Workers League - Behind the US invasion of Somalia - Mehring Books

ival militia leaders. As The New York Times indicated on Thursday,
US officials are by no means optimistic that mediation between these
leaders can halt the resistance of the Somali people: "Though
General Aidid appeared conciliatory in his radio broadcast tonight,
it was uncertain whether the chaos unleashed today could be contained
in the coming days."
The big business media has imposed what amounts to a semiblackout
on the news from Mogadishu. Having played such a big part
in selling the US invasion of Somalia as a "humanitarian mission" at
the outset, the media either says nothing or cynically parrots the lies
handed out by the Pentagon in order to disguise the meaning of these
events. This self-censorship by the capitalist press reflects the unanimity
of the American capitalist ruling class in support of
Washington's military onslaught against a defenseless people.
Workers, however, should pose certain pointed questions. How is
it that a humanitarian relief operation to feed the starving has turned
into a bloody massacre of unarmed civilians demonstrating against
foreign occupation? Why have thousands of Somali youth risen up
and hurled themselves against the US troops and tanks which were
supposedly sent to help them? Neither the official US spokesmen nor
the capitalist media offer any explanations.
From the outset, Operation Restore Hope represented not an act
of humanitarian relief, but a brutal violation of the sovereignty of the
Somali people. The US invasion came six months after the worst of
Somalia's famine was over and under conditions in which the horrific
suffering of the Somali people had already begun to abate.
The pretense of feeding the starving was used to launch a longprepared
occupation of the Horn of Africa, a region with vital
strategic significance for US imperialism and its drive to control the
oil wealth and sea lanes of the Middle East and the vast mineral
resources of Africa.
Within the initial 24 hours of the US invasion, American troops
had claimed their first Somali civilian casualties. These killings have
continued and intensified as the occupation has dragged on. The
Pentagon refuses to account for these deaths. As the military brass
puts it, "we're no longer in the business of body counts." The
capitalist media, for its part, is indifferent to the suffering of the
Somalis. Only a very few of these daily incidents ever find their way
into television or newspaper reports.
Last Saturday, The New York Times published an account of the
killing of a 13-year-old boy who was shot to death by a US marine
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