Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Somalia: in a hole and digging faster

David Seaton's News Links
If you thought Bush was going to "go quietly" you are in for another think. Perhaps Bush's only chance to avoid his own personal humiliation is to widen and deepen the crisis. He is looking at a level of failure, exposure to ridicule and universal repudiation that few human beings will ever have to face. Although he makes much of his Christianity he doesn't seem to cultivate the Christian virtues of meekness, humility, repentance and truthfulness. The failure of conspicuously Christian, Jimmy Carter's presidency is nothing beside Bush's and if I can't imagine Bush resigning himself to a lifetime of redemption through good works... is this a failure of my imagination? So be prepared for universal collapse, catastrophe and war. Bush is his own little apocalypse. DS
In Somalia, a reckless U.S. proxy war - International Herald Tribune
Abstract: Undeterred by the horrors and setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the Bush administration has opened another battlefront in the Muslim world. With full U.S. backing and military training, at least 15,000 Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia in an illegal war of aggression against the Union of Islamic Courts, which controls almost the entire south of the country. As with Iraq in 2003, the United States has cast this as a war to curtail terrorism, but its real goal is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region by establishing a client regime there. The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich, and lies just miles from Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea. General John Abizaid, the current U.S. military chief of the Iraq war, was in Ethiopia this month, and President Hu Jintao of China visited Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia earlier this year to pursue oil and trade agreements. The U.S. instigation of war between Ethiopia and Somalia, two of world's poorest countries already struggling with massive humanitarian disasters, is reckless in the extreme. Unlike in the run-up to Iraq, independent experts, including from the European Union, were united in warning that this war could destabilize the whole region even if America succeeds in its goal of toppling the Islamic Courts. An insurgency by Somalis, millions of whom live in Kenya and Ethiopia, will surely ensue, and attract thousands of new anti-U.S. militants and terrorists. READ IT ALL

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This situation will not stay the same for long, the Somali’s don’t want the Ethiopians there so they will end up in the same “bass ackwards” situation that we are in Afghanistan right now. I am Christian and a former Marine and I believe a proponent of democracy. However, the choice here is either to support the warlords who I can’t even begin to list the atrocities they committed against the general population of Somalia or the Islamic Courts Union, who have provided at least a degree of stability to this nation.

The people of Somalia are predominately Muslim, so it really is their choice. The people of Somalia do not want the Ethiopians in their country and will fight, the more we push on the Ethiopian / Warlord side, the more the people will push back and the more innocent children, women and men who will die needlessly.

Fact is, if we support the ICU and the people of Somalia, show good will, help rebuild infrastructure, build schools, roads and hospitals with the words “A GIFT FROM THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES”, we have a better chance of having influence with that government and better chance of ever bringing true democracy to that country. We have to look long term, and in the long term, it would be best to support the ICU.

The media is hyping the “Taliban” stuff in order to mask our support of the warlords coalition and the US and UN’s overall failure in that part of the world.

Anonymous said...

You are both idiots.