{"id":201469,"date":"2021-12-20T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=201469"},"modified":"2021-12-15T04:29:57","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T04:29:57","slug":"every-option-is-on-the-table-us-prepping-for-libya-style-intervention-in-ethiopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/12\/every-option-is-on-the-table-us-prepping-for-libya-style-intervention-in-ethiopia\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cEvery Option Is on the Table\u201d: US Prepping for Libya-Style Intervention in Ethiopia"},"content":{"rendered":"

War Drums Sounding – While many in the Horn of Africa clearly need help, the Biden administration\u2019s idea of \u201chelp\u201d might not be exactly what they had in mind.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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A protester from Ethiopia\u2019s community in Lebanon holds a placard against the U.S. and other western country\u2019s intervention in her country in Beirut, Lebanon, Dec. 5, 2021. Hussein Malla | AP<\/p><\/div>\n

10 Dec 2021 –<\/em> <\/b>Amid a bloody civil conflict and increasing great-power competition between the United States and China, there are a number of alarming signs that Ethiopia will become the next Libya \u2013 an African nation where the U.S. intervenes militarily under the pretext of stopping an impending genocide.<\/p>\n

A considerable military buildup is now underway. Last week, the U.S. military announced<\/a> it was sending over 1,000 National Guard members to nearby Djibouti. This is on top of the special operations<\/a> forces already sent in November. Perhaps most notably, a government official told<\/a> CNN<\/i> that the aircraft carrier USS Essex<\/i> \u2013 along with two other large amphibious vehicles \u2013 was steaming towards the Horn of Africa and standing by for further orders.<\/p>\n

For weeks, the drums of war have been growing louder in our nation\u2019s media. \u201cEthiopia\u2019s civil war is a problem U.S. troops can help solve,\u201d Admiral James Stavridis, former supreme allied commander of NATO. wrote in Bloomberg<\/i><\/a> and The Washington Post<\/i><\/a>. \u201cSending peacekeepers to the pivotal nation of East Africa wouldn\u2019t be popular domestically, but may be the only way to stop the conflict,\u201d he added. Meanwhile, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer argued<\/a> that the West should establish a \u201cno fly zone\u201d across Ethiopia \u2013 a country of 115 million people and twice the size of France.<\/p>\n

When it comes to Ethiopia, said<\/a> head of USAID Samantha Power, one of the architects of the U.S. intervention in Libya, \u201cevery option is on the table\u201d \u2013 using a phrase that has long been understood<\/a> to be a threat of war. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also refused<\/a> to rule out sending troops into Ethiopia when directly asked.<\/p>\n

Given its bloody record, the talk of a \u201chumanitarian\u201d invasion has many Ethiopians worried. \u201cThe U.S. is looking for a pretext for military intervention in Ethiopia. The play books of interventions in Iraq, Syria, Yugoslavia, and Libya are being referred to,\u201d Dr. Berhanu Taye, an Ethiopian physician and member of the Global Ethiopian Advocacy Nexus<\/a>, told MintPress<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The military buildup comes on the back of economic actions already taken. In September, President Joe Biden labeled Ethiopia a national security threat as he imposed sanctions upon government officials. Last month, the U.S. also placed sanctions<\/a> on Eritrea, whose troops are also heavily involved in the fight against the Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front (TPLF).<\/p>\n

The White House is currently withholding<\/a> over a quarter-billion dollars of aid from Ethiopia and has ended the country\u2019s special trade status under U.S. law, which had allowed it to export goods freely to the United States. Critics say that this could have the effect of crashing the already shaky economy, threatening over a million jobs.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, a number of Western governments (including the U.S.) signed a statement<\/a> condemning the Ethiopian government for its human rights violations while fighting the TPLF, which they did not censure. The State Department is reportedly<\/a> considering labeling the actions in Ethiopia a \u201cgenocide,\u201d a word that would have considerable implications, given NATO\u2019s self-declared \u201cright to protect\u201d doctrine, whereby it claims it has the right to intervene anywhere in the world to stop ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n

A year of deadly fighting<\/h2>\n

Bordering Eritrea and Sudan, Tigray is Ethiopia\u2019s northernmost region, home to 7 million people. Although ethnic Tigrayans constitute only around 6%<\/a> of Ethiopia\u2019s population, they play an outsized role in public life, as the TPLF controlled the country between 1991 and 2018, when popular protests forced them out of power.<\/p>\n

Tigrayans were near ubiquitous in the upper ranks of the country\u2019s military and intelligence services, and were greatly overrepresented among its economic elite. This, for Dr. Taye, amounted to no less than a system of informal \u201cApartheid\u201d that was ignored by most of the West. MintPress<\/i> also contacted a spokesperson for the TPLF, but did not receive a response.<\/p>\n

Since coming to power in 2018, the new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has moved against the TPLF in a set of changes that supporters see as much needed reforms to reduce corruption and the TPLF\u2019s grip over public life, but opponents see as overstepping his mandate and as the persecution of an ethnic minority.<\/p>\n

The spark for war came in November 2020, when Ahmed attempted to remove military officers belonging to the TPLF from their command. The TPLF fought back, attacking Northern Command headquarters in Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray region. Later that month, TPLF forces also shelled Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. As the TPLF reportedly have drawn closer to the capital, Addis Ababa, a number of the country\u2019s sports stars, including long-distance running hero Haile Gebrselassie<\/a>, have volunteered for government military service.<\/p>\n

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An Ethiopian woman argues with others over food aid in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, May 8, 2021. Ben Curtis | AP<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The fighting has continued since then, save for a unilateral government ceasefire<\/a> in the summer in order that the country\u2019s harvest would not be ruined. Nevertheless, the humanitarian costs have been extremely grave. More than 9 million people live in conflict regions, an estimated 400,000 of those suffering under famine-like conditions, according<\/a> to the United Nations. Tens of thousands have died in the conflict, which has seen documented atrocities from all sides. The number of displaced people, already high, has now grown<\/a> to an estimated 4 million.<\/p>\n

The TPLF maintains that the Ethiopian government is blocking international aid convoys from reaching Tigray and that Prime Minister Abiy must step down. Yet Abiy won a landslide victory earlier this year, and was only inaugurated in October. While there were clear drawbacks with the process (voting did not take place in war-ravaged regions like Tigray, for instance), it is difficult to interpret his party winning over 90% of the seats contested as anything other than a national mandate.<\/p>\n

Media\u2019s demonizing chorus<\/h2>\n

Thus, the conflict is ultimately a struggle between two political forces for the control of Ethiopia\u2019s economy. Yet this is not at all how corporate media have presented the issue, preferring instead to frame it as the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments exterminating an ethnic minority group. CNN<\/i>, for example, wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Eritrean troops aren\u2019t just working hand in glove with the Ethiopian government, assisting in a merciless campaign against the Tigrayan people; in some pockets they\u2019re fully in control and waging a reign of terror\u2026 [that] bears the hallmarks of genocide and has the potential to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The New York Times<\/i> has followed a similar line in much of its reporting. Embedding themselves with the TPLF, they described<\/a> their companions as \u201ca scrappy force of local Tigrayan recruits\u201d that had, against the odds, \u201cscored a cascade of battlefield victories against the Ethiopian military, one of Africa\u2019s strongest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many Ethiopians have been critical of this coverage. Dr. Kassahun Melesse, an Ethiopian economist from the Oregon State University, noted:<\/p>\n

Let alone the framing, the mainstream media got the most fundamental fact about the military conflict wrong: the date the military conflict between the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and the TPLF began. For instance, in virtually all of its reporting on conflict, The New York Times has stated that the federal government launched the war on Nov. 4, 2020. And because the media got this basic fact wrong, all the major theories and framing based on this premise are wrong.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Taye was even more blunt. \u201cWestern mainstream media continue to fabricate lies and disseminate disinformation intended to demonize the Ethiopian government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One example of bias pro-Abiy Ethiopians have pointed to is the Times<\/i>\u2019 apparent whitewashing of the TPLF\u2019s alleged use of child soldiers. Possibly referring to this, the Times <\/i>describes<\/a> the TPLF as consisting largely of \u201chighly motivated young recruits.\u201d Even more incriminating, the article\u2019s co-author shared<\/a> a series of (since deleted) images on his Instagram to promote the story, one of which shows not only children but obviously pre-pubescent boys carrying rifles, complete with a caption seemingly describing them as \u201chighly motivated young recruits.\u201d The TPLF maintains that it does not use child soldiers.<\/p>\n

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via @besabestin<\/a>, a New York Times photographer shared this image of the "highly motivated young recruits" he was talking about. pic.twitter.com\/RQJfkmRXpn<\/a><\/p>\n

— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) December 7, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n