Strike Two against "the Squad": Rep. Omar, our first Somali-American congressperson, hails AFRICOM for working toward "transparency" and "accountability" in bombing her native country
Mark Crispin Miller
Rep. Omar recently commended the US war machine for increasing the “transparency” and “accountability” of its bombing of her native country.
“Instead of this being an asset to expose AFRICOM and to the decolonization Africa, Rep. Omar validates the role of AFRICOM.”
United States representatives, no matter their racial or ethnic backgrounds, appear unable to perceive the inherent white supremacy in the notion that the US has some altruistic responsibility to police the continent of Africa with military troops and supervisors. As a result, "people of color," such as the Somali-"American" Congresswoman IIhan Omar provide political and moral cover to the presence of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the dubious claims about “US interests” on the continent.
Only an erasure of brutal European colonization from history and its “Scramble for Africa” to steal her rich mineral resources and vast tracts of arable land can justify giving heirs of European colonialism a role of benevolence. AFRICOM is the colonization of Africa by the U.S. and constitutes the new scramble for Africa tantamount to when, in the 1800s, the colonial powers fought over which of them would dominate which parts of the resource rich continent.
It is a strange but illuminating irony that AFRICOM’s most intense drone war is in Somalia and that the U.S. Congress has its first House representative of Somali origin. Instead of this being an asset to expose AFRICOM and to the decolonization Africa, Rep. Ilhan Omar validates the role of AFRICOM.
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