As Americans Celebrate Independence, US Bombs Yet Another Sovereign Nation

In the midst of festivities leading into Independence Day, the U.S. opportuned the distraction to bomb yet another sovereign nation in the name of fighting terrorism, launching airstrikes against al-Shabaab militants rebelling against the U.N.-backed Somali government headed by U.S. citizen, President Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmajo” Mohamed.

These strikes on Sunday follow the granting of expanded powers to U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) by President Trump earlier this year, and seems to be the second of its kind.

“We are currently assessing the results of the operation, and will provide additional information as appropriate,” AFRICOM spokesman Chuck Prichard asserted Monday.

Following the airstrikes, AFRICOM spokesman Patrick Barnes also noted, “U.S. forces remain committed to supporting the federal government of Somalia, the Somali National Army and our AMISOM partners in defeating al-Shabab and establishing a safe and secure environment in Somalia.”

AMISOM, the African Union Mission, is a coalition of East African nations supporting the U.S. in an effort to quash al-Shabaab in Somalia — which it has reportedly done for years.

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Pentagon officials refused to provide details about Sunday’s strike — including an exact location or what target was hit — but described it as similar to another which took place mid-June.

State-run Voice of America reports, “Local sources said the strike on Sunday targeted vehicles in Kunya Barrow, in the lower Shabelle region. Sources also said the strike was conducted against a high-ranking al-Shabab militant, without going into further detail.”

According to Reuters, “Since being pushed out of the capital Mogadishu in 2011, al Shabaab has lost control of most of Somalia’s cities and towns. But it retains a strong presence in swathes of the south and center and carries out major gun and bomb attacks.

“The group aims to topple Somalia’s government, drive out African Union peacekeeping troops and impose its own harsh interpretation of Islamic law.”

Allied with al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab — which means “The Youth” in Arabic — “emerged as the radical youth wing of Somalia’s now-defunct Union of Islamic Courts, which controlled Mogadishu in 2006, before being forced out by Ethiopian forces,” the BBC described in December.

“There are numerous reports of foreign jihadists going to Somalia to help al-Shabab, from neighbouring countries, as well as the US and Europe. It is banned as a terrorist group by both the US and the UK and is believed to have between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters.

“Al-Shabab advocates the Saudi-inspired Wahhabi version of Islam, while most Somalis are Sufis.”

U.S. ground troops were deployed to Somalia earlier this year — for the first time since 1994 — nearly a quarter century. Al-Shabaab vacated capital city, Mogadishu, in 2011, but has retained control over significant areas, posing serious risk to the weak regime of the president installed by the U.S. in February.

According to the U.S. Military, the first such drone strike had been conducted on June 11, killing eight militants, and a Navy Seal was killed in May in a joint operation with Somali government forces against the al-Qaeda-allied group.

“The United States military has been training and advising African Union and Somali government forces in the country while becoming more directly involved in its civil war for the past several years,” the New York Times reports.

“Soon after Mr. Trump took office, the Defense Department proposed an escalation of force against the Shabab. The Pentagon wanted Mr. Trump to declare parts of Somalia to be an area of active hostilities, exempting it from the need to obey special targeting limits, known as the Presidential Policy Guidance, that President Barack Obama imposed in 2013 for counterterrorism strikes outside conventional war zones.

“In late March, Mr. Trump signed off on the Pentagon’s proposal to exempt much of Somalia from the 2013 limits, clearing the way for the American military to carry out purely offensive strikes, and without going through interagency vetting.”

In other words, AFRICOM has essentially an unfaltering green light to act aggressively in Somalia — a nation also in the grips of stultifying famine, putting six million people in danger — in order to rein in al-Shabaab.

Despite having received expanded authority, General Thomas D. Waldhauser, head of AFRICOM, has exercised extreme caution in carrying out drone strikes — vowing to greatly reduce or eliminate civilian casualties incidental to targeted actions.

Minimal reporting and limited information from the Pentagon leave a number of details about the Sunday morning strike unknown or murky, including whether or not there were civilian casualties.

Meanwhile, the bulk of Americans will continue celebrating Independence Day, unaware or apathetic when the nation whose flag many consider a sacred sign of freedom instead means death, misery, and destruction from above in places like Somalia and Syria.

US Hypocrisy on Full Display as Airstrikes Kill 4 Children in Syria

What better way to send a message that terrorist acts against innocent children won’t be tolerated than to launch 59 $1.59 million Tomahawk missiles at the supposed culprit — a show of force would, after all, surely emphasize a nation’s resolve and moral imperative.

Because killing people who allegedly killed kids would absolutely prove killing kids is wrong — until you destroy the airbase from which albeit opposition forces launch attacks against terrorists of the Islamic State — and, in disgusting irony, kill kids in the process of making that already dubious point.

Four children perished in Syria from the barrage of missiles delivered by two U.S. destroyers, hastily ordered by President Donald Trump in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack by President Bashar al-Assad — alleged, because, as yet, precisely who was responsible, or if the killing of nearly 60 people was in actuality an attack at all, remains unclear.

Folly in war, however, has likely never been clearer than in the reckless, ill-advised, not Congressionally-approved, and falsely sanctimonious military strike undertaken by the Trump-led United States this week.

Killing in the name of killing people is wrong innately proves the hypocrisy of war — that the politicians send our youth to be molded into callous mass killers by hardened hawks of military brass, but will never themselves touch the weapons of death, is only one facet of this madness.

That those weapons of death found their target in four children and five adults who had no designs for anything but survival — and who would not, under Trump’s maliciously hollow travel ‘ban,’ be permitted the ostensively safe landing spot inside the U.S.’ borders — screams mockery of intent.

Conflict-ravaged and decimated in their homeland, Syrians — in vain, attempting only to survive the proxy wars of arrogant statesmen — could not possibly benefit in yet more death from above.

No matter the smug, self-satisfaction with which Trump and his ilk moralize the need for further killing, there will be civilian casualties — as there already have — and guiltless, blameless, innocent children, women, and men will be robbed of life for the unfortunate happenstance of their location in the path of American revenge.

What gall it takes to dismiss the Constitution, bypass Congress, shirk diplomacy, and carry out a hapless offensive ultimately counterproductive to the wellbeing of the very people for which that shamelessly pompous act was undertaken — there is a damned good reason scorn, derision, and bullying best describe the U.S. to the people of the Middle East.

But the hypocrisy of mass killing to undermine terrorism isn’t only hypocritical in itself — the United States has an unseemly history of vocally pious but morally bereft military campaigns, as well as an uncanny knack for thwarting peace when it finally looms on the horizon.

In fact, the $93,810,000 in Tomahawks were fired into Syria on the literal eve of peace negotiations — including, incidentally, resignation by the United States that Assad would indeed remain in power.

And, as Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco and Middle East expert, writes for Yes! Magazine,

“The United States also has a long history of trying to undermine the peaceful, law-based efforts to eliminate chemical weapons, including opposition to the UN-mandated goal of ridding the Middle East of such weapons. Indeed, both Israel and Egypt — the largest recipients of U.S. military aid — have stockpiles larger than that of Syria.”

Yet chemical weapons, and the potential future use of them, provided the putative impetus for the first American direct bombing campaign in Syria — a campaign attempted previously by President Obama in 2013, but thwarted by a massive uproar.

Trump avoided public outrage by taking the coward demagogue’s route — bomb first, don’t bother asking questions later. If kids die because we need to teach Assad — who probably isn’t responsible for the gassing deaths of 86 civilians — a lesson about killing kids, then so be it.

Damn the geopolitical consequences. Damn any independent investigation to determine the culprit for the Idlib dead. Damn potential humanitarian ramifications. Damn the flirtation with World War III. Damn logic, reason, diplomacy, and the rules of engagement.

Damn the stupefying hypocrisy.

But most of all, going rogue with the largest military on the planet against a long-suffering nation whose children Trump won’t even allow solace inside the borders of this supposedly great nation makes resoundingly clear one message: Damn Syrians.

This feckless mission won’t save children. It will damn them to a childhood of war.