AMERICAN NEWS PROGRAMS NEED TO REPORT ON U.S. MEDDLING IN SOMALIA

The BBC reports that aid agencies say that there is a looming humanitarian crisis in Somalia as thousands of families flee the Ethiopian shelling in Mogadishu. And today BBC.com reports that the interim puppet government set up by the United States and Ethiopia is preventing international emergency aid from reaching the refugees.

Why don't we see this story prominently reported on The NewsHour or on other major networks? The real heart of the story is that the Bush administration could not bear to see peace and tranquillity take hold in Somalia and in its capital Mogadishu after 16 years of chaos and warlord violence. The problem was that the first stable Somali government was Islamic. So the U.S. sent in its warplanes last December to bomb and kill members of the ruling Council of Islamic Courts and then the U.S. incited Ethiopia to violate international law and invade Somalia.

BUSH'S DISASTROUS MEDDLING IN SOMALIA

Today the BBC reports that the latest violence in Somalia between Ethiopian forces and Somalia's Islamists has left more than 60 people dead.

"Somalia's Elman Human Rights Organisation described the violence as the worst in recent years.
"I call on the both sides to stop the fighting and shelling without any condition," chairman Sudan Ali Ahmed said to Associated Press news agency.
One resident, Ali Haji, said: "Ethiopians are trying to kill me because I am Somali, and insurgents are not happy because I am not picking up a gun and fighting with them. I have lost all hope." "

In June 2006, the Union of Islamic Courts took over Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, and for the first time in about 16 years, there was relative peace and calm. According to a BBC report,

"Local Islamic courts were set up by businessmen who wanted someone to catch and punish thieves and people who do not respect their contracts.
Some of these courts joined to form the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and their small groups of gunmen became Somalia's strongest fighting force. "

"After years of lawlessness, many Somalis are happy to have some kind of law and order. The prices of many basic foods have fallen because gunmen no longer extort money from lorries taking goods to markets."

Then this past December, Ethiopia invaded Somalia with its tanks and war planes. Ethiopia is mainly a Christian nation. Somalia is entirely Sunni Islamic. Washington and Bush secretly backed the Ethiopians and their push into Mogadishu. Since then, Mogadishu's peace and tranquillity have given way to street fighting, mayhem and civilian slaughter.

Bush obviously prefers this societal chaos to peaceful Islamic rule.

The United States, through Bush, has caused civilian casualties and civilian upheaval by its meddling, all because Bush sees everything through his simplistic "War on Terror" glasses.

INTERVIEW WITH TED KOPPEL ON MORNING EDITION NPR

I listened to Steve Inskeep interview Tedd Koppel this morning on NPR, discussing the presence of U.S. Special Forces in Ethiopia, and their participation in the invasion of Somalia this past December. I think the important part of this story should have been the ongoing militarism of the United States. Over the past 100 years, the U.S. it seems has been in a foreign war about once every 10 years. Why should the U.S. have forces in countries overseas? Why does the U.S. think it can invade sovereign countries anytime it wants? Can any American really believe the U.S. can successfully pursue its foreign policy by way of tanks, planes and bombs? This is the story that I wish Steve Inskeep would have pursued.