The Struggle for Somali: Warlords, Islamists, US Global Militarism and Women

I am saying this partly because the American people are being fed by one sided tragic saga about US involvement in Somalia. Hence, the 2001 Ridley Scott's Hollywood's film 'Blackhawk Down' based on Mark Bodwen's Memoir of the same name had played up the Hollywood formula: 'good guys' -- usually, white, heterosexual, viral and militaristic- fighting the 'bad guys' -- weak, black, feminized, liars and cowards.

In the case of Canada, the shameful episode of the torture of Shidane Arone was quickly resolved by disbanding the airborne regiment whose members were found to be responsible the torture and killing of the Somali teenage boy in the city of Beletwn (Beletuen) . After a quick Royal Commission national prestige was affirmed and this sad episode quickly forgotten.

Three simple points: First, that Somalia, similar to Lebanon has been, and still is, a victim of its highly strategic geograp wrapped around the Horn of Africa, jutting out into the Indian ocean.

The French, The British and the Italians all received their slice of Somalia in order to use it to suite their global strategic needs. The history of Somalia's struggle against colonial imposition is long and rich. It is worth mentioning that before the aerial bombing of cities, civilians and military installations in Iraq, Afghanistan and now in Lebanon, as part of new total war regime, at the turn of the last century, it was the British who used aerial bombing of northern Somalia, after suffering a humiliating defeat in the hands of poorly armed Somali guerrilla resistance against British occupation of Somalia, a central component to British colonial rule of Somalia.

The British, making of ample use of recent technological advices in modern warfare, mounted a swift and well-coordinated aerial, ground and naval assault on Dervish positions in the early morning of January 21, 1920, with 12 warplanes taking part in the attack, perhaps the first such weapons ever used against Africans.

The British also had their own 'Islamist bad guys.' In the case of Somalia, it was Sayyid Muhammed Abdulla Hassan --a master military strategist and the greatest poet Somalia had every produced. He was also enemy number one for the British who called him the 'Mad Mullah. The British had no compunction in unleashing brute force against civilians who were suspected of supporting or sympathizing with anti-colonial guerilla fighters.

We can also speak about the use of 'famine' as a powerful instrument of humiliation. This was particularly evident in United State's slow response to the 1991 collapse of central authority in Somalia and the ensuing civil war and mass starvation. When the US finally decided to get involved, rather than engaging in the difficult task of disarming the warlords and their armed gangs who were terrorizing the civilian population, Bush Sr 'sadministration had chosen to sent the US Marines in 'Operation Restore Hope' to deliver food to the starving population of Somalia without offering them hope of long term peace or security. In this way, Operation Restore Hope was a cynical PR mission designed to promote US hyper-militarism as a new means to deliver humanitarian aid.

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