Waiting for the coming storm in Somalia
You know Somalia has gotten bad when an article on the coming battle between the Islamists and Ethiopians makes the top box of the front web page of the NYTimes.
It's actually a pretty good piece, although I find the inclusion/exclusion of the secondary parties very interesting. They make about as concrete a statement of US support for the Ethiopians as I've seen in any mainstream press while not really mentioning that the Islamists are being armed and funded by our "allies" Saudi and Egypt, and other Sunni powers Syria, Sudan, and even Hezbullah. Just interesting.
(Two articles from a month ago on the Islamic militia's backers. Telegraph, BBC.)
Yesterday, the Islamists gave Ethiopia a one week deadline to withdraw troops. (AFP)
Thursday: The WaPo too, although it's A19.
It's actually a pretty good piece, although I find the inclusion/exclusion of the secondary parties very interesting. They make about as concrete a statement of US support for the Ethiopians as I've seen in any mainstream press while not really mentioning that the Islamists are being armed and funded by our "allies" Saudi and Egypt, and other Sunni powers Syria, Sudan, and even Hezbullah. Just interesting.
(Two articles from a month ago on the Islamic militia's backers. Telegraph, BBC.)
Yesterday, the Islamists gave Ethiopia a one week deadline to withdraw troops. (AFP)
Thursday: The WaPo too, although it's A19.
posted by mikevotes at
10:26 PM
2 Comments:
“I’ll be honest,” said Sheik Muktar Robow Abu Monsur, the deputy security chief for the [Somali] Islamists. “America is the best friend of Islam. It wakes up the sleeping Muslim.”
Hearts and minds, baby. Hearts and minds.
Like a gusty wind on a forest fire, Bush's ham-fisted attempts to blow out the flame of radical sectarians only serves to spread visceral anti-Americanism across the globe. If the goal is to win people over to our way of thinking -- our world view -- then I'd have to say the words and actions of the Bush administration are a case study in abject failure. No, it's not even failure. It's beyond failure. It's actually losing hearts and minds and alienating our traditional allies.
By
-epm, at 9:30 AM
I caught that quote, too.
Another item that's not being mentioned anymore in the greater debate.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 10:35 AM
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