CRUEL EXECUTIONS OF CHILDREN IN IRAN & SOMALIA

I tend to object to the Bush/Cheney attempt to demonize Iran and make it an "enemy." However, I certainly view Iran's use of the death penalty as egregiously wrong as I find it severely objectionable when carried out in the United States.

For a state, any state, to take the life of a person, even though that person has been adjudged to have committed some heinous act, is morally wrong and an immoral overreaching of a state's powers.

I refer to reports of the latest execution of a juvenile in Iran. The BBC reports:

"The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the Afghan man, identified as Gholamreza H, was hanged in Isfahan province on 30 October. He was 19 when the execution was carried out, but had been convicted for a murder he committed in November 2006 as a 17-year-old. .. . .

"Human Rights Watch says 26 juvenile offenders have been executed in Iran since January 2005, out of a worldwide total of 32 known executions."

Furthermore, I want to strenuously protest the stoning of a 13-year old girl in Somalia after being gang raped by three adult males.

Here is the BBC's account of the gruesome and cruel happening.

For this resurgence in primitive fundamentalist Islamic morality, I place the blame squarely on Bush and Cheney. It was these American leaders who overturned the government of the Islamic Courts in Mogadishu several years ago by egging the Ethiopians, centuries old enemies of Somalians, to invade and occupy much of Somalia. Just at the time when a moderate Islamic government was restoring commerce and a normal course of living to Somalia, Bush and Cheney upset the whole equilibrium by their misplaced zeal against any Islamic form of government.

The result has been two years of armed conflict, shelling of civilians, disintegration of any civilized life, destruction of the city of Mogadishu, and total lawlessness. What then happens are outrages like this one where fundamentalist militants impose their savage morality on some unfortunate 13-year old child.

BUSH'S MEDDLING IN SOMALIA RESULTS IN DESTRUCTION OF CAPITAL MOGADISHU

The BBC reports on the dire strait of residents of Mogadishu, capital of Somalia. Just today 12 civilians at a market were killed in a fire fight between the U.S. backed "government" and insurgents from Islamic Courts.

Reports the BBC:

"The world should be shocked at the systematic destruction of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and its residents, says lobby group Human Rights Watch.

"The organisation told the BBC the city had become a zone of free-fire between government and insurgent forces.

"It said if such a situation was happening anywhere else in the world, like Georgia or Lebanon for example, it would be considered a travesty.

"Instead Somalia was the most ignored tragedy in the world today, HRW said."

And who is responsible for the carnage and destruction of the city? George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who so fear an Islamic government in northeast Africa that they would try to overthrow a legitimate government and install their own non-Islamic friends. Bush and Cheney also persuaded Ethiopia, an enemy of Somalia, to invade and occupy Mogadishu. In Bush's eyes, all Islamic peoples are terrorists.

The result is that Somalia is a burnt out shell where the poorest and the most vulnerable still reside because they have no place to go and don't have the wherewithall to get out.

The BBC's Mark Doyle reports on visiting Mogadishu:

"BBC World Affairs correspondent Mark Doyle recently visited Mogadishu and says the city on the Indian Ocean, which was previously one of Africa's trading hubs with the Middle East, is dying.

"Now whole swathes of it are rubble or skeletons of buildings without doors or windows or roofs, he says.

"He adds that the most shocking, eerie aspect of it is that in many parts of the capital all the people have fled."

REPORTS ON PEACE ACCORD IN SOMALIA - ETHIOPIANS MAY BE FORCED TO CEASE HATED OCCUPATION

The BBC is reporting that there has been a peace agreement signed by both the provisional government and the insurgents in Somalia. Part of the accord is that Ethiopia must withdraw its troops within 120 days.

If this peace report is true, it will end the most recent bloody fighting that has consumed Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, and left it a ruined ghost town.

Somalis hate the invading and occupying Ethiopian army that illegally came into Somalia at the behest of Ethiopia's patron, George Bush and the United States. Bush so hated the government of the Islamic Courts that, notwithstanding the peace which the Islamic Courts brought to Mogadishu and all of Somalia in 2006, he egged on the Ethiopians to invade Somalia. Bush also stationed U.S. war ships off Somalia's coast so that the U.S. could fire hundred-pound shells into small Somalian villages, with the goal of killing Islamic insurgents, but which actually killed and maimed far more innocent civilians, including women and children.

So a peace breakthrough is most welcome. Somalians will look forward to the withdrawal of Ethiopian marauders. However, part of the deal should be the forced withdrawal of U.S. war ships. The U.S. and its president George Bush must also promise to cease interfering in Somalia or disturbing its chosen government.

U.S.SHOOTS CRUISE MISSILES INTO SOMALIA, MANY SOMALIANS COME TO HATE U.S.

Can't the United States engage in foreign policy initiatives without relying on its overwhelming military? Specifically, why can't George Bush and the White House let Somalians decide what type of government they want without meddling, interfering, sending in the Ethiopian Army, and just recently firing four or more cruise missiles into some little Somalian village killing a Somalian insurgent and probably his whole family?

The BBC reported on May 1st:

"The US military has confirmed that it carried out a pre-dawn missile strike which killed a senior leader of an Islamist militant group in Somalia.
"A spokesman said the target of the attack in the town of Dusamareb was an al-Qaeda leader, but would not name him or say whether it had been successful.
"The strike hit the home of Aden Hashi Ayro, the military head of al-Shabab, which controls much of Somalia.
"At least 10 other people, including another al-Shabab leader, also died.

"But local elders have said up to 30 bodies have been recovered from the scene, according to unconfirmed reports. "

First of all, there should not be U.S. Naval warships sitting off the coast of Somalia, looking to assassinate Somali leaders. Second, the U.S. needs to come to its senses and realize that it will gain nothing by brute military strength, like firing cruise missiles into some Somalian agrarian village and killing Somalis.

Imagine if you were Somalian. What would you think about a foreign power like the U.S. shooting missiles into one of your towns and killing a fellow countryman and his whole family? Would you like it? Would it make you more inclined to be friendly towards the United States? Of course not. It would turn you into a rabid anti-American, ready to go out and kill any and all Americans.

So why do the Republicans under Bush support such heavy-handed expression of military force?

Let the Somalians take care of their own politics, let them choose their own government, stop trying to influence other countries' politics with military missiles and tanks.

ETHIOPIA & UNITED STATES WAGE WAR AGAINST SOMALIA

The BBC reports today that more people have been killed in Somalia in fighting between the invading Ethiopians and Somali insurgents.

"At least 13 people have been killed in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in fresh clashes between Islamists and Ethiopian troops backing the interim government.

"The deaths bring to at least 33 the number of people killed in two days of heavy fighting in the city.

"Four civilians were said to be among the latest victims."

The BBC World Service also is broadcasting a report from its reporter in Mogadishu detailing the results of the violence on the civilian population. At times, it is hard to listen to the graphic cries of the wounded in hospitals devoid of basic equipment and anesthetics.

The Ethiopians need to get out of Mogadishu and all of Somalia. It should be left up to the people of Somalia what type of government to adopt. It should not be up to Ethiopia to determine.

Furthermore, since the Ethiopians are merely the proxy for Bush and Cheney in waging war against the Islamic Courts, the last stable government of Ethiopia, the United States should cease interfering. We are talking about a country that is largely rural and agrarian. Yet it is the target of the powerful U.S. war machine fronted by the Ethiopian army.

Moreover, the U.S. Navy sails off the coast of Somalia shooting missiles into small Somalian villages, in an effort to kill "Qaeda" adherents. Together with Ethiopian tanks, the U.S. is destroying the fabric of Somalian society.