Edited by Louis Standish
America and the Pirates of Somalia
Published in al-Qabas
(Kuwait) on 28 November 2008
by Abdel-Khaliq Mela Jum’a (link to original)
News flash: Somali pirates demand $25 million ransom to end the seizure of the Saudi oil tanker and let it set sail once again… End of news flash.
History reminds us that some five centuries ago during the age of geographic discoveries, when the Western colonialists considered controlling the Arab sea, the Aden Gulf and the Arab Gulf, the justification of the Portuguese, as the first religious seafarers, was the protection of sea navigation, fishers and divers from pirates. Under this pretext, the Portuguese built monitoring stations and guarded the shores of Muscat, Dubai and Doha. Then they repeated this on the Kuwaiti island of Failaka and they remained in control of the region for approximately 70 years, with its effects remaining to this day. Then came competitors in the form of the Spanish, then the Dutch and the French over varying periods of time. Finally, the situation stabilized in British hands when they occupied Aden in 1839, followed by both the eastern and western ports of the Gulf. Indeed, they occupied and controlled the eastern and western straits and ports, particularly sea trading routes, under the pretext of ‘guarding against pirates’ by sea and land.
Today, this experience is essentially repeated with Somali pirates in a similar format, and thus we ask: How did the Somali pirates manage to capture this giant tanker which would surely need a paratrooper landing in order to storm it? For this reason, the sheer size of the tanker connects the story to the preceding events of the two towers in 9/11 in order to excuse the military presence of the new American project in Africa!
I need not belong to any conspiracy theorist school in order to reach the following conclusion. Rather, this was done through reading the strategic history of the Anglo-Saxon coalition of decades ago which confirms that the far-reaching goals of this bilateral coalition were publicized and not some kind of secret code I’ve tried to decipher.
Additionally, the U.S. Army will leave Iraq after a number of months according to the promises of America’s new President Obama, and the same line accords with the recently signed Status of Forces Agreement [SOFA] between the U.S. and Iraq. Thus, the U.S. Navy needs a new spot in order to remain in the region and the seas are more suitable than land for the following reasons: in order to protect energy resources on the one hand, and watching Iranian military activities close to the Hormuz straits on the other. Another wish is to frustrate Sudani-Iranian cooperation and finally, and most importantly, to confront the Chinese trade invasion of the African continent. This point deserves greater detail: China has long been flooding African countries with its commodities, whose markets are considered promising, and these are flanked by Chinese projects which are free of political “implications.” Thus, African systems have been oiled through Chinese facilitation. Chinese expansion on the Black Continent has been increasing day by day, in face of the economic crisis currently experienced in U.S., caused by George W. Bush. On this basis, the new U.S. administration is trying to invest in Obama as an accepted player and a catalyst to bridge the gap with the African continent to plunge into its economic future. This approach began when former Secretary of State Colin Powell visited a number of African countries, particularly Sudan, in which he became closely acquainted with the bloody Darfur conflict, making up for the U.S.’s failings in Somalia in 1992. Indeed, in only August 2008, Condoleezza Rice undertook a paradigm-shift visit to Libya, paving the way for handing this issue over to President Obama. Therefore, this coming plan is American piracy in Africa, with an Obama smile!
A final word: Somalia is the only Arabic country in which three European colonialist powers agreed to an alliance over its occupation: France, Britain and Italy
History reminds us that some five centuries ago during the age of geographic discoveries, when the Western colonialists considered controlling the Arab sea, the Aden Gulf and the Arab Gulf, the justification of the Portuguese, as the first religious seafarers, was the protection of sea navigation, fishers and divers from pirates. Under this pretext, the Portuguese built monitoring stations and guarded the shores of Muscat, Dubai and Doha. Then they repeated this on the Kuwaiti island of Failaka and they remained in control of the region for approximately 70 years, with its effects remaining to this day. Then came competitors in the form of the Spanish, then the Dutch and the French over varying periods of time. Finally, the situation stabilized in British hands when they occupied Aden in 1839, followed by both the eastern and western ports of the Gulf. Indeed, they occupied and controlled the eastern and western straits and ports, particularly sea trading routes, under the pretext of ‘guarding against pirates’ by sea and land.
Today, this experience is essentially repeated with Somali pirates in a similar format, and thus we ask: How did the Somali pirates manage to capture this giant tanker which would surely need a paratrooper landing in order to storm it? For this reason, the sheer size of the tanker connects the story to the preceding events of the two towers in 9/11 in order to excuse the military presence of the new American project in Africa!
I need not belong to any conspiracy theorist school in order to reach the following conclusion. Rather, this was done through reading the strategic history of the Anglo-Saxon coalition of decades ago which confirms that the far-reaching goals of this bilateral coalition were publicized and not some kind of secret code I’ve tried to decipher.
Additionally, the U.S. Army will leave Iraq after a number of months according to the promises of America’s new President Obama, and the same line accords with the recently signed Status of Forces Agreement [SOFA] between the U.S. and Iraq. Thus, the U.S. Navy needs a new spot in order to remain in the region and the seas are more suitable than land for the following reasons: in order to protect energy resources on the one hand, and watching Iranian military activities close to the Hormuz straits on the other. Another wish is to frustrate Sudani-Iranian cooperation and finally, and most importantly, to confront the Chinese trade invasion of the African continent. This point deserves greater detail: China has long been flooding African countries with its commodities, whose markets are considered promising, and these are flanked by Chinese projects which are free of political “implications.” Thus, African systems have been oiled through Chinese facilitation. Chinese expansion on the Black Continent has been increasing day by day, in face of the economic crisis currently experienced in U.S., caused by George W. Bush. On this basis, the new U.S. administration is trying to invest in Obama as an accepted player and a catalyst to bridge the gap with the African continent to plunge into its economic future. This approach began when former Secretary of State Colin Powell visited a number of African countries, particularly Sudan, in which he became closely acquainted with the bloody Darfur conflict, making up for the U.S.’s failings in Somalia in 1992. Indeed, in only August 2008, Condoleezza Rice undertook a paradigm-shift visit to Libya, paving the way for handing this issue over to President Obama. Therefore, this coming plan is American piracy in Africa, with an Obama smile!
A final word: Somalia is the only Arabic country in which three European colonialist powers agreed to an alliance over its occupation: France, Britain and Italy