Toronto. George W. Bush, under pressure from Japan and South
Korea, has let it be known that he has dropped plans to attack,
militarily, North Korea, one of the three " axis of evil" countries by his
recknoning.
Those knowing the mind and mentality of Bush knew, from
the moment he uttered his litany of axis of evil that North Korea had
only been included in the pack to hoodwink the Muslims and make them
believe that he was not a crusader against the world of Islam only. That
he has not taken Iraq or Iran " off the table", as he is fond of saying,
should not surprise anyone. Bush has his heart set on taking to finality
the agenda of hostility against unrelenting Islamic countries, initially
set by his father in the late 80s and early 90s.
Logically, Bush
should have included Somalia, the rag tag country teetering on the brink
of disintegration for so long, in his axis of evil. His military
planners have long had their sights on chasing the elusive Al Qaeda
partisans into their alleged lairs in Somalia. The American people,
forced-fed on a diet of frenzied chauvinism since September 11, would
hardly be averse to such a repeat- adventure after the success in
Afghanistanthough the chicks there are coming home to roost. The roaring
box-office success of a Hollywood , adrenaline-pumping , war-thriller, "
Black Hawk Down", based on the American military intervention in Somalia
in the twilight days of Bush Senior in the White House, is cashing in on
the popular hankering for more American victories.
The Hollywood
thriller paints the American soldiers as, what else, heroes fighting for
liberty and human dignity, the lofty principles invariably cited as the
justification for every military adventure abroad since the cold war. The
American people are not prepared to question these flimsy pretexts because
they have been made to believe that their way of life is inextricably
linked with Americas moral crusade abroad. The media is squarely behind
the crusaders in their zeal to rid the world of all that is evil to
America.
But there are still voices of sanity pleading for a
less-jaundiced version of the world divided between good and evil. An
unconventional website, NetNomad.com, has recently posted a Los Angeles
Times report of Jan.18, 1993 by the papers correspondent in Mogadishu,
Mark Fineman, at the height of American " humanitarian" military
intervention there, supposedly in defence of human rights. The report
paints a totally different view of U.S. military intervention in
Somalia.
Bush Senior went into Somalia with 20 thousand US
troops in December, 1992 when he had been defeated in his re-election bid
by Bill Clinton and was a lame-duck President. Why such a major overseas
undertaking by an outgoing president was a question that perplexed many.
His excuse was that US was in Somalia on a humanitarian mission to beef up
the UN effort to stave off a bloodbath from civil war and anarchy. The
real mission for Bush Senior was something else. He went in there to save
the interest of US oil giants from his native Texas. After all, he had
made his fortunes in the oil industry before making a mark in politics.
The powerful and influence-peddling oil cartel had bankrolled him into
politics, and he was anxious to pay back in kind. He might have lost his
own bid for re-election but he had sons waiting in the wings to inherit
his mantle. He had to lubricate their passage into high-stakes politics by
obliging his powerful friends.
Bushs interest in the countries
around the Horn of Africa, marking the nexus of the Red Sea with the
Arabian Sea, began in the mid-80s when he was Vice-President to Reagan.
Hunt Oil Company, a Texas-based oil giant, had explored for oil
successfully in Yemen and discovered oil deposits there of up to one
billion barrels. Geologists believed that there was a natural trough of
oil that extended across the Red Sea into Somalia from Yemen. The World
Bank had an intensive technical study on oil prospects in the region
around Yemen done by its principal petroleum engineer, an Irishman by the
name of Thomas E. OConnor, in the mid-80s. OConnor was dead certain that
"its there. Theres no doubt theres oil there." Somalia beckoned, just
as Yemen had lured them earlier.
Their doubts, if any, put to rest
by this independent WB study, Bushs friends in the oil cartel of America
saw a bonanza for themselves and swooped down on Somalia in hordes. Bush
used his office and influence to egg them on.
There was also a
political motive with the Reagan Whit House to decrease Americas
dependence on oil from the Gulf region, because the oil producers there
constantly found fault with the undisguised pro-Israeli bias of the
administration against Arab and Muslim interests. For that reason alone,
Bush in particular was keen that his Texas friends from the oil industry
should focus on Somalia with a big search light. Inaugurating the brand
new oil refinery of Hunt Oil at Maarib, in Yemen, in April, 1986, Vice
President Bush insisted that it was of " growing strategic importance to
the west" to tap crude oil resources " in the region away from the Strait
of Hormuz."
The American oil companies had no problem in winning
concessions from President Siad Barre of Somalia. He was corrupt and a
lackey of Washington. With his palms sufficiently greased, he awarded
generous exploration rights to at least four American companies to look
for oil in Somalia. These were : Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillipall of
them with connections to Bush.
Tens of millions of dollars were sunk into the oil
wells of Somalia. The largest investment was made by Conoco. But before
any of the wells could spew oil in commercial quantities, Siad Barre
licked the dirt. His corrupt regime was overthrown in January 1991, and
Somalia was consumed by a civil war which forced all foreign enterprises
to fold their tents and get out of the countryall except Conoco. The
Houston-based Conoco did not want to desert Somalia for two reasons : one,
they had had the largest investment of money in Somalia and, two, their
friend George Bush was, by then, in the White House. They were in no hurry
to cut their losses and run.
But George Bush, at that juncture, was
overly engrossed with Saddam Hussain and Iraq. His " Desert Storm" was
just then rolling to oust Iraq from Kuwait. So, Conoco simply cooled their
heels in their huge compound in Mogadishu and bribed the civil war
combatants to leave them alone. They thought they had all the time in the
world to recover their losses whenever calm returned to Somalia. Besides,
the thumping success of their buddy, Bush, in "Desert Storm" gave them
reason to believe that he would win a second term, hands down, and then
look after their interest. That was not to be.
Bushs humiliating
defeat at the hands of Clinton robbed him of a second stint and Conoco of
a powerful mentor. But Bush did not want to leave his friends high and dry
in Mogadishu, and decided to give his favourite military option a last
chance to fashion the chessboard in Somalia to his friends liking. That
was the backdrop to Bush rushing in 20 thousand American troops to aid the
UN, ostensibly, in its plan to restore normalcy in Somalia. Only his
perspective of normalcy was different.
Bush also sent in a
political tribune of his trust to sort things out at the diplomatic level
to pave the way for Conoco to get their oil gear out in the field once
again. Robert D. Oakley was his czar in Somalia. Oakley, a chip off the
old block, had pleased Bush in his stint as ambassador to Pakistan in the
crucial, winding- down, days of the Afghan War. He behaved more like a
pro-consul than ambassador in Islamabad which did not earn him many
friends there but the hawkish, conservative, Republican right was
immensely pleased with his performance. They knew he was their man to pull
their chestnut out of the Somalian fire.
Oakley moved straight into
the Conoco compound in Mogadishu which became the operational headquarters
for both the civilian and military activities. While the U.S. soldiers
behaved like an occupation armyexactly the way they are acting in
Afghanistan, todayOakley started throwing his weight around in the
political arena. There, he soon ran into his nemesis, Farah Aideed, the
warlord who had played a big role in chasing Siad Barre out of
power.
Farah Aideed had had a chequered career. Once a favourite of
Siad Barre , he eventually broke ranks with his mentor. Barre packed him
off to India as Ambassador in New Delhi where he lived five years and
imbibed a lot of India in him. He returned to Somalia against Barres will
and soon became one of his tormentors. Aideed repeated his medicine on
Oakley, too. And the rest, as they say, is history. American soldiers
arrogant, colonial, behaviour made them the enemies of all the warring
Somali factions, especially Aideeds. Scores of them were killed in hand
to hand combat. Clinton, by then in the White House, cut his losses and
pulled the entire U.S. contingent out of Somalia. Conocos dream of
striking rich in Somalia lay buried in the debris of war.
That was
9 years ago. Bush Jr. now thinks September 11 has served Somalia on a
platter to him and his powerful friends in the Texas oil lobby. The new
Bush doctrine of fighting evil and terrorism is a rehash of the old Bush
doctrine of controlling the energy resources of the Gulf and the region
around it. The essential thrust, and end-game, of both is the same: keep
the world of Islam in thrall to the west and exploit its rich mineral
deposits to the hilt for the benefit of the west. That was the thesis
expounded by that redoubtable dispenser of power politics, Henry
Kissinger, in the early 70s when OPEC imposed the first oil embargo
against the west for its unabashed espousal of Israeli interests at the
cost of the Arabs.
Conoco and others of their ilk must have started
dusting their old blueprints of Somalia. They have, once again, a friend
in the White House prepared to wage a crusade on their behalf. None should
doubt his resolve to realise his dreams and those of his friends. He is
behaving as if he were in a game of blind mans buff, swinging his stout
stick around with his eyes closed. He has despatched 600 American soldiers
to assist the Filipino army to ferret out the brigands of Abu Siaf from
the jungle. He has recently responded similarly to a call from Edouard
Shavernadze of Georgia to fight his rebels said to be abetted by the
Chechens. Anyone who could pronounce Al Qaeda may rest assured that George
W. Bush would respond to their call with a missionary zeal. His mission
has a single sentence bottom line: he will fight Islamic terrorism in
the remotest corner of the world.
Footnote : There is no doubt that
Bush has a team of stalwarts who share his conviction as much as they did
his fathers. Ahero of the old " Desert Storm" team, General Norman
Schwarzkopf, was recently interviewed on tv and asked if those accused of
harbouring and assisting the alleged terrorists of September 11 did not
deserve to be forgiven ? Without losing a breath, Schwarzkopf answered : "
I believe that forgiving them is Gods function. Our job is simply to
arrange the meeting."
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