20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms ObamaCare-health-insuranceWith ObamaCARE now passed, containing the Cornhusker Kickback, Gator-Aid, the Lousiana Purchase, and other shady deals, Investors Business Daily gives up 20 ways that ObamaCARE will take away our freedoms. IBD’s sections described below are taken from HR 3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill which takes out the Cornhusker Kickback and Gator-Aid as displayed by the Rules Committee. 1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501) 2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701). 3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711). 4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712). 5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714). 6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care. You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302). 7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A)) 8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 © (2) (A). 9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 101 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513). 10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)). 11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i)) 12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A)) 13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) ©). 14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003) 15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)). 16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)). The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405). 17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).) 18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014). 19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015). That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402). 20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).

Sacad *Ducaale why do you peaple keep mentioning the pirates. this is not an internal somali problem so it does not concern us and if i remember correctly were there not pirates supported by their european governments about 4 centuries ago, such countries as england, france, spain and many others. and were there not the infamous barbary pirates. these pirates were not an issue for the domestic populations of the countries they came from and so it should be an issue for somalis. the moment these pirates hijack somalis then it is an issue. and if you say international security is endangered then this is propoganda because it doesn't exist. the law of the jungle truly rules the world. the survival of the fittest.

Sacad *Ducaale the "Pirate Behaviour" is a way of life for fishing communities who seas foriegn vessels have profitted from. have no fear the pirates don't rob other poor somalis only rich foriegners and rich governments. and before you get self rightous and holy the world rewards criminality and so it will thrive in these interesting times.

this all goes to show that all the fighting and death in the south is in vain. all these factions only care about their stomach. and it is foolish young men and civilians who pay the price. so i say let the show go on.

all the actors in east africa including the somali factions are awaiting the orders of the CIA.

Qhalib i am not. all i am sayings is “The only index by which to judge a government or a way of life is by the quality of the people it acts upon. No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion- it is an evil government.” Eric Hoffer therefore i am judging quality of the people and it is found wanting. therefore we should more concerned about people than governments. peaple get the government they deserve so instead of pointing fingers they should look at themselves and fix up. it i9s rude to blame others when you are the problem and the Somali people are the problem not the helpless victim that most peaple think it is. peace out.

the very though of Mudug, Nugaal and Bari dividing is laughable. those provinces were united even before puntland and the civil war, just that their union was informal. the SSC issue is internal and as moonlight said neither S'land or P'land fault. i think the best soltion for the SSC is for them to create their own state like S'land or P'land. then S'land or P'land can concentrate on internal developments without military build up over a pointless border.

somalialand will never capture Garowe. this is because they never captured LA. the SSC who are allied to somaliland have captured it. the puntlanders have no interest in fighting the SSC peaple if they don't want us. however, the SSC peaple even if they fully joined somaliland will never attack their relations. therefore puntland has a buffer to the west and only needs to worry about the south. the rest of somaliland isn't stronger than puntland so stop daydreaming.

all i am taking a shot at are those peace wishers who think that peace is just around the corner. it is far away. "Verily Allah will never change the condition of a people until they change themselves" so therefore peace will never came until peaple change themeselves. so until they change themselves can they stop talking about peace and progress because it is foolish to expect a different result with the same variables that we present before and during the early stages of the civil war. so simply walk the walk and stop daydreaming or just give up. simple. peace out.

As a country Somalia is a dead horse and as a society non-existent i am only surprised they haven't achieved total anarchy, barbarism and cannibalism in the south. Atleast then they would either die out or massively improve. this situation where the problem is not too small or too big means that it can go forever but for the grace of god and external factors. it is ironic they somalis say a great battle has happened and only 100 peaple died.at least in africa the pain and destruction is massive, the war short, and then genuine peace while somalis warlords drink tea together as if family. in africa peace negotiations the oppsite sides hate each other and still make peace. if only that could be said of somalia. there is no genuine hatred despite tribal loyalties. if somalis were genuine peaple then this war would have over by 1993 with 3-5 million dead, a bit like the war in Rwanda. so we should be thinking about peace. we should first make sure that the war has taken its true deaths and destruction and peaple are truly war-weary. somalis are not truly war-weary. that's how you get peace in a civil war.

i am taking of the now unthinkable possibilty of somalia having peace they will still not amount to much unless they have unbelievable good leadership such as the sayyid and ahmed gurey and then only while those figures are alive. peace out

i keep it real and look at the big picture instead of crying about a local issue that is somalia and look at global issues radically. somalia and somalis are only getting what they deserve for being so narrow minded and short-sighted. the SSC issue isn't going to matter in 2 decades if lets say China colonies somalia. and somalis all over the world following every little happening in somalia and you would think somalia was the world. somalis haven't overcame the village horizon to see the big picture and until they do they will remain insignificant peaple like Papua New Guinea. peace out

The issue isn't about puntland or somaliland but about the unity of SSC peaple. if they are united completely then they can join puntland if they wish without somaliland being able to do anything about it and vice versa or they could became independent if though this is a harder choice for practical reasons. the SSC issue remands me of Kashmir and how both India and Pakistan don't want to lose their parts even if Kashmir peaple choose independance. i have heard rumours that SSC peaple are harder to unite than the whole of somalia! that is the issue and i wish them the best. and frankly somalilanders and puntlanders thinking they control the SSC issue is ridiculous. the peaple fighting for somaliland in LA are SSC peaple lets not forget. and i think that somaliland and puntland have more importnat issues than the SSC issue so they should wait for the SSC peaple decision if it ever comes and focus on territories which there is no doubt about. peace out

We the people have given away our sovereign money-creating power to private, for-profit lending institutions, which have used it to siphon wealth from the productive economy. Some states are moving to take that power back. “Hundreds of job-creating projects are still on hold because Michigan businesses and entrepreneurs cannot get bank financing. We can break the credit crunch and beat Wall Street at their own game by keeping our money right here in Michigan and investing it to retool our economy and create jobs.” Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero in The Detroit News March 9, 2010 Michigan, which has an unemployment rate of 14 percent, has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn. Virg Bernero, mayor of Lansing, the state’s capital, and a leading Democratic candidate for governor, proposes to relieve the state’s economic ills by opening a state-owned bank. He says the bank could protect consumers by making low-interest loans to those most in need, including students and small businesses; it could also help community banks by buying mortgages off their books and working with them to fund development projects. Bernero joins a growing list of candidates proposing this sensible solution to their states’ fiscal ills. Local economies have collapsed because of the Wall Street credit freeze. To reinvigorate local business, Main Street needs a heavy infusion of credit, and publicly-owned banks could fill that need. In a recent article for YES! Magazine, I tracked candidates in five states running on a state bank platform and one state (Massachusetts) with a bill pending. Just one month later, there are now three more bills on the rolls—in Washington State, Illinois and Michigan—and two more candidates joining the list of proponents (joining Bernero is Gaelan Brown of Vermont). That brings the total to seven candidates in as many states (Florida, Oregon, Illinois, California, Washington State, Vermont, and Idaho) campaigning for state-owned banks, including three Democrats, two Greens, one Republican, and one Independent. The Independent, Vermont’s Gaelan Brown, says on his website, “Washington, D.C. has lost all moral authority over Vermont.” He adds, "Vermont should explore creating a State-owned bank that would work with private VT-based banks, to insulate VT from Wall Street corruption, and to increase investment capital for VT businesses, modeled after the very successful state-owned Bank of North Dakota." Michigan, which has an unemployment rate of 14 percent, has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn. Virg Bernero, mayor of Lansing, the state’s capital, and a leading Democratic candidate for governor, proposes to relieve the state’s economic ills by opening a state-owned bank. He says the bank could protect consumers by making low-interest loans to those most in need, including students and small businesses; it could also help community banks by buying mortgages off their books and working with them to fund development projects. Bernero joins a growing list of candidates proposing this sensible solution to their states’ fiscal ills. Local economies have collapsed because of the Wall Street credit freeze. To reinvigorate local business, Main Street needs a heavy infusion of credit, and publicly-owned banks could fill that need. In a recent article for YES! Magazine, I tracked candidates in five states running on a state bank platform and one state (Massachusetts) with a bill pending. Just one month later, there are now three more bills on the rolls—in Washington State, Illinois and Michigan—and two more candidates joining the list of proponents (joining Bernero is Gaelan Brown of Vermont). That brings the total to seven candidates in as many states (Florida, Oregon, Illinois, California, Washington State, Vermont, and Idaho) campaigning for state-owned banks, including three Democrats, two Greens, one Republican, and one Independent. The Independent, Vermont’s Gaelan Brown, says on his website, “Washington, D.C. has lost all moral authority over Vermont.” He adds, "Vermont should explore creating a State-owned bank that would work with private VT-based banks, to insulate VT from Wall Street corruption, and to increase investment capital for VT businesses, modeled after the very successful state-owned Bank of North Dakota." The True Potential of Publicly-owned Banks North Dakota broke new ground nearly a century ago, but the true potential of publicly owned banks remains to be explored. Nearly all of our money today is created by banks when they extend loans. (See the Chicago Federal Reserve’s “Modern Money Mechanics," which begins, “The actual process of money creation takes place primarily in banks.”) We the people have given away our sovereign money-creating power to private, for-profit lending institutions, which have used it to siphon wealth from the productive economy. If we were to take that power back, we could generate the credit we need to underwrite a whole cornucopia of projects that we don’t even consider because we think we lack the “money.” We have the labor and we have the materials; we just lack the “liquidity” necessary to put them together to create products and services. Money today is just a ticket, a receipt for work performed and goods delivered. We can fund the work we need done by creating our own credit. The real promise of publicly-owned banks is not that they can bail out subprime borrowers but that they can jumpstart the economy by creating real wealth. They can provide the liquidity to put labor and materials together, allowing the economy to build and grow. Our private, profit-driven banking sector has been bleeding wealth from the rest of the economy. Public-interest banks can transfuse the economy with the credit it needs to flourish and be productive once again. http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/the-growing-movement-for-publicly-owned-banks

Sacad *Ducaale funny man. what has good international reputation got somaliland. still unrecognized and has no concrete borders. when somaliland gets recognized i will believe international reputation is worth the paper it is written on. until then the strong will take what they can and the timid will get nothing. hope somaliland isn't in the latter dreaming about recognition for ever. peace out.

I think it improves his reputation. The British Empire was founded on plundering other peaples money and land and today hegemon the USA is plundering all over the world so it is standard best practice. from a moral point of view it is wrong but lets not pretend that we live in a moral world as we know most of the world governments don't give a damn about moral values. the UN and international law is the biggest joke going. there is only one international law and that is the law of the jungle and the rest is propoganda. if the axis powers have won the 2 world war they would have been seen as the better side and it only proves that propoganda works. all in all faroole is doing what the big boys are doing if he is actually doing it. and truly the international response will depend on if he is stepping on their toes and if it affects them not on moral values and frankly western and UN distrust is actually a good thing and puntland doesn't need them.

I think it improves his reputation. The British Empire was founded on plundering other peaples money and land and today hegemon the USA is plundering all over the world so it is standard best practice. from a moral point of view it is wrong but lets not pretend that we live in a moral as we know most of the world governments don't give a damn about moral values. the UN and international law is the biggest joke going. there is only one international law and that is the law of the jungle and the rest is propoganda. if the axis powers have won the 2 world war they would have been seen as the better and it only proves that propoganda works. all in all faroole is doing what the bif boys are doing if he is actually doing it. and truly the international response will depend on if he is steeping on their toes and if it affects them not on moral values and frankly western and UN distrust is actually a good thing and puntland doesn't need them.

East Africa is next hot oil zone NAIROBI, Kenya, March 10 (UPI) -- East Africa is emerging as the next oil boom following a big strike in Uganda's Lake Albert Basin. Other oil and natural gas reserves have been found in Tanzania and Mozambique and exploration is under way in Ethiopia and even war-torn Somalia. The region, until recently largely ignored by the energy industry, is "the last real high-potential area in the world that hasn't been fully explored," says Richard Schmitt, chief executive officer of Dubai's Black Marlin Energy, which is prospecting in East Africa. The discovery at Lake Albert, in the center of Africa between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is estimated to contain the equivalent of several billion barrels of oil. It is likely to be the biggest onshore field found south of the Sahara Desert in two decades. Tullow Oil, the British exploration company backed by a $1.4 billion loan from the Royal Bank of Scotland, says its Ngassa field in Uganda may be the biggest find in the Lake Albert Basin to date with up to 600 million barrels. Tullow has discovered reserves equivalent to around 2 billion barrels of oil in Uganda in the last four years. Most of the initial finds in East Africa were made by independent wildcatters like Tullow and another British firm, Heritage Oil, run by former mercenary Tony Buckingham. Now the majors are moving in. Heritage recently sold its 50 percent share in two Lake Albert Basin fields to Eni of Italy for $1.5 billion. Eni said the two blocks have the potential to produce 1 billion barrels and is fighting it out with Tullow for control of the reserves on the Ugandan side of Lake Albert. The Italian company is busy expanding in sub-Saharan Africa and has interests in Angola, Nigeria, Gabon, Mozambique and the Republic of Congo. The Ugandan government is negotiating with several majors with the financial clout to handle the enormous investment required to develop these emerging fields. Front-runners reportedly include China's state-run CNOOC, Total of France and Exxon Mobil of the United States. Andarko Petroleum Corp. of Texas says it has hit a giant natural gas field off the coast of Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony that became independent in 1975. Norway's Statoil is drilling in Mozambique's Rovuma Basin. Since the 2006 find at Lake Albert, one of the Great Lakes of Africa strung out along the Great Rift Valley, there have been at least 15 confirmed major strikes in the region. The Indian Ocean island of Madagascar contains "enormous reserves," according to Tiziana Luzzi-Arbouille of IHS Global Insight consultancy of London. "What happened in Uganda made it easier for smaller companies to raise funding," said Tewodros Ashenafi, head of Southwest Energy, an Ethiopian company exploring in the ****** Basin in the east of the country. This is a vast 135,000-square-mile territory in landlocked Ethiopia that is believed to contain sizable reserves of oil. It is estimated to hold 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas as well. Malaysia's Petronas, which recently acquired major blocks in Iraq, signed an exploration agreement with Addis Ababa in August 2007. The main problem for the oil industry is that the ******, like many parts of Africa, is a conflict zone, as it has been pretty much since the Cold War in the 1970s. This is one reason why exploration has been so tardy. Separatist rebels of the ****** National Liberation Front have warned oil companies to keep away and in April 2007 attacked a Chinese exploration group, killing 74 people. Petronas is also exploring in the Gambella Basin of western Ethiopia. Somalia has been torn by wars between feuding militias and clans since dictator Siad Barre was toppled in 1991 but it is also considered to hold considerable oil reserves. A 1993 study by Petroconsultants of Geneva concluded that Somalia has two of the most potentially interesting hydrocarbon-yielding basins in the entire region -- one in the central Mudugh region, the other in the Gulf of Aden. That was one of 10 such basins across Somalia, southeast Ethiopia and northeast Kenya. More recent analyses indicate that Somalia could have reserves of up to 10 billion barrels. But exploration remains an extremely hazardous undertaking. And it's likely to become more so as the country becomes a major focus for U.S. counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaida and its affiliates who are dug in there. http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/03/10/East-Africa-is-next-hot-oil-zone/UPI-656112 68249530/

Somalia: US backs puppet government’s planned military offensive By Brian Smith 12 March 2010 The United States’ military is working closely with its Somali counterparts in planning a major offensive against Islamist militias who control the bulk of the country, including almost all of the capital, Mogadishu. The New York Times reports that Washington is using drone surveillance planes over Somalia and is providing surveillance information on insurgent positions to the military commanders of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The Obama administration has also supervised the training of Somali forces and provided covert training to Somali intelligence officers. Such training, which has also been undertaken by Washington’s European Union allies, has taken place in US client states—Djibouti, Ethiopia, Uganda and in Kenya and Sudan. It has been condemned by Amnesty International, since it is not subject to “adequate vetting and oversight procedures”, and “some of the training is planned without proper notification to the UN Sanctions Committee, therefore undermining the UN arms embargo on Somalia”. Following the lessons learnt in Somalia in 1993, the US military has been wary of committing its own troops into areas considered unstable or hostile. It has relied instead on local forces, while guiding events from a safe distance. “This is not an American offensive,” US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson claimed. “The US military is not on the ground in Somalia. Full stop.” He added, “There are limits to outside engagement, and there has to be an enormous amount of local buy-in for this work.” However, the Times cites an unnamed Washington official, who predicted that US covert forces would get involved if the offensive that could begin in a few weeks dislodged Al-Qaeda terrorists. “What you’re likely to see is airstrikes and Special Ops moving in, hitting and getting out,” the official said. The US press has clearly been thoroughly briefed about the offensive. The Washington Post explained how the US administration’s tactics have changed under President Barack Obama, as the US has escalated its attacks against perceived Al Qaeda suspects and their allies. The Post sets out the three options that the US military considers with regard to “terrorist” suspects. Firstly, an airstrike on the suspect’s home or vehicle; secondly, an attempt to take him alive; or, thirdly, an attack from helicopters that land at the scene to confirm the kill. The latter was the option the White House authorized last September, when helicopters launched from a US ship off the Somali coast blew up a car carrying Saleh Ali Nabhan, who was nominally the head of Al Qaeda in East Africa. The Post believes that the decision to kill Nabhan was one of a number of similar operations the Obama administration has conducted globally over the past year, resulting in dozens of targeted killings and no reports of high-value detentions. Such attacks are authorized even more frequently under Obama than under the Bush administration. The US government is directly responsible for the chaos and insecurity that pervade Somalia, after decades of US support for warlords and illegitimate governments. Somalia and Yemen—a country on the Arabian Peninsula directly across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia—are seen by the US as key areas in its efforts to control the strategic Horn of Africa as it confronts its rivals, such as China, and makes preparations for a possible war with Iran. In preparation for the imminent offensive, the TFG has gathered its forces in Mogadishu and massed new and refurbished military trucks, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, ambulances and dozens of “technicals”—pickup trucks with cannons riveted on the back. Militants from the opposing al Shabaab militia, backed by a faction of Hizbul Islam, have also poured into the capital and its outskirts to reinforce the numerous organised groups already there. This influx of forces has deepened the humanitarian crisis, leading to a mass exodus of civilians from Mogadishu. Thousands of residents have fled to cramped makeshift camps on the outskirts of the city, where little aid is reaching them. In the past month, some 100,000 others have been displaced across the country, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. Amnesty International estimates that some 1.5 million people have been displaced by fighting in Somalia since 2007. In a pattern that reflects its past practice in Somalia and Afghanistan, the US is setting tribal, religious and ethnic factions against one another. This can only lead to further conflict and produce a ruling clique that reflects the interests of a small group that rules by suppressing all opposition. The TFG recently struck a political deal with Somalia’s main Sufi Islamist group, Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah. This arose in late 2008, as the withdrawal of US-backed Ethiopian troops from Somalia led the Ethiopian government to seek a means of containing the Islamist threat on its border. The strategy is to use Ahlus Sunnah militia to push towards Mogadishu from the central region, as part of a three-pronged offensive. The other two prongs are a militia made up of Somali refugees living in Kenya advancing from the Kenyan side, and TFG and African Union troops (AMISOM) attempting to retake the capital. AMISOM has about 5,000 Ugandan and Burundian troops in Somalia, with another 1,700 on the way. The offensive will be backed up by US drones, airstrikes and special forces operations. The other weapon that the US has at its disposal in Somalia is humanitarian aid. Mark Bowden, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, believes that the West, in particular Washington, is using the issue of humanitarian aid as a political tool: “Our concern is that what we’re seeing is a politicisation of humanitarian issues,” he explained. This follows the halving of aid by the US and British governments, the largest donors of food assistance to Somalia, despite the growing humanitarian crisis. Aid has been cut in order to stop it reaching areas controlled by the insurgents, primarily al Shabaab. The Times article appears to bear out this claim, with reports that Washington is using its influence to encourage private aid agencies to move quickly into “newly liberated areas,” in an effort to make the TFG more popular. Food is being prevented from reaching civilians in areas held by the insurgents and only provided in return for support for the TFG. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/soma-m12.shtml

interesting read perhaps. U.S. Wages Food War Against Somalia In Somalia, the United States has reverted to ancient siege tactics to starve the people into submission. The U.S. seeks to prevent food aid from getting to areas controlled by Shabab resistance fighters. However, “if international aid were restricted to areas controlled by the U.S.-backed puppet regime, only a few neighborhoods in Mogadishu, the capital, would be fed.” U.S. Wages Food War Against Somalia by BAR executive editor Glen Ford “United Nations compliance with U.S. conditions would mean starvation for about three million people.” While nearly half the population of Somalia teeters at the edge of starvation, the U.S. is preventing the United Nations from delivering desperately needed food. According to documents obtained by the New York Times, the Americans demand that aid agencies guarantee that no fees are paid “at roadblocks, ports, warehouses, airfields or other transit points'' controlled by Shabab resistance fighters. Since the Shabab and other militias control more than half of the area in conflict, United Nations compliance with U.S. conditions would mean starvation for about three million people.Indeed, if international aid were restricted to areas controlled by the U.S.-backed puppet regime, only a few neighborhoods in Mogadishu, the capital, would be fed. America’s Somali puppets are incapable of even defending themselves, much less maintaining a functioning government and infrastructure. Five thousand African Union (AU) soldiers – comprised mainly of Ugandans, the U.S.’s shock troops in Africa – keep control of the airport, the regime’s main link to the outside world. According to the United Nations, AU soldiers engage in “indiscriminate shelling” of civilians. As the Americans’ Somali puppets’ position becomes more untenable, the U.S. squeezes the UN’s food delivery system, in effect punishing the entire Somali people. U.S. food relief to the UN’s Somali operations in 2009 was only half that of 2008. In 2007, United Nations officials declared Somalia the “worst humanitarian crisis in Africa…worse than Darfur,” as a result of the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion in late 2006. Thus, the United States has been waging continuous war against the people of Somalia, directly or by proxy, for over three years under the guise of the “war on terror.” The United Nations official in charge of humanitarian operations in Somalia, Mark Bowden, says Washington’s charge that Shabab militants are siphoning off UN aid are “ungrounded.” A White House spokesman claimed that it’s not the U.S., but the Shabab that are denying Somalis access to food aid through their war against the Mogadishu “government.” It’s a macabre variation on the excuse Americans routinely offer when they massacre civilians: that the “insurgents” use civilians as “human shields,” forcing the Americans to kill them. “The United States has been waging continuous war against the people of Somalia, directly or by proxy, for over three years.” When the UN’s Mark Bowden complained to officials in Washington about the withholding of food to Somalia, he was told, ‘This is beyond our pay grade.’” Meaning, the orders come from much higher up, likely from UN Ambassador Susan Rice, the administration’s most prominent acolyte of “humanitarian military intervention” – a doctrine Rice has twisted into the ultimate obscenity in the Horn of Africa. “Humanitarian military intervention” maintains that it is the duty of greater powers – that is, the U.S. and its allies – to intervene in the affairs of weaker countries if their governments cannot, or will not, attend to the needs of their people. Also known as “responsibility to protect” – or “R2P” – the doctrine, by definition, requires no consent from the soon-to-be subject populations. R2P can be immediately invoked against “failed states,” as designated by the “protective” and “humanitarian” intervener. Indeed, once a state has been declared “failed,” the great powers are obligated to intervene, according to the logic of R2P. It is all the more convenient when the U.S. has, in fact, caused the “failure” of the weak nation’s state. Such was the case in 2006, when a fledgling state had finally emerged in south-central Somalia, organized by a movement called the Islamic Courts. When the Islamic Courts defeated U.S-backed warlords and succeeded in bringing a modicum of peace, law and order to their part of Somalia, the Americans instigated and bankrolled an Ethiopian invasion, plunging Somalia into “humanitarian crisis.” “Once a state has been declared “failed,” the great powers are obligated to intervene, according to the logic of R2P.” As a Democrat on the political sidelines, Susan Rice ranted for greater U.S. military intervention in the Horn Africa, including an air and naval blockade of Sudan. Rice’s ravings, modulated for diplomatic purposes, became U.S. policy upon Barack Obama’s election. Thousands of ethnic Somalis in Kenya were recruited into the puppet Somali government’s forces across the common border (see “U.S. Sows Seeds of Wider War in East Africa,” BAR November 17, 2009) – although to little apparent military effect in Somalia. However, the recruitments cannot help but undermine Kenyan national cohesion, by encouraging ethnic Somalis to identify, not with Kenya, but with the neighboring state. More ominously, the U.S. has pressured the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against Eritrea for allegedly providing material support to the Somali Shabab – a charge Eritrea vehemently denies (see “Who Demonizes Eritrea and Why?” BAR February 16, 2010). Every action the U.S. takes in the Horn of Africa seems calculated to undermine the stability of some of the region’s constituent nations or, in Somalia’s case, prevent a national state from emerging at all, unless it is handpicked by Washington. (In Sudan, the U.S. and Israel have long worked toward partition of Africa’s largest country.) Unable to find or cultivate a Somali front man capable of defeating the Shabab, the U.S. lays siege to the Somali people, to starve them into submission. Refusing to authorize the release of grain piled high in warehouses in Mombasa, Kenya, the American regime reveals itself as somewhat less humanitarian than Genghis Khan. http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/us-wages-food-war-against-somalia