Somalia: U.S. Trains UPDF Marines in Country

The Ethiopian and U.S.-led invasion of Somalia in late 2006 has resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands, political chaos across the Horn of Africa and the further destabilization of agriculture in a water-stressed region.

This is, of course, a great war-crime, comparable to the invasion of Iraq, the carpet bombing of Afghanistan or the entrapment of Gaza, but because it is occurring in “anarchic,” black-populated Somalia, it is essentially invisible.

With Ethiopia’s government fighting internal revolt (and with its star declining in the U.S. for human rights reasons) control of the occupation is supposed to be handed to Uganda, with U.S. assistance under an African Union “peacekeeping force.” This may, when pigs fly, secure the Horn’s oil resources and allow U.S. firms to honour contracts signed with the brutal Barre regime in the 1980s.

But resistance is fierce. What this article conveys is the scramble to insert enough African peacekeepers to keep the charade going, along with the support of Algeria – something new to add to the imperial mix.

U.S. Forces have been training UPDF marine corps deployed in the war-torn Somalia to enhance their peace-keeping capacity, the army has said.

The forces, from the U.S. Central Command’s Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa based in Djibouti, have in addition to the Uganda peace keepers in Somalia, trained UPDF troops at Kasenyi near Entebbe.

The former Army and Defence spokesman, Maj. Felix Kulayigye, said last week that the training puts emphasis on civil-military relations.

“The US Joint Task Force Command carried out training of our Marine component in Somalia, it is basically civil affairs,” Maj. Kulayigye said.

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.

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