Ethiopia's departure from Somalia complete

Read here.

Islamist insurgents took over the city that houses Somalia’s Parliament on Monday, just hours after Ethiopian troops withdrew and formally ended a failed two-year effort to defeat Islamist militants in the country.
Witnesses reached by telephone in the city of Baidoa, which had been the seat of Parliament since 2006, said that Islamist militias were patrolling the streets and that government offices in the city had been ransacked. There were no immediate reports of clashes with residents.

“The Islamists have taken control of the town this afternoon,” said Xaaji Isaaq, a traditional elder.

And that is that. I won't say "I told you so" any more since at this point, it's pretty much useless to point out how the invasion was wrong in the first place. Xanthippas provided me with this post from Eric Martin which provides a pretty nice dissection of the is and was of the war in Somalia (for lack of a better term). And although I've pretty much said exactly this before, here's Martin's summary of the fallout from our ill thought-out position backing Ethiopia:

As for our interests, neutralizing the threat posed by al-Qaeda operatives was a valid and important priority, but the means chosen to achieve it were not conducive to success. Actually, we have made matters worse as those al-Qaeda operatives that we sought are still on the loose, chaos in Somalia has opened more safe havens for terrorists to use, the Horn region has been further destabilized (not that it was particularly stable beforehand) and Ethiopia's brutality has stoked greater anti-Americanism and sympathy for al-Qaeda throughout the Somalia, and other parts of the Horn.

Yeah, pretty much. The question is, to President Obama, where do we go from here? It's unlikely that just because Obama is now President that we can send an ambassador over there and expect to have much influence or see our national interests well-represented, but perhaps with a bit of our help, the moderate Islamists will take power and begin the process of stabilizing Somalia and returning it to a peaceful, productive state that we really can work with. Listen, if the ICU gets control of those pirates, then we ought to be thanking them.

Somalia's "official" government evaporating, Ethiopia pulling out

I have sadly failed to keep up my posting on Somalia (my last was, shockingly, November 2007). Predictably though, things have not gotten better. I'll let you read the whole sordid story for yourself in this NYT article, but the big story is that basically, the Transitional National Government can no longer claim any real power whatsoever. Whatever remains of it there are are in hiding being shelled by Islamist militias, possibly from the Bakaara Market (the market made famous by Black Hawk Down). Government and African Union forces seem powerless to stop them, as apparently the Ethiopians are done with this venture. The Ethiopians were providing the only significant stabilizing force (ironically since they provided the destabilizing force to begin with). While their complete departure has yet to be confirmed, it is hard to imagine they would try to retain much sway in the country from outside the capital. One thing that has remained true is that whoever controls Mogadishu can claim control of the country, even if it's only nominal.

What's more interesting to me is that the Ethiopian intervention appears to have created rival Islamist groups.

That faction, the Union of Islamic Courts, signed a cease-fire with the government in 2006 and is not allied with the Shabab, one of Somalia’s most militant Islamic groups. The Shabab controls much of southern Somalia.

Should I point out that I repeatedly said the Ethiopian invasion was a bad idea, and terrible policy for the US? Well, yes, I should. The right-wing nuts who supported this invasion need to have it rubbed in their faces. Here, let me recap what I wrote:

This guy is telling us that the "realpolitik" of the situation favored our intervention. Did it? Last anyone said, we haven't captured or killed those three suspected terrorists. We did, however, create yet another failed nation-state that Islamic terrorists might now use for training camps, but we've got no one to negotiate with to end it. Somalian pirates are back in action who had been curtailed by the ICU while they were in power. We haven't "re-installed the legitimate government", because for one, they were never in power (or the legitimate government), and as we showed in Iraq you can't force a government on anyone. Nor do we have the means with which to back them up. Some of the idiot higher-ups may have thought the Ethiopians would do our dirty work for them, but Ethiopia doesn't care about Somalia. All they wanted was to remove the only political group in Somalia that could have united the country so they wouldn't have to deal with Somalia as a rival

And guess what? We still haven't captured or killed anybody we thought was important, we've shattered the stability of the country and were unable to bring about peace again, and now we have a failed nation-state where we know insurgents are coming who are bringing lessons they learned fighting us in Iraq, and finally, because there is no law on the land, Somali pirates are running rampant. Wonderful. Ok, right-wing nuts, defend the intervention now.

And now back to Africa

Not the entire continent, no, but to territory familiar to any TWM reader, namely Somalia and that region's troubles.

This first article is getting a little old, but trust me, things haven't changed for the better in the meantime. From the NY Times:

It has been nine months since this country went through its biggest political change in 16 years, but surprisingly little has changed.

Hundreds of thousands of people are still on the verge of starvation, pirates still roam the seas, teenage gunmen still roam the streets, and the promise of a functioning government remains a vapor.

The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, a United Nations creation that was always considered a shaky, short-term compromise, was finally installed in Mogadishu, the capital, in December, but it, like many Somalis, is now teetering on the edge of survival. A raging insurgency has confined the government to a handful of heavily fortified buildings in Mogadishu, while the rest of the country suffers.

In other words, same ol' same ol'. Or rather, a return to the conditions that initially prompted US intervention in 1993. Famine, drought, war, hundreds of thousands of people displaced and starving in a war-torn country; it's all there. The only thing left for this to be a Biblical story is pestilence. Then again, it's not like these people have much in the way of medical care, so I'm sure there's plenty of disease going around untreated too (while Sub-Saharan Africa is now suffering from the double threat of drug-resistant TB combined with HIV).

The Washington Post just published a story about yet more people fleeing Mogadishu.

Nearly 90,000 people have fled fighting in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in recent days, a mass exodus that comes on top of the 20,000 or so who have left each month since spring, U.N. officials said Thursday.

Fighting between Ethiopian-backed Somali government troops and insurgents has raged for months, but clashes that began over the weekend have been the most intense since Ethiopian tanks and attack helicopters assaulted the city in March and April, officials said.

Since then, tens of thousands of people have abandoned their homes and scattered across a Somali countryside that is harsh under the best of circumstances, with frequent droughts, floods and little reliably arable land.

Keep in mind there are no governmental structures in place to take care of these people. There is nothing keeping them from starving except for food being brought in by NGOs operating in Somalia, although they're having an increasingly difficult time keeping up with them.

In all, more than 800,000 people are displaced in the Horn of Africa country of 9 million. An estimated 1.5 million people are in need of assistance, officials say.

That's just staggering. Nearly a 10th of the population is wandering around the countryside with nowhere to go and no one to help them. This is a consequence of Ethiopia's invasion, which the US is partly responsible for. Incredible.

In related news, we're hearing very little about the conflict in the Ogaden, which I've also referenced before in earlier posts. Slate tells us that we're not hearing this story because the Ethiopian government is cracking down on those who would tell it.

During post-election demonstrations, at least 30,000 people were arrested, and more than 100 were killed. Snipers were used on protesters. All the top opposition leaders were arrested, as was the mayor-elect of Addis Ababa.

I, too, was arrested. At the time I was working for a regional African newspaper, and I had been caught taking photos of federal police beating young boys. For 12 hours I sat on a dirt floor in an old customs house, and, because I am American, I was largely ignored. The detained Ethiopians were beaten and forced to crawl over sharp rocks and hop up and down on bloodied feet. The lucky ones were released after a few weeks. Others were taken to rural prisons and not heard from for months.

What are they hiding?

In Addis, there are several neighborhoods populated by ethnic Somalis, and one was made up almost entirely of internally displaced people from the Ogaden. I started spending time there, meeting secretly in living rooms with cautious, veiled women and angry men, young and old.

They would tell me their stories and show me their scars. One elderly woman even removed her hijab, exposing her shoulder and back, to show me the grotesque, deep scar hidden there. Ten months earlier, she had been stabbed with a bayonet by an Ethiopian soldier. "He asked me to stand up, and I guess I did this too slowly for him," she said, focusing her rheumy, blue-rimmed eyes on mine. "He meant to hit my face."

Every person I interviewed had a similar story. Their villages had been burned. Their men and women had been jailed, tortured, and raped. Many had been killed. One student I spoke with said, "There are only two options for us: Join the rebels or flee."

It's not completely one-sided, of course. There are a lot of ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden, some of whom have formed rebel groups fighting the Ethiopian government.
The Ethiopians long contended that the ICU was supporting Ogaden separatists. Whether they were is impossible to know, but I have read that some of the escaping ICU members fled into Ethiopia. They at least have some support there. Thus, ironically, it looks like Ethiopia is contributing to its own destabilization by pursuing war with Somalia's ICU, a fact that argues against the idea that any of this was in Ethiopia's best interests.

Lastly, we have an article from Newsweek describing how refugees on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border are preparing for a new war between the two countries:

Both sides say publicly they want peace and accuse the enemy of warmongering. But last month Ethiopia's foreign minister warned that Eritrea's army had occupied the U.N. Temporary Security Zone along the border and that the two armies were less than 75 yards apart in some places. Earlier this month an Eritrean opposition group said the government was sending 25,000 reinforcements to the border. Ethiopia has also sent more reinforcements, say residents near the frontier, and has jammed Eritrean broadcasts and Web sites. One Western diplomat puts the chances of war within the next few months at 50 percent. An Ethiopian official who spoke to NEWSWEEK said some elements of the government are calculating that Ethiopia has four to five weeks to topple the Eritrean government before international pressure—particularly from the United States—forces a ceasefire. Landlocked Ethiopia might also try to grab the Eritrean port of Assab.

The Horn of Africa is a troubled land.

The Legacy of Slavery

The legacy of slavery in America is one of pernicious racism, poverty and social dislocation. In Africa the cost was far higher though, as this study from economist Nathan Nunn at the University of British Columbia makes clear (via Andrew Sullivan.)

I construct measures of the number of slaves exported from each country in Africa, in each century between 1400 and 1900. The estimates are constructed by combining data from ship records on the number of slaves shipped from each African port or region with data from a variety of historical documents that report the ethnic identities of slaves that were shipped from Africa. I find a robust negative relationship between the number of slaves exported from each country and subsequent economic performance. The African countries that are the poorest today are the ones from which the most slaves were taken.

In his working paper Nunn attributes these conditions to the collapse of states and the encouragement of ethnic feuding that was the result of raids, kidnapping and internal warfare (his explanation will presumably be longer and more detailed in the final paper.) Granted, correlation is not causation, but it's a sustainable (and widely held) proposition that protracted political and economic instability in Africa resulted from economic exploitation and the slave trade, and this study suggests that this conclusion is appropriate.

It's very easy for some people to dismiss the long-term effects of the slave trade had on Africa, as the slave trade ceased almost two hundred years ago and the economic exploitation of Africa ended well over a hundred years ago. But it bears reminding that the slave trade worked it's grievous toll on Africa over a period of nearly four hundred years, and it's effects can hardly be overcome in as little as four or five generations.

UPDATE: On the same topic, Mount Vernon has opened a new exhibit in the form of a log cabin designed to show how slaves owned by George Washington lived.

"The Whole Truth"

Historian Sheldon M. Stern would like us to remember-and teach-the complicity of many Africans in the African slave trade:

However, confronting the history of the Atlantic slave trade requires more than a sentence acknowledging that the Amistad prisoners “had been captured in Africa by Africans who sold them to European slave traders.” Website readers must understand that this terrible traffic in millions of human beings had been, as affirmed by the PBS Africans in America series, a joint venture: “During this era, Africans and Europeans stood together as equals, companions in commerce and profit. Kings exchanged respectful letters across color lines and addressed each other as colleagues. Natives of the two continents were tied into a common economy.”

Historians estimate that ten million of these abducted Africans “never even made it to the slave ships. Most died on the march to the sea”—still chained, yoked, and shackled by their African captors—before they ever laid eyes on a white slave trader. 11 The survivors were either purchased by European slave dealers or “instantly beheaded” by the African traders “in sight of the [slave ship] captain” if they could not be sold.12 Of course, the even more horrific and inhuman middle passage—the voyage of a European (and later American) slave ship from Africa to the Western Hemisphere—still lay before those who had survived the forced trek to the coast.

As Stern acknowledges, none of this absolves Europe or America of their guilt for their part in the Atlantic slave trade. But history must also be complete, even if it's politically inconvenient. And I would add one note: many Americans suffer from a blind spot when it comes to Africa, and they regard the continent as being comprised of "Africans" who are all similar in a vague way, making little distinction for tribe or country. Acknowledging the diversity of Africa, even in a way that's moderately painful, such as acknowledging the role Africans played in enslaving other Africans-is a useful antidote to the ignorance that prevents us from having any sort of coherent Africa policy.

The Right is Wrong on Somalia

I've been covering news and blog coverage of the events happening in Somalia, but I have not been participating in the raging debate between the Left and Right bloggers over whether: a) Ethiopia was right to invade Somalia or b) America was right to support Ethiopia's invasion. This is mainly, if you'll allow me one second of elitism, because the debate is at a level beneath noticing. Most of the people who are talking about it are familiar with neither the geography nor the history of the region, much less good grammar and a solid grasp of logic (also known as critical thinking). Still, many have raised their voices in the blogosphere, to either greater or lesser acclaim, arguing that they alone have a complete understanding of the situation and proffering their definitive analysis, "proving" either that the US is wrong in its current policy towards Somalia or that it's right. I've tried to provide thorough enough coverage for the average person to understand fully what has happened in Somalia to decide for themselves what they think about it.

I would not take part in this debate, and I haven't, except Xanthippas finally provoked me into taking action with this little gem of a diatribe. There's so much wrong with this that I just can't not say anything about it. It comes from a commentator over at Obsidian Wings, and it demonstrates that even for those who are fully aware of the reality of the situation, they can still rationalize problems with this administration's policies away by torturing logic to the point that it offers up a false confession.

Let's take this paragraph to begin with:

[T]hat doesn't mean that Ethiopia was wrong to invade Somalia, or that it didn't fit US interests to offer partial support for the endeavor. A murderous and bellicose regime had just ousted the legitimate Somali government. Backed by important Somali warlords and Ethiopia's rival, Eritrea, the insurgents had consolidated power. They stated that they would attack Ethiopia; their public statements also indicated that they regarded swaths of Ethiopian territory as their own. When Ethiopia warned the insurgents that an attack on the Ethiopian solders protecting the last refuge of the legitimate Somali government would result in an armed response, the insurgents did what insurgents do: they attacked anyway.

The phrase "murderous and bellicose regime" as a characterization of the ICU is entirely inaccurate. Even those Somalis who didn't want to live under Islamic law admitted that life was better under the Courts than it had been since the death of Siad Barre. Random violence was ended and Mogadishu was quiet at night for the first time in 16 years. A few well-documented incidents occurred in which overly-zealous ICU fighters enforced their version of Sharia, but this was not (yet) the norm in this Islamic state. The Islamic government hadn't had time to settle things, but they didn't start out by murdering anyone. I freely admit that we can't say for sure they wouldn't have turned into another Taliban, but they certainly weren't as violent as the Taliban were when they came to power. As for bellicose, this commentator must be referring to their recent aggression towards the Transitional Federal Government, but we would do well to remember that they only attacked after the TFG had already imported Ethiopian soldiers, and after rumors of American involvement had proven true. This is all covered in my previous coverage of Somalia, stuff that this commentator could, and should, have read, which means that the person who wrote this post is only interested in convincing others of his ideological views rather than making a fair and balanced argument. Anyway, back to the fray.

The "legitimate Somali government" referred to is the aforementioned TFG. Now the TFG is not to be confused with a democratically elected government-in-exile. The TFG is a bunch of appointees (some of whom are warlords) that the UN basically said would be the government. Now, I have an argument for you. Say there had been some "impartial" international body around in 1781 when we won independence from the British. The international body calls this a civil war, and appoints a government for us. But we, of course, have either appointed (or allowed to operate as a government) those who liberated us. If you were an American of the time, who would you accept as your legitimate government? I'll let Xanthippas analyze the legality of the situation, but it seems to me a natural argument that any government which arises from within and has the support or at least non-hostility of the majority of the population must be the legitimate government, not some rump council appointed by some body outside of the nation in question. Yet again, this point is made by the writer simply to reinforce his ideological view, never mind that it makes no sense, and that this writer certainly would not accept the argument that the European Union has any right to appoint a government for us!

Also, this writer says they "ousted" the legitimate government, never mind that the ICU came to power by quelling the warlords who ruled Somalia and the TFG was never in power to begin with. As a matter of fact, before the ICU brought peace to Somalia, the TFG was unable to enter Somalia. They only got their headquarters in Baidoa after the ICU came to power. I'm not making this up, people. Read the history for yourself.

At this point, I almost don't feel the need to refute the rest of this argument because of its obvious incorrectness, but I suppose I should lest someone think I can't rather than that I'm simply tired of the stupidity.

Backed by important Somali warlords and Ethiopia's rival, Eritrea, the insurgents had consolidated power. They stated that they would attack Ethiopia; their public statements also indicated that they regarded swaths of Ethiopian territory as their own.

I simply don't know where this guy gets the idea that the ICU was working with the warlords that they had kicked out of power. Perhaps he's confusing the Courts with us, because we did work with the warlords in an attempt to block the rise of the Courts. It's true they were getting support from Eritrea, but at this point, nothing exists to say that Eritrea was helping the Courts out before Ethiopia was helping the TFG out (and, by extension, the warlords). Both Ethiopia and Eritrea jumped into this situation because both saw the potential benefits of being allied with the future rulers of Somalia. Ethiopia certainly was not innocently defending itself; it was, on the contrary, deliberately manipulating events in Somalia to its own advantage. Furthermore, this writer is attempting to mislead readers into thinking that the Courts were, without precedent, claiming some parts of Ethiopia and declaring that they would take them by force. As a matter of fact, the ICU repeatedly warned Ethiopia from getting involved in Somali affairs, which is why they said they would attack Ethiopia. As for claiming the Ogaden (this guy could at least learn what they're talking about), it has been a historic source of contention between Somalia and Ethiopia. The last legitimate Somali government fought a war over it and was crushingly defeated by the much superior Ethiopian forces. But the majority of Somalis think of the Ogaden as part of Somalia, so the ICU making this claim simply reflects what most Somalis think. Heck, I'm sure members of the TFG also think it's theirs, but they know which side their bread is buttered on. It means nothing, because even if the ICU had invaded Ethiopia with their few thousand men and some trucks, they couldn't possibly have waged an effective war.

When Ethiopia warned the insurgents that an attack on the Ethiopian solders protecting the last refuge of the legitimate Somali government would result in an armed response, the insurgents did what insurgents do: they attacked anyway.

A point needs to be clarified. At the time the Courts' soldiers fought the Ethiopians, they were not insurgents. They were the group in control of the largest swath of Somalia. As for their reaction to having Ethiopian troops on Somali soil, they did what we would do if the Republic of Texas invited some Mexican troops over to protect them, namely, they attacked foreign invaders.

Let's take a look at a few more of the claims made in this piece.

Moreover, given the convergence of interests, it made absolute sense for the US to assist Ethiopia. A bloody and long-fought insurgency was likely to occur with or without our involvement. May as well as use it to our advantage, by helping to remove jihadist thugs from power, aid the re-installation of the legitimate Somali government, and hunt real and suspected extremist and terrorist elements.

This is called "realism." We need more of it.

This is what's wrong with the Right. If they heard President Bush say he was riding a unicorn the other day down at his ranch, they would immediately leap to his defense with proofs of the historical existence of unicorns as well as convincing themselves that they had seen a unicorn recently. Never mind that they couldn't produce an actual unicorn. It's just that "shut up and do what the boss says" mentality that makes them who they are.

Ok, let's get to real reality. Jihadist thugs or not, the only claim the US made about the ICU harboring terrorists was that they believed that one senior member of the ICU was sheltering three men suspected of taking part in terrorist attacks. Was a war going to break out regardless of our actions? I'm not sure, but I think it certainly says something that when they did invade, US advisors rode in with them. At the very least, we gave them weapons and encouraged them to invade.

This guy is telling us that the "realpolitik" of the situation favored our intervention. Did it? Last anyone said, we haven't captured or killed those three suspected terrorists. We did, however, create yet another failed nation-state that Islamic terrorists might now use for training camps, but we've got no one to negotiate with to end it. Somalian pirates are back in action who had been curtailed by the ICU while they were in power. We haven't "re-installed the legitimate government", because for one, they were never in power (or the legitimate government), and as we showed in Iraq you can't force a government on anyone. Nor do we have the means with which to back them up. Some of the idiot higher-ups may have thought the Ethiopians would do our dirty work for them, but Ethiopia doesn't care about Somalia. All they wanted was to remove the only political group in Somalia that could have united the country so they wouldn't have to deal with Somalia as a rival. I bet they've already worked out a sweet deal with the TFG for use of the ports, since Ethiopia is land-locked.

Now here's the kicker.

[I]t bears remembering that Yglesias himself has not been a fountain of wisdom on all things Somali. He proposed negotiating with the Somali insurgents and granting legitimacy to their government: "The best way to obtain those [al Queda] suspects would have been to try to cooperate with the ICU in securing custody over them." This course would have put us directly at odds with the European Union and the African Union, both of which backed the legitimate Somali government. That's reason enough to reject it. It's also shockingly ahistorical and ungrounded in evidence. That's another reason to reject it.

Given that the ICU were never insurgents (until after they'd been driven from Mogadishu), it makes more sense that one would advocate negotiating with the only power in the land rather than using a proxy to knock them off, especially when the latter course still wouldn't guarantee satisfaction. Furthermore, negotiating with someone doesn't imply anything about their status other than that they're the ones who have what you need. I'm sure in a perfect world we wouldn't have negotiated with the Soviets either, but we couldn't get what we wanted by ignoring them. Heck for a perfect parallel, in what way is North Korea's government legitimate? Yet here we are negotiating to keep them from building nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the EU and AU never advocated non-negotiation, but this author wants us to believe that since they recognize the legitimacy of the TFG, they would have objected to us even talking to the ICU. That's plainly ridiculous. Do I even need to point out that the Europeans in general love to talk instead of taking action? Anyone remember Bosnia?

Lastly: "The Bush administration, for once, confronted the situation as it was and devised a plan to make the best of it. We need more of that. Not less. And this remains true regardless who supported the plan."

His whole argument rests on the idea that a war was inevitable, therefore we had best be involved in order to have a chance of getting the results we wanted, namely, the capture of three suspects. That's not even a good argument if its conditions were fulfilled. I fail to see how inevitable war precluded us from talking to the ICU in the first place.

Of course, we don't even have to talk about what-ifs. This administration continues to trample our good name in the eyes of the world by working with the most despicable regimes on the planet in the name of our war on terror. We've just alienated the Somalis who didn't have a problem with us and proven that we operate with an ideology of "all Muslims are bad". The realpolitik of the situation is really that the moral high ground does count and that we've sacrificed it yet again for nothing. If you think world opinion doesn't matter, that's not the real world. That's unicorn land.

UPDATE: Xanthippas here, with a link to Eric Martin's post that only reinforces the fact that conservatives have no idea at all what's going on in Somalia.

Latest news on Somalia

And the news is: it's still bad!

Here's a link to a timeline in case you need to catch up.

There's not a lot of really detailed news coming out of Somalia right now, which either means nothing is happening (which we know isn't true) or it's too dangerous for many reporters to stay and report. By the reports that have been coming out, there's no reason to think things have substantially settled down in Mogadishu. To the contrary, there is http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18745786/site/newsweek/ (from MSNBC):

How bad is it in Somalia? Bad enough that people fleeing the capital have been reduced to renting trees for shelter. It's the sort of thing that happens when drug-addled warlords roam the countryside, imposing taxes of 50 percent on aid recipients. And the sort of thing to be expected of a government whose prime minister, Ali Mohamad Gedi, has publicly accused the United Nations agency feeding the country of spreading cholera along with food deliveries.

But how bad is it exactly?

This year promises to be no better, and probably still worse. The Courts fought back, particularly in Mogadishu, and the Ethiopians cracked down, killing 2,000 people in the capital (population about 1 million), and sending 365,000 residents fleeing into the countryside; 190,000 of them fled in April alone. It was the biggest exodus from the city in 16 years of conflict, and many thousands more were displaced within, unable to flee or get to their homes. For the first time, residents in Mogadishu had to turn to aid agencies for food aid—something previously only needed in the countryside.

Oh, it's that bad. Does anybody in the Bush administration feel at all guilty for allowing this to happen? Not just allowing, but arranging for it to happen and aiding the Ethiopians militarily. How did this happen? Let's recap:

[B]y the end of 2006, warfare resumed, with Ethiopia, encouraged by the United States, invading Somalia to oust the Islamic Courts, which were a little too pro-Al Qaeda for U.S. tastes, and prop up the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), an amalgamation of former warlords with little popular support in Somalia, but recognized internationally. Faced with Ethiopian tanks and warplanes, the ICU quickly collapsed and for the first time, the TFG took up office in the capital.

But is the ICU done yet? Not according to them.

While it's true that Mogadishu was quieter than it had been in months, the Islamists were still fighting back, this time using Iraq-style methods of roadside bombs, even suicide car bombings—tactics never before seen in Somalia. When John Holmes, the U.N.'s top emergency relief official, came to visit on May 12, three bombs were set along his route—the first went off and missed him by a few hundred yards, killing three Somalis. And when TFG president Yusuf met Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni on May 16 to thank him for his support, another roadside bomb went off in Mogadishu, killing four Ugandan soldiers and wounding five more.

I suggest reading the article in full to get a grasp of exactly how bad things are over there. There's pirates, floods, famine, war, and disease. It's a story of biblical proportions alright!

And of course, we decide to help by killing people who we really don't know:

According to Somali security forces, an American warship fired cruise missiles into the area after two boatloads of heavily armed gunmen landed at Bargal, a small fishing village on the north Somali coast, and then escaped into the mountains.

Hassan Dahir, the vice president of Puntland, a semiautonomous region of Somalia, said eight Islamist militants had been killed, including one who was an American citizen, according to documents found on his body.

What, don't we kill each other enough here? Is it necessary for Americans to kill Americans overseas too? Anyway, all I have to say about that is what I said before; it's stupid for us to be involved in their civil war for a lot of reasons. Thanks to Wise Man Adam for finding a clip of John McCain arguing for withdrawal from Somalia...in 1993.

In Somalia, war keeps going, and going, and going...

Perhaps the correct way to handle the former Islamic government of Somalia was not to invade. The results have been nothing short of tragic, and peace seems ever less likely as the violence rages on:

Shells pounded Mogadishu on Saturday, killing at least 73 people to swell a death-toll already in the hundreds from this week's battles pitting militias and Islamists against Somali and Ethiopian troops.

The escalating war has also sent more than 321,000 residents fleeing in the biggest refugee movement in Somalia since the 1991 fall of a dictator ushered in 16 years of anarchy.

Lest anyone start bringing out the tired old line of "It's Africa", let me remind us all that this war need not have happened. It is more than likely that Ethiopia not only started this war with the US's blessing, but with our backing. If you don't believe that our government would do such a thing, you haven't read the latest story about the US allowing Ethiopia to buy military equipment from N. Korea.

Three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because of the country’s nuclear test, Bush administration officials allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior American officials.

Why would they do this? Because of the Bush ideology that all Islam is bad.

But the arms deal is an example of the compromises that result from the clash of two foreign policy absolutes: the Bush administration’s commitment to fighting Islamic radicalism and its effort to starve the North Korean government of money it could use to build up its nuclear weapons program.

Not that fighting Islamic radicalism is a bad thing, although we needn't focus so much on Islam when there are plenty of Christians hell-bent on destroying our government (watch Jesus Camp). But no matter who we're fighting or for what reason, we shouldn't be compromising ourselves for the sake of convenience. It's not a good precedent, and it's not good politics. I'm not going to quote the whole article here, but it's clear that this exception was made solely because the Ethiopians are fighting the Somali insurgents. In other cases we've been quite strict with the sanctions against N. Korea.

Back to the original point:

With the world startlingly quiet on the Somali crisis, beyond general appeals for calm, the Arab League followed the United Nations on Saturday to appeal for an end to violence.

"Startlingly quiet"? I don't find it so startling. The US will look the other way as long as Ethiopia is keeping the Somali Islamists busy. We don't care how many die or who they are. As long as no Americans die, it just doesn't matter. Long gone are the days when we'd send a humanitarian force to a place like Somalia. And with the US being the world leader in humanitarian causes, if we're not there, nobody else will be. Lazy asses we may be, but our European counterparts are chickenshits about cleaning up the messes they caused (and have no doubt, they're the reason people say, "It's Africa".)

Yes, we started yet another war for no interests other than our own. Hundreds or even thousands of people have already died (there's no way to keep count), and hundreds and thousands more will die. There's virtually no way to stop it, short of attacking Ethiopia and letting the Islamists win in Somalia. We won't take responsibility for the civilian casualties either. I wonder; when we get the Bush Presidential Library at SMU, how large will the section on Somalia be?

More e-waste; this time, it's Africa!

If you recall my previous posts (here and here) on the subject, you know that "recycling" computers by such primitive methods as ripping them apart and prying the precious metals out is extremely hazardous to one's health. And yet, this is the method employed by poor people overseas. The first article I posted specifically talked about China. This new article talks about the same phenomena happening in Africa. It's really a horrible situation.

Nigerian importers are able to make a quick buck because of high local demand for electronic goods—Pentium III computers sell for about $130 and a 27-inch television will set you back around $50. The remainder, equivalent to approximately 100,000 computers per month, ends up in dumps and landfills. That electronic waste (e-waste) is chock-full of pollutants like lead, cadmium and mercury that then seep into the ground and water supply. When the mounds of waste get too high, they are burned, releasing toxins from the plastic casings into the air. (For more about how we're destroying Africa with waste, check out Travis's post, The Global Village's Septic Tank.)

Not only should African countries not allow this to happen, we shouldn't either. US manufacturers certainly have the resources to handle recycling domestically, where it would be much safer and healthier (provided they're not using prisoners!).

Bah! Humbug!

Paul Theroux, writing in today's NY Times, has a problem with U2 frontman Bono's debt relief efforts on Africa's behalf:

There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment. If Christmas, season of sob stories, has turned me into Scrooge, I recognize the Dickensian counterpart of Paul Hewson - who calls himself "Bono" - as Mrs. Jellyby in "Bleak House." Harping incessantly on her adopted village of Borrioboola-Gha "on the left bank of the River Niger," Mrs. Jellyby tries to save the Africans by financing them in coffee growing and encouraging schemes "to turn pianoforte legs and establish an export trade," all the while badgering people for money.

It seems to have been Africa's fate to become a theater of empty talk and public gestures. But the impression that Africa is fatally troubled and can be saved only by outside help - not to mention celebrities and charity concerts - is a destructive and misleading conceit. Those of us who committed ourselves to being Peace Corps teachers in rural Malawi more than 40 years ago are dismayed by what we see on our return visits and by all the news that has been reported recently from that unlucky, drought-stricken country. But we are more appalled by most of the proposed solutions.

I am not speaking of humanitarian aid, disaster relief, AIDS education or affordable drugs. Nor am I speaking of small-scale, closely watched efforts like the Malawi Children's Village. I am speaking of the "more money" platform: the notion that what Africa needs is more prestige projects, volunteer labor and debt relief. We should know better by now. I would not send private money to a charity, or foreign aid to a government, unless every dollar was accounted for - and this never happens. Dumping more money in the same old way is not only wasteful, but stupid and harmful; it is also ignoring some obvious points.

You have to be a real Scrooge to go after a guy who's spent a considerable amount of the time he doesn't spend on stage flying around the world persuading, cajoling and begging wealthier nations to pay attention to the myriad problems of Africa. What does Theroux think Bono should be doing?

Africa has no real shortage of capable people - or even of money. The patronizing attention of donors has done violence to Africa's belief in itself, but even in the absence of responsible leadership, Africans themselves have proven how resilient they can be - something they never get credit for. Again, Ireland may be the model for an answer. After centuries of wishing themselves onto other countries, the Irish found that education, rational government, people staying put, and simple diligence could turn Ireland from an economic basket case into a prosperous nation. In a word - are you listening, Mr. Hewson? - the Irish have proved that there is something to be said for staying home.

That's it? Theroux thinks Bono should be encouraging Africans to stay home? Theroux is to be applauded for his own personal efforts in Africa. Anyone who's devoted enough to Africa to have spent time there trying to help, deserves to have their opinion listened to. But Theroux is simply being unfair here. He never says exactly what it is he thinks Bono-or anyone else-should be doing in or for Africa. The gist of his article is that we can't go personally help them or they won't help themselves, and money certainly won't fix their problems. But he doesn't say what we should be doing other then encouraging African's to fix their own problems. Clearly he can't believe that to be the only course of action, which is why his swipe at Bono is a cheap shot. If anything he appears to be more irritated by Bono's status then anything else; God forbid a rock star should want to use his considerable public influence on anyone's behalf. But as you can read for yourself in this NY Times profile, Bono is desperately sincere about helping Africa, and has traveled the world over talking to heads of state, pleading for them to offer more humanitarian aid, to offer debt relief...to simply pay attention to Africa. His devotion shouldn't be mocked or trivilized or sneered at; it should be respected even if you have a different opinion as to where he should direct his effort. Theroux should know better, and his mean-spirited op-ed won't do much to help Africa either.