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

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riding on the back of a military truck. The boy, who stood at a
roadside stand 20 feet from the truck, was killed after he casually
pointed at the marine. When the boy's family approached US
authorities to recover his body, they were treated like criminals. The
dead youth's mother was quoted as saying of the US troops, "The way
these men are acting, they aren't solving problems, they're creating
them. It's our fault. We asked them to come."
In an incident earlier this month, a marine shot and killed two
children who had allegedly stolen food from the back of a truck.
Last Saturday, a US marine shot and killed a Somali worker who
was part of a group attempting to organize a strike at a construction
site near the Mogadishu airport.
It is this daily toll of dead and wounded suffered by a people under
the jackboot of foreign military occupation which finally led to the
explosion of popular anger in the streets of Mogadishu this week.
Meanwhile, the political and economic affairs of the Somali
people are dictated by the US "special envoy" Robert Oakley. A
veteran of US operations in Vietnam, Lebanon and Afghanistan,
Oakley personifies the "ugly American" imperialist proconsul, contemptuously
dismissing the will of the Somali people, while ordering
killings and repression to further the aims of the US occupation.
Even before the first US troops landed, the Bulletin warned
against the "hypocritical and cynical media barrage which depicts the
invasion as a noble act of humanitarian aid to the starving Somali
people."
In its December 4 statement entitled "Why is the US Invading
Somalia?" the Bulletin editorial board said: "No government official
has even attempted to clarify why a 30,000-strong force backed by
ships, attack helicopters and bombers is required to insure the
delivery of food supplies. Nor have they explained why American
troops are to be stationed at key locations throughout the country,
even though only a portion of southern Somalia is affected by the
famine." The real purposes of this deployment have now become
clear.
Dismissing Washington's "humanitarian" pretenses, the Bulletin
declared: "The White House and Pentagon interest in Somalia is
based on the strategic importance of this region to the economic,
military and geopolitical interests of American imperialism."
We further warned that the intervention would provoke resistance
from the Somali people: "The adventure in Somalia will no
more solve the crisis of American capitalism than did the massacre