[Dean's World] Aziz P: Africa Watch 060106

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Aziz P:
Africa Watch 060106
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1149166124.shtml


   My recent post about Africa garnered exactly zero comments, and Rudy's
   recent posts also have not been attracting a lot of attention. To that
   end I propose a new feature at Dean's World, "Africa Watch", the
   purpose of which is to highlight events in Africa that have a direct
   bearing on African liberty and the war on Terror. Rather than a links
   roundup, the focus will be a single post or group of related posts at
   other blogs with substantive analysis.

   Unlike many of my other posts, I will post AfricaWatch only at Dean's
   World and not cros-post them at any other blog so that we can try and
   attract and focus attention and discussion here, and I ask your all's
   help in publicizing it on other blogs.

   Brian Ulrich today [1]comments on policy disputes with Somalia, which
   is an oft-underlooked front in the war on Terror. US policy in Somalia
   hinges on paying offf warlords to fight Islamic groups. As the [2]WaPo
   notes,

     "Reports have circulated for some time of hidden U.S. aid to the
     warlords, who have styled themselves as a counterterrorism
     coalition. The support, which is said to be funneled through
     Pentagon or CIA channels, has drawn objections from some State
     Department officials and outside specialists on Africa. They argue
     that the aid program lacks clarity and risks the contrary effect of
     rallying Islamist groups. Greater effort, they say, should be put
     into establishing a legitimate central authority in Mogadishu."

   The fundamental reason that Africa is so badly broken today is that in
   the absence of stable governments that can provide the security needed
   for liberty to flower, militias and warlords have occupied the power
   vacuum. This is the same dynamic that powered the Rwandan genocides,
   the present Darfur genocides, and fuels the fire in pretty much every
   other conflict across the continent. Somalia is not exception, and any
   policy that seeks to fight fire with fire (as funding warlords
   essentially amounts to) is only going to keep Africa barren and
   charred.

   But what makes Somalia even more a concern is that the policy is
   actually relevant to the war on Terror. As Brian notes,

     members of the warlord alliance seem to be using the American
     campaign against terrorism to get American backing the same way
     dictators such as Iran's Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi used to win
     American support by portraying their enemies as communists.

   The Bush Administration seems unwilling to recognize that lip-service
   by putative allies to the cause of fighting terror is less than
   worthless. Another example - much was made of Libyan dictator
   Qaddafi's sudden conversion to "our side" but he remains a brutal and
   dangerous dictator who is clearly using the war on Terror to enrich
   his own coffers at the expense of his country's needs - and his
   people's liberty. The warlords in Somalia have much the same mercenary
   opportunism and we are being played for fools.

   Brian also mentions the [3]Somaliland connection, via [4]Jonathan
   Edelstein, and concludes with the observation:

     Everything I've read suggests that Somalis are almost universally
     unsympathetic to jihadism, and al-Qaeda survives only because of
     the chaos in the country. American policy should thus consider ways
     to fight al-Qaeda in the Horn of Africa that also promote democracy
     and stability rather than undermine them with a new era of rampant
     warlordism.

References

   1. http://americanfootprints.com/drupal/node/2501
   2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/30/AR2006053001203.html
   3. http://headheeb.blogmosis.com/archives/cat_somaliland.html
   4. http://headheeb.blogmosis.com/