CIA-sponsored Warlords Lose in Somalia

Jun 12, 2006

If we are to go by George Bush’s rhetoric, the U.S. has just lost another battle in the “war on terrorism.” Last week, warlords sponsored by the CIA were run out of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, by a militia force led by Islamic fundamentalists.

But the Bush administration doesn’t seem too shaken by this defeat. U.S. officials have already said that they are willing to “hold discussions” with the victors on how to keep Somalia “safe from terrorists.”

So the same fundamentalists that the U.S. has been accusing of supporting terrorism are now supposed to be transformed into allies against terrorism. And why not? It’s nothing new for “enemies” of the U.S. to turn into “friends” overnight. The warlords that the U.S. had been paying off secretly are the same ones the U.S. had declared the enemy in 1993, when President Clinton sent troops to invade Somalia.

The fact that the U.S. had been paying off the warlords was revealed only recently, after it became obvious that they were losing the war. This information was leaked to the press apparently by CIA officials who had opposed this policy but probably would have kept quiet if the warlords had won.

Well, call it another episode in Bush’s “terrorism wars.” These wars are fought not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but all over the world. They are fought overtly and covertly, using the U.S. military and paid mercenaries.

Yes it’s raging, the “war on terrorism,” except that it has nothing to do with making the world safe against terrorism, as Bush claims!

On the contrary, U.S. sponsorship of warlords and dictators, whether they call themselves religious or secular, is the main driving force for many of the wars going on in different parts of the world–which makes the world, including the U.S., more violent and more unsafe for everybody.