Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Down the Rabbit Hole

 The United States' latest foreign policy blundering, orchestrating the recent Ethiopian invasion of yet another Arab League Muslim capital, has created a new hotbed of militant anti-Americanism in the turbulent Horn of Africa. The message sent has been clear: no Arab or Muslim metropolis has impunity unless it falls into step with vital US regional interests.
http://www.metimes.com/stor yview.php?StoryID=20070108- 090559-1606r

The mainstream media seem to have the attention retention ability of someone suffering from ADD, but why is it that the USA inc. can get away with such blunt disrespect and underestimation of the intelligence of the population that is its' "shareholders" - the people paying and providing with patriotic acts, taxes, political participation and interest, military enlistment, trust and faith placed in the nation and so many other ways the means that keeps up and running an enormous corporation disguised as a nation disseminating the guilt but concentrating the pay-offs and power?

It is scary when President Bush says in his greeting to the incoming new congress that it is time to put politics aside and focus on the future. Which should mean putting away the last remaining differences in methods and visions between the parties for the sake of "moving on", on the expense of ever learning from, or-God forbid, acknowledging mistakes and crimes of the past.
How can the figure heads and puppets playing the parts of a badly written pretense of democracy, get away with rewriting or simply ignoring history and past deeds when I as an individual have to suffer for years due to one late payment on a mortgage?

USA is providing aid to Somalia (1)- and the same media criticized and subjected(2) to attempts of restraining of such "anti-American slant"(3) and irresponsible management of information when telling of politicians misdeeds and attempts at power abuse  - is now gladly recruited to carry this sunshine story(4).
But - of course - as White House spokesperson Tony Snow said about the War on Terror  on 9 Jan 07(5) :

"The president will not shape policy according to public opinion, but he does understand that it's important to bring the public back to this war..."

I can only see this as meaning that instead of allowing the people to shape their government, the government's predetermined agenda should shape the public

And US military is now - again - directly involved in the Ethiopian strikes on Somalis and Somalia territory .
As has become the universally applicable justification for trespasses of sovereignty and meddling with other people's business and expression of free will, it is all part of the open-ended and ill-defined war on terror.

Wonderful, but how did we get here?
What main actions of the near and more distant past and agents converge to form the present situation, and why is that treated as irrelevant?
I presume that information that would distort the message currently desired to bring to the audience - perhaps by adding facts that abruptly would change the alleged "good guys" to less good or maybe even slightly bad - is left out since it is better to get caught omitting than lying.

Now, let me remind you of some documented background facts that might not clear the image of the presence, but it will most certainly put it into a context of space and time. But first a clarification of terminology to prevent confusion and misunderstandings before we go down the rabbit hole.

Terminology: USA Inc.
USA Inc. is a term I use to prevent over-generalization. I know that unless a society is run with perfect consensus democracy, then what is done in the name and with the resources of the people of that society is not the same as the actual will of each individual. The discrepancy between in whose name and with whose money on one hand and according to whose will and desire on the other becomes even greater with majority rule democracy and even more so in a flawed democracy when it is not even the majority of the voting and paying population that is reflected in the acts of the national "whole".
I want to avoid coming off as if I blamed all and everything usually incorporated into the terms "America","Americans", "USA" etc and instead better target the actual puppet masters and interests behind certain actions and decisions.

It is my belief and educated theory that the power generated by having in possession something many others want badly(money, information,drugs,opportuni ties etc), gives those holding such resources and such power a direct and indirect influence over the decision making of our political representatives that goes beyond that given by the "one-person-one-vote". I believe that mainly it is monetary interests that shapes the main agenda of what is being done with the money and in the name of the population of USA. They are the resource-providing "shareholders" of a corporate-like institution which is used to generate ever-increasing profit.
However, as it is not a corporation per se there are no laws and no real demand for the proper distribution of the generated profits. The "shareholders" are not given pay-offs in proportion to what is generated or to the risks they are taking with their "investments". Nor are they given insight or influence as to the decisions and plans of the "board of directors" - in fact, they have no idea of either the total number or the identity of those ultimately pulling the strings at the very top. It is much like Enron - the majority of those investing in without having much insight and control when it came to what their investments was being used for, will find themselves being betrayed, robbed blind and gradually understanding that the major winners won because they had never intended the company to last but instead sought out to suck out all they could before leaving the ship to go down.
Dissemination of guilt and sacrifice, concentration of revenue and power.

Thus, USA Inc refers to the actual puppet masters: inter- and transnational actors using their influence and resources to alternately steer and dictate the movements of the big actors on the international arena  such as transnational NGO:s, IGO:s, PGO:s, nation state governments, unions and blocks of nations, central banks etc.
For a better description and identification of these Puppet Masters, see my other article(6).                                    

USA Inc has been more active in creating the same Somali crisis/war/turbulence/disas ter(terminology becomes tricky when all words seem worn and washed out and/or incorrect-not to mention that the spin masters of the official puppets steal and alter the meanings of terms on a continuous basis) that it is now in a mixture of covert and overt actions participating in.

"A U.S. air attack on a Somali village (7)occupied by Islamists believed to be sheltering an Al Qaeda suspect has left "many dead bodies", a Somali government source said on Tuesday.."

 U.S. FORCES HIT FOUR LOCATIONS IN SOMALIA AIR STRIKES ON WEDNESDAY(8)

This direct involvement of USA is just the present top of an iceberg of "From USA with love"-inscribed aid and support to various elements in the past that helped bringing the present situation about..."

Reports have also emerged that suggest U.S. Special Forces and CIA paramilitary teams are now directly embedded with Ethiopian forces in Somalia. Earlier this year, the CIA began quietly making cash payments to a group of Somali warlords who pledged to help hunt down members of Al Qaeda. Publicly the U.S. claims it does not back Somali warlords.
Jendayi Frazer, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa: "We do not want to return to warlordism in Somalia. We don't support it, we don't want it, the people don't want it and their neighbors don't want it. So those individuals who are characterized as warlords should join the process of national inclusive dialog and join the process of having a peaceful Somalia. They should turn in their weapons. They should have their militias go away or join the legitimate institutions of the government."
http://www.democracynow.org article.pl?sid=07/01/09/14 54242
However, believing that requires a direct ignorance of a quite recent history of just such warlord support:

For several years Somalia's three major anti-Islamist warlords have received U.S. cash and some equipment to help with intelligence operations, according to several unofficial sources, including John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group. .....much of the money is funneled through the 1,800-man Joint Combined Task Force, based in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. Other reports point to the CIA. ....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id /13008291/site/newsweek/pag e/2

CIA was found in April to have paid despised Mogadishu warlords to help fight the Islamists on counter-terrorism grounds, only for them to lose the city to disciplined Islamist fighters in June. http://www.alertnet.org/the news/newsdesk/L092788.htm

Although still unconfirmed but nonetheless substantiated enough to take a firm planting of the head in the sand not to find more of proof than any evidence of Al-Quaida presence in Somalia, is the presence of U.S signed aid and support to the warlords that has kept Somalia in a state of violent anarchy. Although several warlords were US friendly - that is, willing to allow for U.S interest to be incorporated into their own agenda - some were less so. One warlord was directly involved in the aggression that led to  attacks on U.S Marines that led to the disaster of U.S deaths and humiliation broadcasted in media and later captured in the movie Black Hawk Down.
However, there is a "funny" twist to this story of U.S aid  "blowback"-  when "allies" turn against the hand that feeds them and other actors get pissed off at the U.S involvement.  The eighteen American troops that were killed 1994 -and  Americans were shocked by the image of the body of one American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu- were killed when trying to capture the warlord Mohammed Farrah Aydiid .
Aydiid had in 1976 sent his wife and children to USA. One of his sons - Hussein - remained in the United States for 16 years.

He attended Covina High School, near Los Angeles, graduating in 1981. Six years later, in April 1987, he joined the Marines, and was trained as an artilleryman.
"I always wanted to be a Marine," he told The Associated Press. "You know how it is watching Marine soldiers. I'm proud of my background and military discipline. Once a Marine, always a Marine."
After basic training in the summer of 1987, he skipped active service and went straight into the reserves. He was assigned as a corporal to Battery B, 14th Marine Regiment, in Pico Rivera, Calif.
Around the same time, he began taking courses at Citrus College in Glendora, Calif. Three years later, he also started studying civil engineering at the University of California at Long Beach. He has not earned a degree from either school.
On Dec. 12 1992, Farrah was sitting in an engineering class when two Marine officers knocked on the door, interrupting the lecture, and said he was urgently needed in Somalia. The United States had just sent 28,000 troops to safeguard U.N. shipments of food to the starving country. The Marines needed translators.
For three weeks, Farrah served as an interpreter and a liaison between the American forces and his father. But the relationship between the United Nations and Aidid quickly soured, and the Marines sent Farrah home on Jan. 5.
http://www.dictatorforhire. com/hussein-farrah-aydiid.s html
But the story doesn't end here
In July of 1995, shortly after doing his two-week summer stint as a Marine at Fort Sill, Okla., Hussein suddenly returned to Somalia with his wife and small son. He notified his commanders that he would miss drills for three months because he would be traveling outside the United States.
He did not return to school in the fall. Instead, Hussein went AWOL from the military and dropped out of school to stay with his father, who took him under his wing and began grooming him for a top spot in the clan's military organization, diplomats and U.N. officials said. But when his father died Hussein did not stay in Somalia's violent struggle for power but instead moved to Ethiopia.
Ethiopia was then as it is now, a close ally and regional proxy for USA Inc. Were Hussein is now and whether he plays a part in the current events-perhaps tucked up the sleeve of USA to be put in some power position when the time seems right - is unknown.
The interest in holding talks with Mohammed Farrah Aydiid is also part of USA Inc's play to maintain beneficial terms and links to the geo-strategic and natural resources of the region. It becomes more clear when one knows that Mohammed Farrah Aydiid was the man who took hold of the main power after the former president Barre- US ally and friend of the oil companies but sadly with a very poor humanitarian record - was toppled. The talks interpreted by Muhammeds son aimed at establishing how best to create beneficial terms for USA Inc's interests with this new regime.
As laid bare in the January 1993 report by Mark Fineman of the Los Angeles Times, "The Oil Factor in Somalia(9)," US oil companies, including Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips were positioned to exploit Somalia's rich oil reserves during the reign of pro-US President Mohammed Siad Barre. These companies had secured billion-dollar concessions to explore and drill in large portions of the Somali countryside prior to the coup led by warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid that toppled Barre. The US Somalia envoy at the time was CIA operative Robert Oakley, a chief "counter-terrorism" officer during the George H.W. Bush presidency, and veteran of the Afghanistan and Iran-Contra operations of the 1980s. Conoco's Mogadishu office housed the US embassy and military headquarters.
http://www.globalresearch.c a/PrintArticle.php?articleI d=2524
When Muhammed refused to go along sufficiently, USA determined he was to be put on the hit-list and sent in troops to capture him.
The infamous Somalia military operation of 1993, popularly depicted in the Philadelphia Inquirer series (and subsequent Hollywood film) "Blackhawk Down(10)," was not a humanitarian mission, but an undeclared UN/US war launched by the George H.W. Bush administration, and inherited by the Clinton presidency. The operation was spearheaded by Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Howe (who remained in charge of the UN operation after Clinton took office), and approved by Colin Powell, then head of the Joint Chiefs.
http://www.globalresearch.c a/PrintArticle.php?articleI d=2524
Two UN operations, which ran from 1992 to 1995(11), cost nearly $2 billion and 147 lives, including the deaths of 18 American soldiers, who were killed when militias in Mogadishu shot down two Black Hawk helicopters in October 1994. The fighting and global press coverage led to the withdrawal of US soldiers and cast a pall over American peacekeeping attempts for the rest of the decade.

And now The US is seeking to re-establish a presence in Mogadishu(12), capital of Somalia, after an absence of 12 years following the ousting of Islamist forces this week by Ethiopian-backed Somali allies.

"Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state, hopes to include Mogadishu in a tour that began on Wednesday with the aim of shoring up Somalia's transitional government with multinational African forces and US humanitarian aid.

"Ethiopia invaded Somalia last month with U.S. backing. A Pentagon spokesperson said the Ethiopian and United States military have a "a close working relationship."
United States pours money and weapons into an invasion by Ethiopia. The invasion of Somalia is part of the Bush Administration's war on terrorism.
Somalia is almost entirely Sunni Muslim while Ethiopia has a population consisting of half Muslim and thirty-five percent Orthodox Christian. It is like an island among Muslim countries. Ethiopia has received nearly $20 million in U.S. military aid since late 2002. That's more than any country in the region except Djibouti"
http://www.bestsyndication. com/?q=010707_somalia_invas ion_chaos.htm

But why were they there before and why did they had to leave? What do they want to be present for there now and is humanitarian aid aid only to some humans?
The best round-up of all possible reasons why Somalia in particular and Africa in general is rising in importance on the list of US foreign policy priorities, was presented on Democracy Now Tues 9 Jan 2007 (13)by Salim Lone, a highly respected Kenya-based commentator who was also referred to in an article.
According to Salim Lone, a highly respected Kenya-based commentator, the United States has cast this as a war to combat terrorism, but its real goal is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region by establishing a client regime there.  
The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich and lies just miles from another strategic US ally, Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea.
Interestingly, Lone also indicates that General John Abizaid, the current US military chief of the Iraq war, was in Ethiopia a few weeks ago. What was he doing there..
http://www.palestinechronic le.com/story-010407135027.h tm
From Black Listed News(14):
"Somalia is of geostrategic interest to the Bush administration, and the focus of operations and policy since 2001," writes Larry Chin(15). "This focus is a continuation of long-term policies of both the Clinton administration and the George H.W. Bush administrations. Somalia's resources have been eyed by Western powers since the days of the British Empire."
"A new US cleansing of Somalian `tyranny' would open the door for these US oil companies to map and develop the possibly huge oil potential in Somalia," notes F. William Engdahl(16). "Yemen and Somalia are two flanks of the same geological configuration, which holds large potential petroleum deposits, as well as being the flanks of the oil choke point from the Red Sea."
In the matter of international relations, be they wars or trade or support of various kinds - we often find ourselves faced with the problem that difference in motivation can make a certain action either acceptable or something to condemn - sometimes also being the difference between legal and illegal according to international laws. One example is Iraq - if the invasion truly was triggered by a genuine belief that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction there and in general shaped and driven by concerns for human kind, then that would make the act differently perceived and classified than if we knew for certain it was based on motives of increased revenue for oil companies and securing regional presence for USA Inc. interests.
But just as was the case with the Iraq invasion and occupation, there are several very significant circumstances and factors that casts a deep shadow of doubt as to the alleged and officially stated reasons for the various ways in which support and aid has been given to certain actors in Somalia past and present.
Interesting enough - the main factors seem to be the same as for Iraq: the strategical geographical location, the oil (and other geological resources such as water(17)) and an increased presence of other nations' interests(18)-nations growing in strength as military and economical competitors (such as China who gave much support following the tsunami(19) in 2004). Iraq was just about to shift from selling oil in Euro instead of US Dollars(20) when US launched the invasion. Maybe the recent increase in US and Western allies' demands for intervention in Sudan for humanitarian reasons, also have something to do with another recent increase - namely the supply of oil from Sudan to China.
As F. William Engdahl (21)notes in A Peek Behind Bush II's `War on Tyranny'(22):
 "Sudan, as noted, has become a major oil supplier to China whose national oil company has invested more than $3 billion since 1999, building oil pipelines from the south to the Red Sea port. The coincidence of this fact with the escalating concern in Washington about genocide and humanitarian disaster in oil-rich Darfur in southern Sudan, is not lost on Beijing. China threatened a UN veto against any intervention against Sudan. The first act of a re-elected [sic] Dick Cheney late last year was to fill his vice presidential jet with UN Security Council members to fly to Nairobi to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, an eerie reminder of Defense Secretary Cheney's `humanitarian' concern over Somalia in 1991."
Also, there is the presence of the treat of a cooperation between Asian nations and Middle Easterners  nations in trying to balance the power of the West in general and USA in particular -something well described in the last section of chapter 9 in Samuel Huntington's book Clash of Civilizations. Already there has been substantial support and exchange of knowledge, science, political backing etc between primarily China and Middle Easters countries such as Iran.
I understand that the presence would seem so much easier to handle if we weren't bothered by the past.
But unfortunately we have a past to learn from so as to get a better future.
And as more and more people in USA especially get involved in various organizations - military, governmental agencies, NGO:s etc. -  based on explicitly stated motives of these organizations, often of humanitarian and "world improvement" nature, then if for nothing else but to spare ourselves being tricked and abused we need to put actions, decisions and claims of the presence into a context of time and space to really be able to evaluate what to believe.
Footnote hyperlink references
1.
http://www.somalilandtimes. net/sl/2006/259/21.shtml
2.
http://www.democracynow.org article.pl?sid=06/08/18/13 52244&mode=thread&t id=25
3.
http://www.aim.org/media_mo nitor/3754_0_2_0_C
4.
http://www.washingtonpost.c om/wp-dyn/content/article/2 007/01/05/AR2007010500387.h tml
5
http://www.usatoday.com/new s/world/iraq/2007-01-09-ira q-troops_x.htm?csp=34
6.
http://www.opednews.com/art icles/opedne_liza_per_07010 2_the_usa_inc__the_fal.htm
7.
http://www.alertnet.org/the news/newsdesk/L09770013.htm
8.
http://www.alertnet.org/the news/newsdesk/L10305672.htm
9.
http://www.thirdworldtravel er.com/Project%20Censored/C ensoredNews_1994.html
10.
http://www3.phillynews.com/ packages/somalia/nov16/defa ult16.asp
11.
http://www.timesonline.co.u k/article/0,,3-2533090,00.h tml
12.
http://www.somalilandtimes. net/sl/2006/259/7.shtml
13.
http://www.democracynow.org article.pl?sid=07/01/09/14 54252
14.
http://www.blacklistednews. com/iNP/view.asp?ID=1913
15.
http://www.globalresearch.c a/index.php?context=viewArt icle&code=CHI20060527&a mp;articleId=2524
16.
http://www.globalresearch.c a/articles/ENG502A.html
17.
http://www.voanews.com/engl ish/archive/2005-03/2005-03 -17-voa21.cfm?textmode=0
18.
http://www.globalresearch.c a/index.php?context=viewArt icle&code=CHI20060527&a mp;articleId=2524
19.
http://www.china.org.cn/eng lish/international/116807.h tm
20.
http://archives.cnn.com/200 0/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un .euro.reut
21.
http://www.answers.com/F.+W illiam+Engdahl?gwp=11&v er=2.0.1.458&method=3
22.
http://www.globalresearch.c a/articles/ENG502A.html