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<div style="display: block;" id="reader-header" class="header"> <b><small><small><small><small><a
href="https://theintercept.com/2016/03/08/nobody-knows-the-identity-of-the-150-people-killed-by-u-s-in-somalia-but-most-are-certain-they-deserved-it/"
id="reader-domain" class="domain"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theintercept.com/2016/03/08/nobody-knows-the-identity-of-the-150-people-killed-by-u-s-in-somalia-but-most-are-certain-they-deserved-it/">https://theintercept.com/2016/03/08/nobody-knows-the-identity-of-the-150-people-killed-by-u-s-in-somalia-but-most-are-certain-they-deserved-it/</a></a></small></small></small></small></b>
<h1 id="reader-title">Nobody Knows the Identities of the 150
Killed by U.S. in Somalia but Most are Certain They Deserved
it</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Glenn Greenwald<br>
March 8, 2016<br>
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<p>The U.S. used drones and manned aircraft yesterday
to drop bombs and missiles on Somalia, <a
href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35748986">ending
the lives of at least 150 people</a>. As it virtually
always does, the Obama administration <a
href="http://www.defense.gov/News-Article-View/Article/687353/us-conducts-airstrike-against-terrorist-camp-in-somalia">instantly
claimed</a> that the people killed were “terrorists”
and militants — members of <a
href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-15336689">the
Somali group al Shabaab</a> — but provided no evidence
to support that assertion.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, most U.S. media reports contained nothing
more than quotes from U.S. officials about what
happened, conveyed uncritically and with no skepticism
of their accuracy: The dead “fighters … were assembled
for what American officials believe was a graduation
ceremony and prelude to an imminent attack against
American troops,” <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/world/africa/us-airstrikes-somalia.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">pronounced
the<em> New York Times</em></a>. So, the official
story goes, The Terrorists were that very
moment “graduating” — receiving their Terrorist degrees
— and about to attack U.S. troops when the U.S. killed
them.</p>
<p>With that boilerplate set of claims in place, huge
numbers of people today who have absolutely no idea who
was killed are certain that they all deserved it. As my
colleague Murtaza Hussain <a
href="https://twitter.com/MazMHussain/status/707235755786149888">said</a>
of the 150 dead people: “We don’t know who they are, but
luckily they were all bad.” For mindless authoritarians,
the words “terrorist” and “militant” have no meaning
other than: <em>anyone who dies when my government
drops bombs</em>, or, at best, <em>a “terrorist” is
anyone</em> <em>my government tells me is a
terrorist. </em>Watch how many people today are
defending this strike by claiming “terrorists” and
“militants” were killed using those definitions even
though they have literally no idea who was killed.</p>
<p>Other than the higher-than-normal death toll, this mass
killing is an incredibly common event under the
presidency of the 2009 Nobel Peace laureate, who has so
far <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2014/09/23/nobel-peace-prize-fact-day-syria-7th-country-bombed-obama/">bombed
seven predominantly Muslim countries</a>. As Nick
Turse <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2015/11/20/in-mali-and-rest-of-africa-the-u-s-military-fights-a-hidden-war/">has</a>
<a
href="https://theintercept.com/2015/10/21/stealth-expansion-of-secret-us-drone-base-in-africa/">reported</a> in <em>The
Intercept</em>, Obama has aggressively expanded the
stealth drone program and secret war in Africa.</p>
<p>This particular mass killing is unlikely to get much
attention in the U.S. due to (1) the election-season
obsession with horse-race analysis and pressing matters
such as the size of Donald Trump’s hands; (2) widespread
Democratic indifference to the killing of foreigners
where there’s no partisan advantage to be had against
the GOP from pretending to care; (3) the invisibility of
places like Somalia and the implicit devaluing of lives
there; and (4) the complete normalization of the model
whereby the U.S. president kills whomever he wants,
wherever he wants, without regard for any semblance of
law, process, accountability, or evidence.</p>
<p>The lack of attention notwithstanding, there are
several important points highlighted by yesterday’s
bombing and the reaction to it:</p>
<p><strong>1)</strong> The U.S. is not at war in Somalia.
Congress has never declared war on Somalia, nor has it
authorized the use of military force there. Morality and
ethics to the side for the moment: What legal authority
does Obama even possess to bomb this country? I assume
we can all agree that presidents shouldn’t be permitted
to just go around killing people they suspect are “bad”:
they need some type of legal authority to do the
killing.</p>
<p>Since 2001, the U.S. government has legally justified
its <em>we-bomb-wherever-we-want </em>approach by
pointing to the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military
Force (AUMF), enacted by Congress in the wake of 9/11 to
authorize the targeting of al Qaeda and “affiliated”
forces. But al Shabaab did not exist in 2001 and had
nothing to do with 9/11. Indeed, the group has not
tried to attack the U.S. but instead, as the<em> New
York Times</em>’ Charlie Savage <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/world/africa/07detain.html?_r=1&hp">noted</a> in
2011, “is focused on a parochial insurgency in Somalia.”
As a result, reported Savage, even “the [Obama]
administration does not consider the United States to be
at war with every member of the Shabaab.”</p>
<p>Instead, in the Obama administration’s view, specific
senior members of al Shabaab can be treated as enemy
combatants under the AUMF only if they adhere to al
Qaeda’s ideology, are “integrated” into its command
structure, and could conduct operations outside of
Somalia. That’s why the U.S. government yesterday
claimed that all the people it killed were about to
launch attacks on U.S. soldiers: because, even under
its own incredibly expansive view of the AUMF, it would
be<em> illegal</em> to kill them merely on the ground
that they were all members of al Shabaab, and the
government thus needs a claim of “self-defense” to
legally justify this.</p>
<p>But even under the “self-defense” theory that the U.S.
government invoked, it is allowed — under its <a
href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/2013.05.23_fact_sheet_on_ppg.pdf">own
policies promulgated in 2013</a> — to use lethal force
<a
href="https://lawfareblog.com/airstrikes-outside-areas-active-hostilities-attacks-somalia-and-questions-about-current-shape-policy">away
from an active war zone</a> (e.g., Afghanistan) “only
against a target that poses a continuing, imminent
threat to U.S. persons.” Perhaps these Terrorists were
about to imminently attack U.S. troops stationed in the
region — immediately after the tassel on their
graduation cap was turned at the “graduation ceremony,”
they were going on the attack — but again, there is
literally no evidence that any of that is true.</p>
<p>Given what’s at stake — namely, the conclusion that
Obama’s killing of 150 people yesterday was illegal —
shouldn’t we be demanding to see <em>evidence</em> that
the assertions of his government are actually true? Were
these really all al Shabaab fighters and terrorists who
were killed? Were they really about to carry out some
sort of imminent, dangerous attack on U.S. personnel?
Why would anyone be content to blindly believe the
self-serving assertions of the U.S. government on these
questions without seeing evidence? If you are willing to
make excuses for why you don’t want to see any evidence,
why would you possibly think you know what happened here
— who was killed and under what circumstances — if all
you have are conclusory, evidence-free assertions from
those who carried out the killings?</p>
<p><strong>2)</strong> There are numerous compelling
reasons demanding skepticism of U.S. government claims
about who it kills in airstrikes. To begin with, the
Obama administration has <a
href="http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/">formally
re-defined</a> the term “militant” to mean: “<strong>all
military-age males in a strike zone” </strong>unless
“there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving
them innocent.” In other words, the U.S. government
presumptively regards all adult males it kills as
“militants” unless evidence emerges that they were not.
It’s an empty, manipulative term of propaganda and
nothing else.</p>
<p>Beyond that, the U.S. government’s own documents prove
that in the vast majority of cases — <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/civilian-deaths-drone-strikes_us_561fafe2e4b028dd7ea6c4ff">9
out of 10 in fact</a> — it is killing people other
than its intended targets. Last April, the<em> New York
Times</em> <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/world/asia/drone-strikes-reveal-uncomfortable-truth-us-is-often-unsure-about-who-will-die.html">published
an article</a> under the headline “Drone Strikes
Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About
Who Will Die.” It quoted the scholar Micah Zenko saying,
“Most individuals killed are not on a kill list, and the
government does not know their names.”</p>
<p>Moreover, the U.S. government has repeatedly <a
href="http://www.salon.com/2011/07/19/drones/">been
caught lying</a> about the identities of its bombings
victims. As that April <em>NYT </em>article put it,
“Every independent investigation of the strikes has
found far more civilian casualties than administration
officials admit.”</p>
<p>Given that clear record of deliberate deceit, why would
any rational person blindly swallow evidence-free
assertions from the U.S. government about who it is
killing? To put it mildly, extreme skepticism is
warranted (after being criticized for its stenography,
the final <em>New York Times</em> story yesterday at
least included this phrase about the Pentagon’s claims
about who it killed: “There was no independent way to
verify the claim”).</p>
<p><strong>3) </strong>Why does the U.S. have troops
stationed in this part of Africa? Remember, even the
Obama administration says it is not at war with al
Shabaab.</p>
<p>Consider how circular this entire rationale is:
The U.S., like all countries, obviously has a legitimate
interest in protecting its troops from attack. But why
does it have troops there at all in need of protection?
The answer: The troops are there to operate drone bases
and attack people they regard as a threat to them. But
if they weren’t there in the first place, these groups
could not pose a threat to them.</p>
<p>In sum: We need U.S. troops in Africa to launch drone
strikes at groups that are trying to attack U.S. troops
in Africa. It’s the ultimate self-perpetuating circle of
imperialism: We need to deploy troops to other countries
in order to attack those who are trying to kill U.S.
troops who are deployed there.</p>
<p><strong>4) </strong>If you’re an American who has lived
under the war on terror, it’s easy to forget how extreme
this behavior is. Most countries on the planet don’t
routinely run around dropping bombs and killing dozens
of people in multiple other countries at once, let alone
do so in countries where <em>they’re not at war.</em></p>
<p>But for Americans, this is now all perfectly
normalized. We just view our president as vested with
the intrinsic, divine right, grounded in American
exceptionalism, to deem whomever he wants “Bad Guys” and
then — with no trial, no process, no accountability —
order them killed. He’s the roving, Global Judge, Jury,
and Executioner. And we see nothing disturbing or
dangerous or even odd about that. We’ve been inculcated
to view the world the way a 6-year-old watches cartoons:
Bad Guys should be killed, and that’s the end of the
story.</p>
<p>So yesterday the president killed roughly 150 people in
a country where the U.S. is not at war. The Pentagon
issued a five-sentence boilerplate statement declaring
them all “terrorists.” And that’s pretty much the end of
that. Within literally hours, virtually everyone was
ready to forget about the whole thing and move on,
content in the knowledge — even without a shred of
evidence or information about the people killed — that
their government and president did the right thing. Now <em>that</em>
is a pacified public and malleable media.</p>
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