not the norm.

i am going to break a lot of rules by writing what i will write next.

if you have a weak stomach, are patriotic, or know anyone who'd be offended by condemnation of particular US soldiers, or would be offended by an affront to the American psyche of super-importance... then stop reading this entry.

---

i first read a story of a woman named Maria Osman, a Mogadishu resident, about two weeks ago. Yahoo News journalist Kevin Sites has been touring the world's conflict zones for about a year. he stopped in Mogadishu and met a woman named Maria.

her arm is useless. rendered so by the bullet wound that she earned for trying to reach the crushed body of her dead young daughter... under US Black Hawk helicopter Super Six One. When the first Black Hawk went down on October 3, 1993, it would herald the end for 18 American soldiers.

and the same fate came to roughly 600 to 1,000 Somalis.

we glorify the black hawks.


and we ignore Maria Osman's story.


the film makes no mention of the girl crushed by Super Six One.

' "I hate the Americans," she says, her eyes maintaining their empty sadness rather than shifting to anger. "I hate them for what happened to my daughter. If I saw one I would cut them up into so many pieces." ' -Kevin Sites quoting Maria Osman

if you think this is wrong, i agree with you. i think hate is a horrible thing, but i can see where it comes from.
but apparently she's not the only one guilty of this.

"An anonymous man wearing a US Special Forces T-shirt is a war criminal, if his three-minute YouTube interview is to be believed. In it, he claims to have taken part in routine torture of Iraqis — Hajji’s in soldier slang — in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison..." -Captain Eric May, on Soldier X's Youtube interview (i won't put the link to it, but search "soldier x interview" if you absolutely don't believe me in any other way. but please, don't view it unless you're completely ready to hear what he has to say, while smiling)


last month i joined the All Somali Forum. i wrote a blog on there about the war crimes of the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia, and when someone read it, they posted a comment asking me if i am anti-TFG.

i told them that i am, for the time being, since they are committing war crimes and getting away with it. i am against any war criminal. frankly, as you can guess, that does mean tat my enemies include many americans. by far, hopefully not a majority, but definitely more than i'd normally think.

there are always people against people. but if it's going to go that way, it should only be the armed against the armed. civilians should never be targets. and there is such a thing as War Law. so if you're going to lose your head, at least do it by the rules.

Mogadishu

"hello, my name is ________________, and i'm a US citizen living in ______________. i'm calling on behalf of a man named ________________ living in Mogadishu, in Somalia, seeking asylum here..."

i called the UNHCR DC Office.

this is how my voicemail started. obviously, for protection all around, things had to be changed here, in this publishing.

the man i mentioned above, a Somali journalist, has been threatened by both sides, for his work with foreign journalists.

one of the journalists he's worked with in the past several months works for a big newspaper based not far from my house. i'm working with both of them, as well as a woman in the 11th District Office in Ohio, working for Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones.

hopefully this action will all count for something.

Human Rights in Somalia

i've got a lead. a Somali journalist living in Mogadishu. could be the key i need to unlock a lot of the shrouded stories of Mogadishu's past, present, and future.

pray for me, my sisters and brothers, and pray for my contact. they face danger on a daily basis. several journalists have been killed (often targetted) in the past year, in Mogadishu. just pray.

and act.