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Consider it strange. The U.S. has been fighting in Somalia on and off (mostly on) since the early 1990s. (Who, of a certain age, doesn't remember the
Black Hawk Down fiasco?)
Almost 30 years later, at a time when the U.N. secretary-general, supported by dozens of countries, has reasonably enough called for a global ceasefire so that humanity can refocus on "the true fight of our lives," bringing Covid-19 under control, the U.S. is still at war there. At a time when American naval vessels are turning into
pandemic hot zones and the man in the White House has repeatedly denounced this country's "
ridiculous endless wars," the Pentagon's war in Somalia against an insurgent terror group by the name of al-Shabaab is actually escalating. No kidding.
Of course, if you were only attending to the mainstream media, filled with little but coronaviral news (and even more viral news about our president), you wouldn't know it. You might hardly know that the U.S. military was involved in Somalia at all. You would have to read TomDispatch Managing Editor Nick Turse's recent
investigative piece at the Intercept to discover that U.S. air strikes in that country have risen radically in recent times. In the Obama years, from 2009-2017, the U.S. carried out a total of 36 such strikes in Somalia. According to U.S. Africa Command, by early April 2020, only four months into this devastating year, 39 such strikes had already been launched, essentially ensuring that the annual bounty of destruction there will top last year's record 63 strikes. And mind you, at this moment, Covid-19 is beginning to
tear a path of death through that country's capital, Mogadishu.
And that, as retired U.S. Army Major and
TomDispatch regular Danny Sjursen makes clear today, is
just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to America's never-ending wars of this century. That they are now becoming
pandemic wars seems to matter little in Washington. With that in mind, Sjursen, whose new book,
Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War, will be published this fall, takes a deep dive into the future of American war in a Covid-19 world. Hang on tight.
Tom
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