From: cd619@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Hank Roth)
Subject: "Humanitarian" cover for occupation.
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 06:09:57 GMT

<<< via P_news/p.news >>>
{From WORKERS VANGUARD, December 11, 1992}
"Humanitarian" Cover for Imperialist Occupation
U.S. GLOBAL COPS OUT OF SOMALIA!
 
President Bush has ordered a massive military 
intervention into Somalia, code-named "Operation 
Restore Hope." With public opinion horrified by 
the images of Somali children slowly starving to 
death as local warlords seize most of the food 
aid, Bush promises to use the U.S. military to 
ensure that the desperate population is fed. 
President-elect Bill Clinton quickly gave his 
enthusiastic support to a military intervention 
whose purpose is supposedly not strategic gain 
but humanitarian relief. But behind this feigned 
concern by the racist American rulers for 
starving black Africans is the sinister reality 
of U.S. imperialism, which is using the famine in 
Somalia to justify direct military intervention 
in Africa. 
 
While TV is filled with heart-rending scenes of 
Somali children with distended bellies and sucken 
eyes, followed by shots of Mad Max road warriors 
roaming around in their "technicals" (pickup 
trucks with mounted machine guns), this is the 
excuse for sending in a colonial expeditionary 
force of 28,000 to 35,000 U.S. troops. To 
distribute food? To put down gangs armed with 
AKs? Hardly. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff General Colin Powell explained that it had 
to be "a large enough force that we could 
dominate the entire country," and "these numbers 
may go up considerably" (NEW YORK TIMES, 5 
December). 
 
The media are trying to sell the lie, 
particularly to black people in this country, 
that the imperialists are "coming to the aid" of 
the impoverished people of war-torn Somalia out 
of "humanitarian" concern. Nonsense. The famine 
in Africa is CAUSED by imperialist exploitation, 
which drives the population into conditions of 
poverty that are below the minimum level for 
survival. Deprived of food and currency reserves, 
the African nations are decimated gby natural 
disasters like drought, or political and economic 
crises. In Somalia, mass starvation has resulted 
from the breakup of the country, a by-product of 
the capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet 
Union. After coming to power at the end of the 
1960s, murderous Somali strongman Siad Barre was 
able to play off the USSR and the U.S. to obtain 
financial aid and sophisticated arms until he was 
overthrown in early 1991. 
 
Now Washington claims it is going to fix the 
situation in Somalia. General Powell says that 
the U.S. army is going to Somalia "like the 
cavalry coming to the rescue" (CNN, 5 December). 
The idea of the U.S. military, which droped the 
atomic bomb on Hiroshima, raped Vietnam and 
trained generations of torturers in Latin America 
and elsewhere, as a force for humanitarian relief 
is grotesque! For over a year after Somalia broke 
down into clan warfare and famine, the imperilist 
leaders turned their back on the mass starvation 
there. And virtually nothing is being proposed 
to assist the more than a dozen other African 
countries which, faced with the worst drought in 
a century, are being wracked by starvation. 
 
What interests the imperialist in Somalia is that 
they see it as an ideal military base, 
strategically situated astride the sea lanes of 
the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, providing 
a forward base for intervention in the Near East. 
Indeed, according to the WASHINGTON POST (4 
December), the Pentagon is planning to set up 
modern port and airfield facilities in the Somali 
capital of Mogadishu. 
 
The imperialist rulers are tryig to pretend that 
this is going to be a quick operation, but in 
reality they are preparing for a prolonged 
military occupation of Somalia. President Bush 
piously vowed that U.S. troops would not seek to 
influence Somalia's political crisis, and General 
Powell is talking about withdrawing U.S. forces 
"in a few months." But Powell quckly hedged 
saying that U.S. Marines would remain stationed 
off the Somali coast as a "posse," ready to 
intervene again, and that "a few units" of ground 
forces would remain in Somalia indefinitely to 
support UN "peacekeepers." 
 
Moreover, UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-
Ghali insisted that, in addition to distributing 
food relief, an aim of the intervention is to 
"maintain security in the region" and 
"reconciliate" warring clan chiefs. A CIA report, 
summarized by the NEW YORK TIMES (2 December), 
estimates that the prospects for setting up a 
stable Somali government are bleak, and proposes 
a UN protectorate or trusteeship by which a 
country (unnamed) would rule Somalia on behalf of 
the UN until the territory is ready for self-
government." Thus, Somalia would be recolonized 
in the name of "the white man's burden" of 
bringing "peace" and "civilization" to Africa. 
 
 WASHINGTON DELCARES "SUPERSOVEREIGNTY"
 
As the imperialists arrogantly asert their right 
to intervene as they wish anywhere and at any 
time, columnist William Safire waxed eloquent on 
the need for the "only standing superpower" to 
have a "new sovereignty": 
 
 "When do the world's responsible powers have 
  a right to intrude on what used to be an 
  impenetrable sovereignty? Anarchy offers 
  the obvious invitation to intervene, as is the 
  case in Somalia--but what of cases of genocidal 
  tyranny, as practiced by Iraq in its portion of 
  Kurdistan, or by the Khmer Rouge as it plots 
  new savagery in Cambodia, or by Servia as it 
  readies for its final solution in Kosovo?" 
 
                NEW YORK TIMES
                  30 November
 
As Safire put it: "By virtue of being the 
superpower, we have a superinterest." And so U.S. 
imperialism arrogantly asserts 
"supersovereignty," to intervene when and where 
they want. This is the same doctrine that the 
White House and Supreme Court use to assert the 
"right" of the U.S. to kidnap anyone, from 
Panamanian heads of government to Mexican 
doctors, in the name of "justice." 
 
"Operation Restore Hope" in Somalia is of a piece 
with Bush's supposedly humanitarian "Operation 
Provide Comfort" last year, when the U.S. set up 
a "security zone" for Kurds in northern Iraq. In 
the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War--in which 
the Pentagon wantonly slaughtered over 100,000 
Iraqis--Kurds and Shi'ites rose up. After Hussein 
put down the revolt, the U.S. flew in food and 
medicine to Kurdish refugees in the north while 
U.S. warplanes prevented Iraqi military attacks. 
In return, Washington demanded that the Iraqi 
Kurdish organizations cooperate with the 
reactionary Turkish regime in repressing fighters 
of the Turkish PKK (Kurdish Workers Party). So in 
the interests of imperialist "divide and rule" 
policy, Iraqi Kurds massacre Turkish Kurds! 
 
Washington is throwing massive firepower into 
Somalia: artillery, tanks, armored cars and 
helicopter gunships, with an aircraft carrier 
battle group offshore for reinforcements and 
possible bombing missions. In addition, there 
will be several thousand troops from half a dozen 
countries, including France, Canada, Egypt, and 
Somalia's former colonial ruler, Italy. Facing 
untrained and undisciplined bands armed with 
light weapons, most U.S. officials agree with the 
military analyst who estimated that "this ought 
to be a piece of cake" (LOS ANGELES TIMES, 30 
November). Meanwhile, the racist U.S. ambassador 
to Kenya warned: "If you like Beirut, you'll love 
Mogadishu." 
 
No doubt many in Somalia and elsewhere believe 
that the U.S. presence can only be beneficial 
since things could scarcely get any worse. Of the 
African regimes, only the Sudan has opposed the 
U.S. intervention in Somalia. Yet ultimately, 
direct American military intervention in Africa 
can only result in increased oppression and 
exploitation of the African people. The U.S. was 
the main supporter and arms supplier to Somali 
butcher Siad Barre from the late 1970s, when 
President Jimmy Carter wooed him away from being 
a Soviet client, until the late 1980s, when the 
end of the Cold War made the Horn of Africa lose 
much of its strategic interest to Washington. But 
since the Gulf War, the U.S. is intent on 
reinforcing its strategic presence in the region 
vis-a-vis its imperialist rivals. 
 
With Bush giving a "democratic," "humanitarian" 
facade to the pursuit of imperialist interests, 
liber Democrats are positively ecstatic. Liberal 
columnist Murray Kempton effusively declares of 
Bush: 
 
  "Now we can say goodby, grateful for his having 
   lifted himself and his countrymen up to this 
   one great moment that transcends all of his 
   and our lesser hours...We have assembled our 
   battalions not to fight but to save a people 
   we do not even know and who can offer us no 
   spoil except the sense that we have done 
   a good action for no material boon." 
 
                     LOS ANGELES TIMES
                       12 December
 
Liberals would like to cloak U.S. imperial 
interests in the rhetoric of "do-goodism." But 
when the Carter administration installed a "human 
rights junta" in El Salvador in a U.S.-sponsored 
coup in the fall of 1979, it opened the road to a 
decade of bloody repression. And Carter's "human 
rights" campaign over Afghanistan and Poland was 
the opening salvo in Cold War II, which 
ultimately saw the collapse of the Soviet 
degenerated workers state into capitalist misery 
and natinalist bloodletting. 
 
WESTERN IMPERIALISM AND THE YUGOSLAV BLOODBATH
 
There is also pressure to intervene further in 
Yugoslavia in the name of supposedly 
"humanitarian" concerns. The communal civil war, 
with "ethnic cleansing" carried out on all sides, 
has created more than two millin refugees, and 
continues to do so at a rate of more than a 
thousand a day. The UN estimates that more than 
400,000 people could die this winter of cold, 
disease and starvation. While publicizing Servian 
war crimes (an ignoring those of the fascistic 
Croatian regime), the U.S. and West Europe are 
refusing to accept more than a handful of 
refugees from slaughter. 
 
During the election campaign, Democrat Clinton 
criticized Republican Bush for not intervening 
more forcefully in Yugoslavia. He talked about 
providing arms to Muslims in Bosnia and hinted at 
bombing attacks against military targets in 
Servia. Having whipped up nationalist conflicts 
in Yugoslavia in the intersts of capitalist 
counterrevolution, the imperialists now seek to 
contain the nationalist furies. Restoring 
imperialist "stability" in Yugoslavia is being 
seen as a"test" of Bush's New World Order. 
 
While Pentagon generals think the occupation of 
Somalia will be a cakewalk, they know that 
intervention into the Balkan cauldron would be 
very differnt. Here they would be facing not 
lightly armed bands but formidable military 
forces--the Yugoslav army and Serbian militias--
with a long tradition of fighting foreign 
invaders. Yugoslavia has become the Lebanon of 
Europe, with myriad conflicting 
national/communalist forces and shifting 
alliances. And if the U.S. or other Western 
"peacekeepers" try to work out a deal with the 
Serbs, they risk being attacked by the Croats, 
Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians, Albanians, etc. 
 
The bloody breakup of Yugoslavia is interwined 
with INTERimperialist rivalry. The secessionalist 
regimes in Croatia and Slovenia--before World War I 
provinces in the Austro-Hungarian Empire---were 
set up in the summer of 1991 as clients of the 
newly reunified German Fourth Reich. Serbia, on 
the other hand, is historically a Balkan ally of 
British and French imperialism. 
 
Although Washington politicans now ritually 
denounce Serbian "aggression," and the American 
media even compares Belgrade nationalist 
strongman Slobodan Milosevic to Hitler, U.S. 
imperialism is not fundamentally hostile to a 
strong Serbian state. Thus the Bush 
administration gave special dispensation for an 
American millionaire of Serbian extraction, Milan 
Panic, to become prime minister of the rump 
Yugoslav state. The U.S. rulers would like to 
have a more pro-Serbian posture, provided that 
Milosevic is replaced by pro-Western "democrats," 
that is, direct agents of Wall Street and 
Washington. 
 
If, despite these factors, U.S. and/or West 
European troops do intervene in Yugoslavia, 
revolutionaries must give military support to 
Serbia against the imperialist invaders. While we 
support no side in the present communalist 
bloodletting, we resolutely oppose the 
imperialist blockade and any attempt to bring the 
"new world order" to Yugoslavia. This would only 
further inflame national hatred among the Balkan 
peoples, as well as intensify their exploitation 
by Western capitalism. 
 
The myth of a "humanitarian" imperialism has 
captivated various rad-libs, as well as the 
social democrats of IN THESE TIMES, who call for 
military intervention in Yugoslavia. In Europe, 
Alain Krivine, leader of the French section of 
the United Secretariat, likewise signed an appeal 
calling for European imperialist intervention in 
Yugoslavia. In sharp contrast, the International 
Communist League makes no concession to the so-
called "democratic" bourgeoisie. We fight to 
mobilize the working class to bring down the 
imperialist system through international 
socialist revolution. 
 
MILITARY "SUPERPOWER" WITH A BANKRUPT ECONOMY
 
U.S. imperialism is seeking to play the role of 
"cops of the world" with a debt-ridden financial 
structure, an obsolete industrial plan and a 
population whose living standards have been 
driven downward for the past two decades. 
Washington is trying to assert its global 
leadership through a massive military apparatus 
which rests on a decaying economic base. No 
longer able to compete effectively with Japan and 
Germany in the world market as it is presently 
organized, American capitalism will be driven to 
use the Pentagon war machine to carve out its own 
exclusive trade zones and spheres of 
exploitation. 
 
Over the past decade the U.S. has reasserted its 
"superpower" status through military adventures 
on the cheap against poor Third World countries--
the rape of the tiny black West Indian island of 
Grenada, terror bombing of Quaddafi's Libya, the 
invasion of Panama, Operation Desert Slaughter 
against Iraq, and now the occupation of famine-
stricken Somalia. However, American imperialism 
cannot reverse its decline by taking over small 
and impoverished Central American or east African 
countries. The Pentagon's military power can 
change the real balance of economic forces of the 
world only if it is successfully directed against 
Japan in Asia and against Germany in Europe: a 
replay of World War II, only this time STARTING 
with nuclear weapons. 
 
Today, the U.S. military must act as cops of the 
world, because Wall Street banks and Fortune 500 
corporations EXPLOIT THE WORKING PEOPLE OF THE 
WORLD, from South Korea to South Africa, from 
Central America to Central Europe. Only if the 
capitalist bloodsuckers who run this country are 
overthrown by the working class, allied with the 
black and Hispanic poor, can the drive toward a 
new world war be halted and America's productive 
capacity be made to serve the genuine interests 
of humanity. 
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