Somalia Remains Free of US Imperialism, Food, Laws, Prosperity, Peace…

By Charlie

NAIROBI, KENYA - Despite ongoing and often tricky efforts to end the civil war that since 1991 has turned Somalia into a worn-out and destitute failed state, heavy clashes have recently erupted between warlords and Islamist extremists in the capital, Mogadishu.
The fighting, which has involved indiscriminate barrages of mortar and anti- aircraft fire leveled point blank across the city, represents the worst violence in almost a decade and is bad news for a region already suffering from the ravages of acute drought.

Clans traditionally at war with one another are uniting to fight the Islamists, whom they call terrorists, but the Islamists say they can bring order to a lawless state that has not had a central government for 16 years. And while the renewed conflict has been restricted largely to Mogadishu, it is proving detrimental to the overall peace process, the political survival of the country's fragile United Nations backed transitional government, and critical humanitarian operations.

Much like the Taliban in Afghanistan during the mid-'90s, the Islamists have declared that they are determined to end the current lawlessness but also place Somalia under strict sharia or Islamic law. They have accused the warlords of being supported by "non-Muslim foreigners," implying the US anti-terrorist task force stationed in neighboring Djibouti.

The warlords, who have formed a coalition called the "Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism," claim that the Islamists are behind many recent targeted assassinations of prominent figures, particularly those who have argued in favor of an international peacekeeping force, which the fundamentalists are dead-set against.

"The country is a refuge for the Al Qaeda team that bombed a Kenyan resort in 2002 and tried to down an Israeli aircraft in 2003," according to a December 2005 ICG report. The organization further asserts that the Islamists have been behind the murders of Somalis and foreigners alike since 2003.

The fighting has raised considerable international concern about the protection of civilians and the ability of aid agencies to continue providing key humanitarian relief. Compounded by the drought, which is beginning to create dire famine conditions, including the loss of more than half the country's cattle and sheep, current insecurity is causing people to flee to safer areas, including northern Kenya, where the UN says more than 100,000 Somali refugees are living.

Here’s my take away on this story. In some parts of the world, there will always be violence, no matter what. Hatreds are too ingrained into some people for a cessation of violence in our lifetime. However, if actions can be taken to decrease the amount of violence and blunt the effectiveness of it, then I think actions should be taken. I’m not going to posit that Somalia would be a Jeffersonian democracy if we hadn’t bugged out after we lost 18 men during the Blackhawk Down attacks, but I am saying that if the mission had been completed, the famine blunted and the warlords taken out, perhaps the country would be on a better track than the chaos it is now engulfed in. Any action we undertake will not be perfect, but we shouldn’t be trying to create “perfect societies” abroad, we should be promoting real world peace, which I define as the fewest people trying to kill each other as possible.

Unfortunately, actions by the Somalis, the Palestinians, and other war-torn groups indicate the opposite of a pursuit of peace. The Somalis have obviously not tired of war, despite its toll on the civilian population. In the Palestinian territories, the people basically voted for continued war in a referendum. Any international peacekeeping mission that intervenes in any part of the world where there is a high level of war and strife must have a clear mission: i.e. there must be an actual peace to be kept. There isn’t peace in Somalia, and until there is (or until it is imposed on them) people will continue to die and weepy articles like this one will continue to wonder “why can’t we all just get along?”

PS: Bonus thought: Is anyone else noticing a trend, between this, Darfur, and other conflicts in the Horn, of a broadening low-level war between Islamists and Black Africans? I wonder how much funding the Janjaweed, who are Islamist government-sponsored militias carrying out ethnic cleansing of black African Christians in the Darfur region of Sudan, are getting from the Saudis and other oil sheiks? Are we seeing the beginnings of an attempt to Arabize/Islamize the African continent? I’m keeping an eye on this, because it is the one place where Islamist power can expand into due to the persistent power-vacuum in Africa. Khartoum is already under Sharia law, how long before that governmental philosophy pushes south and west? All the more reason to consider our level of engagement with Africa more thoroughly.

April 20, 2006 01:49 PM The Long War

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Comments

Two Caveats:

1) Arabs in Africa would to North Americans and European eyes look black. Often the distinction is religion. That doesn't stop black Arabs from swiftly denying they are black or African (racism is a funny thing).

2) While I do see a move to Islamize/Arabize the continent and not just in the Horn and Sudan. It is happening in Nigeria also. However, Africa is home to a strong Christian tradition and rising evangelical Christianity. (Some African countries have been sending missionaries to the west). Unlike in the west, these Christians are confident and confrontational toward the Islamic/Arab influence. I think Africa is setting up for a true clash of civilizations which could, unfortunately match Europe's 30-years war in slaughter.

ElamBend · April 20, 2006 10:12 PM