Silent as the Tomb: Another American-Backed Slaughter Ignored

Speaking of Somalia,"But of course, the true aim of the "regime change" operation was neither to quell a non-existent "terrorist threat" from the Islamic Courts nor to bring peace and stability to Somalia. It was to install, by blood and iron, a compliant government that would serve the American imperial agenda in the strategic Horn of Africa. "

Written by Chris Floyd

Before taking office, Barack Obama was chided -- in certain quarters, at least -- for his long silence on the slaughter in Gaza. Of course, as we noted here the other day, the main reason he stayed mum on the subject before his inauguration was that he was in complete accord with George W. Bush's stance on the American-backed massacre of civilians.

However, there is another horrific, American-backed slaughter that Obama has been silent about for even longer -- throughout his entire presidential campaign, in fact, and continuing into his presidency. We speak, of course, of the ghastly Terror War "regime change" operation in Somalia, where American bombs, American weapons, American training, American money -- and American death squads -- aided the military forces of the Ethiopian dictatorship in its brutal invasion and murderous occupation of the long-shattered land. [For more background, see this, especially the links at the bottom.]

The aim of this savage operation was to overturn the "Islamic Courts" movement -- a coalition of various sectarian factions which had brought Somalia its first semblance of stability and security after 15 years of violence, chaos and abandonment by the outside world. The broad-based movement included a range of groups, from the very moderate to the more extreme, and represented a grass-roots effort by Somalis to rebuild their own nation on their own terms.

But these terms were not those approved by the Potomac poobahs, who had their own hand-picked warlords -- some of them on the CIA payroll -- whom they preferred to see in power. And so the "regime change" was launched in December 2006, with American bombers and missiles targeting fleeing refugees while Washington's proxy forces poured in from Ethiopia.

read more | digg story