The secret war in Somalia

[xchrom]

http://www.salon.com/news/somalia/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/07/16/america_in_somalia

Writing in the Nation this week, Jeremy Scahill revealed that the CIA is running "a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives" at Mogadishu’s airport and also using a secret prison in the beleaguered Horn of Africa nation.

The revelations come just two weeks after media reports -- sourced to unnamed American officials -- of a U.S. drone attack in Somalia on members of the Islamic militant group Shabaab, which was designated a terrorist organization by the State Department in 2008.

The Washington Post noted that Somalia is now the sixth country -- joining Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen -- where the Obama administration has launched drone attacks.

For context on the secret war in Somalia, I spoke to Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. A regular lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, he studies Shabaab and recently wrote about the strategic implications of the historic drought that is devastating communities across the Horn of Africa.

[Springer9]

1. B.S. That's impossible!

Bush/Cheney have been gone almost 3 years. This can't be happening. Pipe dream.

[cpwm17]

2. The US never learns from history

Al-Shabaab is only in power as a response to the terrible Ethiopian/US attack on Somalia during the Bush Administration. Before that Somalia was starting to get its act together.

War and oppression often radicalizes the victims.

The US has really screwed Somalia.

[Fuddnik]

3. It's been going on for a while.

I had a technician doing some work at my house, for Nielsen about 3 years ago. He was an Iraq war vet, whose most recent job was as a firefighter for KBR in Ethiopia. I asked him, WTF was KBR doing in Ethiopia? Supporting operations in Somalia.

The reason they needed firefighters was the aircraft would take off, and drop flares to ward off missiles, and sometimes they would set surrounding villages on fire.