 and had nothing to do with 9/11. Indeed, the group
has not tried to attack the U.S. but instead, as the New
York Times’ Charlie
Savage noted in
2011, ‘is focused on a parochial insurgency in Somalia.’ As a
result, reported Savage, even ‘the [Obama] administration does not
consider the United States to be at war with every member of the
Shabaab.’”
While
we are on the topic, try conducting a Google search on any
of the rebel groups currently
being supported – and not targeted – by the United States and its
allies in Syria. Try to find one that isn’t aligned with al-Qaeda.
It’s almost impossible.
The only major group in Syria that is currently not backed by
al-Qaeda in some way, shape, or form is ISIS.
Somalia
was one of the seven countries four-star General Wesley
Clark identified years
ago as a target of American military intervention following the
September 11 attacks in 2001. It is also one of the countries that
made it onto Trump’s infamously revised
travel ban,
which is now being enforced courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Although
under Barack Obama the U.S. was waging
a covert war in
Somalia rife with drone strikes and Special Forces on the ground,
Donald Trump has ramped
up this operation alongside
a number of other conflicts, particularly in Iraq and Syria. Trump
has also approved the deployment of regular U.S. troops to Somalia
for the first time since 1994. One of these troops has already
been killed in
a clash with the terror group.
To
put it simply, these American troops are not just advising and
training local troops, they are also directly
involved in
combat missions. As these clashes intensify, expect more American
deaths to come, and expect further deployments.
Such
deployments will also likely lead increased air strikes because the
U.S. argues that such strikes are
needed
to defend their troops from Islamic militants. However, even the New
York Times, an
establishment media outlet, can see right
through this
circular reasoning:
“In
its public announcements, the Pentagon sometimes characterizes the
operations as ‘self-defense strikes,’ though some analysts have
said this rationale has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It
is only because American forces are now being deployed on the front
lines in Somalia that they face imminent threats from the
Shabab.” [emphasis
added]
To
recap, the United States essentially identified a group that poses no
threat to the United States or Europe and targeted it with drone
strikes over the course of Obama’s presidency. As we have seen
across the globe, drone strikes actually help turn small insurgent
groups into a very formidable forces due
to the instability these strikes create and the innocent lives they
take. In some instances, drone strikes targeting and eradicating a
group’s leaders can actually cause a more violent
person to
rise up and take control.
Did
America’s representatives of so-called democracy ever debate this
war in Somalia? What do ordinary Americans even know about Somalia or
al-Shabaab? Most Americans probably aren’t even aware that although
there is a central government of sorts, the country has been widely
regarded as a lawless, failed
state.
Can the average American point to Somalia on a map?
Indeed,
locating Somalia on a world map would aid the reader in understanding
the geostrategic importance of such a country. As Geopolitical
Futures has explained:
“Somalia’s
northern coast borders the Gulf of Aden, which leads to Bab
el-Mandeb, a narrow chokepoint through which all maritime traffic
from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean must pass. Avoiding
this strait would take all goods from the Persian Gulf – including
oil – around the entire African continent to reach European and
American markets. It is also a valuable staging ground for navies to
project power on to the Arabian Peninsula.”
Somalia
is so important that Saudi Arabia offered $50
million to its government to break ties with Iran. Not surprisingly,
Somalia is now one of the countries assisting Saudi
Arabia in its invasion of Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab
world.
That
being said, Somalia is allegedly a transit point in a
supposed weapons route from
Iran to Yemen that supplies the Yemeni opposition with weaponry to
combat Saudi-led forces in the war-torn country. If the U.S.-backed
Saudi-led coalition is unsuccessful in crushing the Yemeni
resistance, and if a government is established in Yemen that aligns
itself with Tehran, the U.S. could slowly begin to lose strategic
maritime position and influence in this vital region.
In
this context, Somalia’s proximity to Yemen means the North African
nation is one of those strategic maritime areas the U.S. cannot
afford to lose.
Somalia’s
recently elected president, who was chosen in an election paid for
by the U.S. and the E.U., is supportive of
American military assistance even though his people are, in most
cases, banned from visiting the United States.
Further,
as Truthout observes,
Somalia is just one of many African locations in which the U.S.
military has asserted itself:
“The
US Africa Command oversees a vast array of ‘outposts’ —
categorized in Pentagon-speak as ‘consisting of two forward
operating sites [including the one official base in Djibouti], 13
cooperative security locations, and 31 contingency locations.’
Secret documents in 2015 listed thirty-six outposts ‘scattered
across 24 African countries. These include low-profile
locations — from Kenya to South Sudan to a shadowy Libyan airfield
— that have never previously been mentioned in published reports.
Today, according to an AFRICOM spokesperson, the number of
these sites has actually swelled to 46, including ’15 enduring
locations.’’”
The
problem with this region, from the perspective of America’s
warmongering class, is the underlying power struggle between the
United States and China. China is investing heavily in Africa and has
also signaled its intention to build
military bases in
Africa’s strategic areas. In turn, the U.S. needs to assert itself
as much as possible to counter the rise of the Chinese presence in
Africa. China has invested over
$200 billion in Africa to date, and Somalia regards China
as a “vital ally.”
In
another example, China is already using large investments
to squeeze the
U.S. out of Pakistan, a former U.S. client state. While there is much
to be made of China’s intentions and its actions, there is a
noticeable difference in that currently, China opts for alternative
ways of spreading its influence — as opposed to relentlessly
bombing nations into submission.
To
some countries, China might be a breath of fresh air in comparison to
its American counterpart.
Creative
Commons / Anti-Media / Report
a typo
