The Bush administration should not be supporting an illegal Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia.

Last December, Ethiopian tanks – supported by U.S. AC-130 helicopter gunships – invaded Somalia, ousting the Union of Islamic Courts and installing a U.S. puppet regime called the Transitional Federal Government.

Six months earlier, in June 2006, the Somali people had allowed the Union of Islamic Courts to take power to help end the anarchy that resulted from a 15-year civil war in the battered country.

During its short-lived tenure, the Union of Islamic Courts brought peace and security to the areas under its control. But the U.S. government asserted, without evidence, that the Islamists were providing a safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists. The Islamic government denied this.

The United States, it seems, was determined to restore chaos and lawlessness to Somalia rather than deal with a peaceful Somalia ruled under Islamic law.

The new government is made up primarily of the same group of warlords that terrorized the citizenry during the country’s civil war. The lawlessness, rape, looting and general insecurity quickly returned.

In response, local people started to resist the warlords and the occupying Ethiopian forces on their land. As a result, the Ethiopian military and government militiamen have attacked densely populated neighborhoods of the capital city, Mogadishu, killing more than 1,600 people, wounding 5,000 and displacing 350,000 Somalis, according to U.N. reports.

The Bush administration condoned the invasion of Somalia and the installation of warlord regime in Somalia and, as a consequence, it, too, has blood on its hands.

The U.S. government has a moral responsibility to end the death and destruction in Somalia. And the world community must pressure the Bush administration to live up to that responsibility.

Amina Mire was born in Somalia and is a writer for the Progressive Media Project.