Mondo Apocalypto: Somalis Sacrificed for Bush's Speech

Written by Chris Floyd

Wednesday, 10 January 2007 16:46

As the U.S. bombing of Somalia enters its third day (see earlier post here), Tom Raum of AP offers a telling insight as to why at least 27 Somali citizens have been killed: to give some extra oomph to Bush's "New Way Forward" snake oil pitch tonight. Bush and his allies will use the "attack on al-Qaeda targets in Somalia" as a way to morph the unprovoked war against Iraq -- which had no ties to al Qaeda or any terrorist group that threatened the United States -- into the "broader War on Terror." From Raum:

As Bush outlines his new Iraq strategy, he may well mention the new U.S. airstrikes in Somalia that targeted Islamic extremists. He can cite the war on terrorism's multiple fronts. It fits in with his fight-them-abroad-not-at-home thesis. Administration allies suggest the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia in 1993 helped strengthen the al-Qaida terror network.

"Just as the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan emboldened and enlarged al-Qaida, just as our withdrawal from Somalia encouraged them to go find more targets, our defeat in Iraq would expand the numbers of terrorists and embolden them to seek new strategic targets," said Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, a Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Odd to see a rock-ribbed Republican equating the United States with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan -- but then, as the old saying goes, sycophancy makes strange bedfellows. The Right will now embrace any contradiction whatsoever if it serves to bolster the Leader in his time of need. I expect we will soon be seeing comparisons between the US troubles in Iraq with the "counterinsurgency difficulties encountered by German forces in the Ukraine and Yugoslavia during the 1940s." And Thornberry neglected to mention that al-Qaeda and its Islamist allies were "emboldened and enlarged" by the money and arms of the CIA, which was instrumental in that "Soviet defeat in Afghanistan" which Thornberry and the Right now lament as the great boost to terrorism that led to 9/11. The words "hoist" and "petard" suggest themselves here.

So more than two dozen innocent human beings, men, women and children, including a four-year-old boy, had to die -- for the sake of a talking point, for the sake of propaganda, for the sake of escalating an illegal war that has itself killed more than 600,000 innocent people. They are literal sacrifices on the altar of Bush's arrogance.

More in this excellent piece by Justin Raimondo: They Never Learn. ***

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