Fall of Mogadishu leaves US policy in ruins

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1794391,00.html



<snip>The victors broadcast a triumphant announcement that the warlords had been ousted. In their place a relatively disciplined militia promised order and security after 15 years of mayhem. At a victory rally a militia leader, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, made another promise: to create an Islamic state.

Mogadishu is now largely ruled by the Islamic Courts Union, a powerful movement that advocates a strict version of sharia law, including public executions, and has alleged ties to al-Qaida terrorists. The Horn of Africa, say some analysts, has just acquired its own Taliban.

News of the takeover broke like a thunderclap over Washington.

"This is worse than the worst-case scenarios - the exact opposite of what the US government strategy, if there was one, would have wanted," said Ken Menkhaus, associate professor of political science and Somalia expert at Davidson College, North Carolina.

It has emerged that the Bush administration bankrolled the warlords, who are secular, to gain access to al-Qaida suspects and block the rise of the Islamic militia. CIA operatives based in Nairobi funnelled $100,000 to $150,000 (£80,000) a month to their proxies, according to John Prendergast, an International Crisis Group expert on Somalia who has interviewed warlords. "This was counter-terrorism on the cheap. This is a backwater place that nobody really wants to get involved in, so {they} thought, let's just do this and maybe we'll get lucky."

Instead Washington got burned...

class, the usual target of cuts... but hit

the foreign policy agencies. IMHO.

sounds like a bad thing for us all. If the press got it right. What say ye, fellow DU'ers?

good or bad news in reality?

to fight terrorism, they are way too busy securing the world's oil reserves. The US is bogged down in Iraq, and as I recall, OBL predicted that would happene, that they would 'invade an oil-rich country in the ME which would drain the treasury'. He knew them well, the Bush cabal.

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sent our military there. He was a lame duck when he did it.

Clinton inherited the situation. When the ranger was dragged through the street, Clinton had to do some serious thinking about things. He withdrew the military then.

Clinton was fighting the warlords, not bankrolling them, like the current republican scum. And our forces went in there to spearhead the UN effort, not all by themselves. We did not start a war there, and then look for a coalition of the willing, unlike the current republican scum.

Go find out which party hectored Clinton for withdrawal long before the Mogadishu fiasco, beat him like a drum over his refusal to pull out immediately afterward, and tried to impose a Jan 31 operational funding cutoff when he set a Mar 31 date. Clinton couldn't skedaddle fast enough to keep those guys happy. If Somalia was "abandoned", it was a lopsidedly bipartisan affair.

Marine barracks bombing. The "Great Communicator" was dealing w/the Iranians as well, under the radar, but "we will never make a deal w/terrorists".

Just to keep some of the facts straight here...:)

"They didn't realise their limited engagement would actually make matters worse," said Mr Prendergast. "It's ignorance and impecuniousness that have led us to be in a more difficult and disadvantageous position than we were."

- more stupid shit from the pentagon... same shit different year.

Those who knew better were ignored, or in one case reassigned,
as the Bushies tried the same quick and dirty statecraft
that headlines the "War or Terror."

Kick & Recommend.

It's worked sooo well before.

Nicaragua
South Korea
Vietnam
Congo
Angola
Mozambique
Guatamala
Chile
Cuba
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Laos
Cambodia
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Egypt

etc, etc, etc.

A long and distinguished record of murder, assasination, subversion, torture, and genocide to uphold "traditional American values" and "spread democracy".

In the 60's, they were terrified of any prospect of African unity,because much of Africa had closer relations to the Eastern Bloc. So, they fed warlords and disgruntled military generals money and weapons, sabotaged public infrastructure progress, undermined peace and democratically elected officials, and set us on the path to the Africa we have today.

As it was in Asia, the Middle East, and south America, so shall it be in Africa.

Africa is history's greatest testament to, not only the America's, but the western world's utter hypocrisy when it gives itselt accolades for "civilization" and "humanity".

And, it continues to exploit, patronize, and use Africa for the most egregious political ends. e.g. Bush's cut off of funds to anti-HIV/AIDS efforts to NGO's because they dared to recommend condoms and backed a woman's right to abortion, all to fortify his right-wing base. Thus condemning millions of people to die.

They will hate us for generations.

if this had been the establishment of a Christian theocracy. One wonders if our own christo-fascist fears of radical Islam rest more with their worry that the Rapture cannot come until the Crusades are launched again, and only a fundamentalist christian state can order millions of wingnut crusaders into battle.

Oh - I forgot. Most wingnuts only do battle from the keyboard.

He was wrong. Just look at the map.

I remember Somalia during the late sixties. It was a hell hole back then and it appears nothing has really changed.

If al Qaeda is in control of Mogadishu, so what. Sooner or later some war lord will challenge them. The Somalis are tough people and if they take a disliking to a foreign group or nation, fear and violence will fill the days of the occupiers.

I'm gonna kick some heavy atoms off the bottom here, just to clear some fluff.