The reason Xanthippas sent me this post in the first place was because of the seeming tendency of some of the big mouths on the Right (in this case Kirchick), to use false information to make their points, or to make false inferences. In this article by Andrew Sullivan, he quotes Kirchick:
I think Ethiopia was entirely justified in ousting an Al-Qaeda affiliated, Islamofascist junta which had overthrown the legitimate government of a neighbor state and was using that state's territory to launch terrorist attacks against it. And I think the United States was justified in aiding attempts to hunt down and kill the men responsible for murdering 225 people, many of them American civil servants.
I've pointed out so many times how false these claims are. All you have to do is read some of my previous posts on Somalia to see how wrong this is. I can't stand that Sullivan gives even a moment's thought to Kirchick, much less says, "I've slowly moved away from Jamie's position toward Matt's. The reason is simply the empirical evidence of the results of intervention, Iraq being obviously the prime example." Well NO DUH, you moron! It's not like people like Yglesias (and me) weren't arguing against intervention beforehand! As in Iraq, the truthsayers were ignored while warhawks played up falsehoods and fears.
I'll let Xanthippas close this argument, since he began it. From a personal email:
And on a related point, what is the deal with TNR? They apologize for backing the Iraq war unquestioningly and smearing liberal war critics, but then they go on and write things like "terrorists in Somalia are bad we must hunt them down regardless of the cost!" I mean, thanks for the mea culpa, but some of us out here would like you to have learned something from the experience. I mean, if they're going to be so contrary to liberal opinion on the subject...why don't they pick something like taxes, immigration, something they haven't already been majorly wrong on in the not so distant past?
3 comments:
What the American administration has done is Somalia could only be described as very harsh and crude.
The international community has forgotten about Somalia and has left the Somali people at the hands of callous warlords that care nothing whatsoever about law and order and peace in Somalia.
Therefore the Somali people took it upon themselves to put their house in order, they formed the union of Islamic courts to bring back the rule of law so that children can go back to schools and people can have normal lives.
The union of Islamic courts had the support of the majority of Somali people; they have proven to take the issue of the rule of law seriously.
Yes I know that many of u might think that the Islamic courts were just too restrictive in their ideas, but the vast majority were moderates.
The Somali people just wanted peace; they did not care about freedom to drink alcohol etc.
Now the United States government has helped the most hated warlords back to power in Somalia, the same warlords that killed 18 Americans.Plus they have made the vast majority of moderate Somalis now fundamentalist, the same ones that fight the Ethiopian invaders day and night in the city of Mogadishu.
Somalia has had six months of blessed peace with the UIC and now they are back to the killings, rape, and robbery thanks to bad American intervention and now there are 400, 000 Somalis that have left their homes without food and clean water, and 3,000 Somalis have died so far.
Tell me people who are the real terrorist, i would say that the bush administration are the biggest terrorist.
The west yells about the so call ‘’genocide’’ that is being committed in Darfur but they are so silent about the genocide taking place in Somalia, which they are definitely behind.
The US government does not respect international law, infact it does not even care bat upholding its own UN security resolution, where it stated that Ethiopian troops should not invade Somalia.In all this mess why is the UN so silent, they have not even said a word about Ethiopian troops invading Somalia, what happened to respecting a countries boundary?
It seems that the world follows the rule of the jungle.
Like i said the UIC gave the Somali people what many others could not, and that’s peace, law, unity.
Now since the UIC government has been replaced by the US sponsored Warlord Government (the same guys that killed 18 marines which was well documented in that film Black Hawk down) there have been 400, 000 Somalis that fled their homes in Mogadishu and into the countryside without clean water, food, and basic needs.Plus 3,000 Somalis have died.
The Ethiopian military seems to make things worse in Somalia, they are committing crimes against humanity, committing genocide.Most Americans sit in your comfortable home, drinking your coffee and u speak about a people and a situation that u have very little knowledge of.
Please go and do some research, read some articles, don't just watch Fox, CNN etc news.As an African who have the people of Somali at heart, you people don't understand what the actions of the Bush Administration has resulted in Somalia and the Horn of Africa.I just wish that u guys were better informed.
Nowadays there are very few independent Journalist that tell the Truth, the mainstream media seems to be controlled and they all spit out the same liesThere is so much information that is being hidden, especially what happened in SomaliaPlease people, watch this documentary about life under the Islamic courts.
Compare the rule of the Islamic courts with the rule of the warlord US sponsored warlord Government.
This US administration seems hell bent of causing Havoc in the Horn of Africa, Infact as a write this now the United States Government is encouraging the dictator meles of Ethiopia to attack Eritrea, which would be very bad for the people of the Horn.Where there were no terrorist sympathizers in the Horn, now there are so many, thanks to misguided US policy, If Iraq was not enough they had to move on to somalia.
I just wish the American people really knew what their government was up to in Africa, instead of fostering peace, they foster warlords to kill Somalis, instead of encouraging dictators such as the one in Ethiopia to respect the rule of law, they advise him to break it and invade Somalia.
Even in ethiopia the situation is very bad, you have one tribe in ethiopia who the dictator of Ethiopia hails from ruling countless other tribes with brute force, Executives and human right violations in the norm of the day in Ethiopia.
Infact Mr meles is committing a genocide against the people of Ogaden whos rebels killed 9 chinese oil workers around 3 months ago.
I wish the few reasonable people of America that stand for peace and justice can hold to account the Bush administration's Human rights abuses.America stands for terror, corruption i.e. by supporting and funding dictators like the presidents of Egypt and Pakistan and the prime minister of Ethiopia.
By the way if for whatever reason that the US government refused to accept the UIC government of Somalia, they should have put in place another institution that can compete with the UIC goverment to win the hearts and minds of the Somali people.
The fact that the US government choose to side with the coalition of warlords that were armed and financed by Ethiopia to continue the instability in Somalia, is extremely worrying to the Somali people and does not serve the interest of Somalia.
Hi,
Great blog. Mukhtar Ainashe of Ainashe.net write lot about somaia. Unfortunately, he has been silent lately.
Yousuf
Thanks for stopping by. We can't do any firsthand coverage of Somalia, but at least we can try to keep it in the public conscience.
Post a Comment