Somalia as a Manifestation of US’s Development Model is a Glaring Failure
Russia started delivery of free grain to Somalia, the first country in which the US implemented the model it had been prevented from attempting by the presence of the USSR. The result of this model of interference for 34 years is evident in poverty and food insecurity not only in Somalia but other countries with US and allied bases. Russia’s delivery will be followed by similar free aid to other countries, including where the US has military and drone bases spying on and distracting the host governments from promoting food production, but instead enlisting them to fight ‘terrorism’. This fight against endless cycles of terrorism prevents production and trade, but the US has not been proposing food deliveries to these countries. Instead, it has been using them as a justification to pressure Russia to open the Black Sea Grain Initiative and have Western companies profiting by directing grain volumes to Europeans to feed their dear farm animals (here). Meanwhile, the ‘terrorists’ the US has been purporting to fight have been expanding along with the US military presence, (here) showing a causal relationship.
US Priority; Fighting ‘Terrorism’ While Creating Hunger
The planned recipients of Russia’s free grain are Burkina Faso, Mali, Central Africa Republic, Somalia, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe. Nearly all these countries exhibit patterns of US (or French) military bases and recent “counterterrorism” activity, as reported by the intercept (here). By 2019, the US ran a base in Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, Bamako Mali, while the French ran operations in Central Africa Republic. The US and its Western allies have for decades hijacked these African governments and distracted them from development while redirecting their resources to ‘fight terrorists’ in the Sahel, which I will illustrate later is linked back to the US. The issue is even interested in Somalia, where the US has five bases in Baledogle, Bosasso, Galcayo, Kismayo, and Mogadishu (here). The US could have eliminated terrorism in Somalia, if that was its goal, for civilians to return to food production and trade, noting that some of its bases there are decades old. Instead, the Al Shabaab terror group started (in 2006) and expanded despite US presence since the 1990s, and expansion after 9/11, even according to CIA edited Wikipedia (here). Only the efforts of the weak Somali National Army (SNA), local armed groups, and regional forces have dented Al Shabaab. The group has been justifying more US presence, derailing, socioeconomic development, and preventing Somalia’s integration with neighbors. Meanwhile, Somalia’s population has endured poverty and food insecurity since 1991, with the highest rate of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa at about 69%. One comparable case is Afghanistan, where the US War and later drone campaign suppressed food production and socioeconomic development. Western mainstream media only shrieked alarms of an impending famine (here) a few months after the US withdrew, feigning ignorance of the fact that food production capacity or adequate food reserves could not have been exhausted in a few months. Food production in US-occupied Afghanistan remained low, while opium production increased.
War-exhausted and economically stripped-down Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya represent the model of what the US Empire desires for all countries with high development potential. The US was only prevented from implementing this model by the presence of the USSR, such that it gladly implemented it immediately after the latter’s dissolution. Somalia was the first country the US invaded at the dawn of the unipolar world, and the US has maintained interference and a terrorist group that complicates everyone else’s life at the cost of thousands of lives lost through wars, disease, and starvation (here).
Source of Terror; Terrorists to Replace Soviet Allies
All 7 governments that Wesley Clark revealed that the US planned to destroy (here) have developed terrorism problems with either Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or their local franchise operating in them. Wesley Clark, in a separate revelation from 1991, detailed how Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz divulged that the US was planning to sweep away all Soviet allied governments in countries in which terror groups sprung up later as if they were being swept in. Even the mainstream media today reveals the US’s role in creating terrorists. For instance, one documentary from KTNnews with the title translating into “Sahel belt no longer livable” created in Swahili for around 200 million people that speak this language in Eastern Africa details how major terrorist groups originated from US actions in Afghanistan, as it armed Arab-Muslim extremists to fight the soviets during Soviet-Afghan war. It explains that those fighters returned home after the war to form terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda (is banned in Russia) which later mutated into ISIS (is banned in Russia), Al Shabaab, and those in Sahel. However, it fails to explain why these terrorists pursue unified objectives, justifying US military expansion. Westerners may have thought to use these groups to disrupt grain delivery after they failed to intimidate Russia through sanctions, but there is a precedence; MV Faina.
EAC refuses to be Influenced Though Terror Threats
Another good break for Somalia is that it was admitted into the East African Community (EAC) a few weeks ago, in a move that spells a new beginning for the historically rich country that has faced many challenges since the civil 1991. This event, while failing to gain significance in media space amidst the ongoing Massacre in Gaza and NATO adventure in Ukraine, holds an opportunity to return the country on a path to prosperity; firstly by promoting business and investment into the formerly isolated country area, which will reduce poverty and conflict. Poverty and underdevelopment cause conflict, which in turn exacerbates poverty, forming a vicious cycle. The second avenue through which this step will promote peace is by blurring the divisions between Somalia and the rest of the regions, which may otherwise be exploited in the future for Western-style divide-and-rule wars. Such division has so far been used to devastate Somalia, as Al Shabaab has been engaged in efforts to isolate and devastate Somalia through its terror incursions in Kenya, including in the Westgate mall that killed 68 and Garissa University College which killed 148 students on the Easter weekend of 2015. These attacks, among others, led to Kenya closing its Somalia border, which devastated trade between both countries, but puppeteers of terrorism gained. Kenya has subsequently signed numerous colonial security cooperation agreements with the UK (here 2021 and here 2023), and the US (here) while terrorists continue killing people in Lamu (here). These security cooperation agreements do not help. The reality of terror puppeteers focusing on isolating Somalia was also seen in 2021 when Somalia renewed its application to Join EAC and Kenya was warming up to it and prepared to open the border. However, sporadic terrorist attacks increased. Somalia’s entry into EAC represents the possible realization by East African nations that terrorists are managed from abroad. These nations have rejected participating in isolating helpless Somalis in favor of increasing trade within the region and finding new ways of addressing terrorism threats. The region’s future in a multipolar world is promising.
Simon Chege Ndiritu, is a political observer and research analyst from Africa, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”