THE HIDDEN COST OF U.S. INTERVENTION

In this clip from the 1990s, political scientist Michael Parenti dispelled the official narrative surrounding the United States military intervention in Somalia, exposing the economic and geopolitical interests that drove the invasion. While the US claimed it was acting out of humanitarian concern, Parenti argued the true motivations were corporate oil interests and strategic calculations, largely ignored by the mainstream media.

Somalia is located at the entrance of the Red Sea, a resource-rich and crucial shipping lane. Even before the intervention, major US oil interests had secretly negotiated exploration rights in most of Somalia's territory, recognising its potential as a strategic jewel.

Parenti placed Somalia in a broader context, where Western powers deploy troops into African countries not to end crises, but to safeguard resources and avert geopolitical rivalry. The result? African sovereignty is undermined, corporate interests are advanced, and the roots of the crisis remain intact.

Under Donald Trump, US policy toward Somalia took another turn, but remained rooted in militarism and strategic self-interest. Throughout his first term, Trump oversaw troop withdrawals but maintained clandestine drone strikes, with reported civilian casualties. His second term has been characterised by strikes in the Golis mountains while he withdrew developmental and military assistance. These mutually exclusive moves, bombing and militarising but not building, echo the same decades-long pattern.

In Libya, the US-backed NATO intervention in 2011 toppled Gaddafi and unleashed a brutal civil war, armed militias, and slave markets. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cold War-era US operations helped install Mobutu Sese Seko (1930-97), whose decades of kleptocracy devastated the country’s institutions while ensuring access for Western mining interests. 

To Africans, the question is: What will it take to end Western interventions in our homeland?

Video credit: @somalicents (IG)