US In Somalia
Britain withdrew from the area in 1960 and chaos/war ensued, according to the CIA Factbook. A UN led a humanitarian effort (1993-95), primarily in the south, was not successful in ending the conflict.
The CIA Factbook reports that the Government of Kenya led a two-year peace process that resulted, in 2004, in "the election of Abdullahi YUSUF Ahmed as Transitional Federal President of Somalia and the formation of a transitional government, known as the Somalia Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs)." This government has a five-year mandate. However, "[s]uspicion of Somali links with global terrorism further complicates the picture."
The IHT writer has a different perspective on the provisional government:
The transitional government, on the other hand, is dominated by the warlords and terrorists who drove out American forces in 1993. Organized in Kenya by U.S. regional allies, it is so completely devoid of internal support that it has turned to Somalia's arch-enemy, Ethiopia, for assistance.
If this war continues, it will affect the whole region, do serious harm to U.S. interests and threaten Kenya, the only island of stability in this corner of Africa.
Ethiopia is at even greater risk, as a dictatorship with little popular support and beset also by two large internal revolts, by the Ogadenis and Oromos. It is also mired in a conflict with Eritrea, which has denied it secure access to seaports.
The UN Security Council -- at the urging of Britain and the US -- has authorized a "peacekeeping" force that is supporting the provisional government, which is fighting Islamic leadership.
As with Iraq, the IHT critic sees oil as a central issue:
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.
Egyptian leadership has similar fears about the Horn of Africa:
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit on Monday warns that the war in Somalia could escalate into a full-blown regional conflict and could threaten the future of the Horn of Africa.
The US doesn't have extra military -- personnel or equipment -- for additional foreign entanglements, UN-supported or not. And Americans remain ill-informed about their government's actions, with home-grown media far more concerned with fomenting false crises (the oath of office conflict, hand-wringing over Senate control) than providing context about world events.
Comments
Ethiopian PM reminds me of George Bush at the beginning of Iraq War: Mission accomplished. This is going to be a long war (insurgency ) which Ethiopia cannot ultimately afford. They have so many problems to take care of. It was a big mistake: lessons from Beirut (Lebanon), Afganistan, and Iraq are not learned. Dictators have very short memories.
I am happy to see that you have picked up this IHT article. So many Reuters and AP releases have turned the story inside out. Unfortunately, many people in the Midwest and West with smaller newspapers are getting fed the story with the Reuters and AP releases. The AP and reuters follow the standard US military line of an “interim government” being attacked by “muslim insurgents”. In fact, it is the Islamic courts that are the government and control Somalia while the so-called interim government are Somali expats that are invading with Ethiopian troops.
Je suis si triste pour un Afrique de la guerre. pensez plutôt de la paix SVP surtout un pays comme l’Ethiopie a encore un long chemin à faire, ex. combat avec le sida…
Clearly the course of the Somali extremists is a threat to neighboring Ethiopia. A country with almost 40% Muslims and 50% Christians used to live peacefully side by side, even in some cases lived in the same household locked in intra-marriage. But does this really the interest of the Ethiopian people going to war with Somalia when there are too many problems at home that needs the international attention? The international community is supporting a dictator who has 0% support in Ethiopia and when the time is up who will be brought to justice just like Sadam. To let any one who is reading this to know that this the current war with Somalia is a war that the Ethiopian dictator must have to divert the internal as well as international attention from the atrocities that has been going on since day one of his and his gangs group called Woyane.
The Ogaden Rebellion is actually to secede from Ethiopia and join Somalia. The govt in Baidoa is more legitimate than the warlord Islamist coalition just kicked out of Mogadiscio. Hope the Islamists get kicked out of Somalia, as their ties to Al-Qaeda are well-known.
Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia to support the western-backed Somalian government that is aligned with the regional warlords who were diposed by the Islamic Courts Union. The Somalian government was reportedly corrupt and ineffective. The warlords are lawless, criminal despots. The I.C.U. provided social services and security. They afforded the people stabilty, stamping-out vice and drugs. Evidently the values and mores of the Western nations and Zionist Israel conflict with the I.C.U. Christiandom and their Zionist ally have now chosen Somalia as a new front in The Neo-Crusade War, better known as the global war on terror. Radical Islamist thought is the only obstacle to complete world social and economic domination by Occidental peoples and the supporters of Zionism. In this White Supremacist world-view radical Islam and its political manifestations must be defeated. The U.S.is wrong to assist the Ethiopians miliatarily. The U.S. should help all of the people of the Horn of Africa with water-resouce management, agriculture, health-care and education. It is immoral for one from the land of plenty to give a straving man the means to kill another staving man. Give both men food and teach them to be able to acquire their own. Then the people of both Ethiopia and Somalia will be a friend to the U.S. and it’s allies. But sadly it seems as if the Occidental man has only a propensity for war.
US political objectives in the Horn of African are the major driving force behind the Ethiopian government’s actions. Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan. Who’s next?
Thank you, all of you. I wrote the post because the IHT column was “news” to me … that is, it was a viewpoint that I had not read before. However, there is additional reporting in the Seattle Times that echoes many of the points made in the IHT and in these comments.
I will be following up.
If you have other news or blog sources, please share.
Fascinating post and comments. I learned and newly “heard” a great deal…
Thanks, Deborah. I’ve done a little more research on Ethiopia & its human rights violations. Nasty.
It sounds to me like Bush et al are using cold war tactics here (support “Friendly” leaders despite what they’re doing to/in their countries).
It’s the kind of politics that doesn’t make a lot of headlines — although Ethiopia and Somalia are making the Seattle Times every day, now.