Worrisome parallels
The Ethiopian occupation of Somalia is looking like a mistake. They pushed into Somalia promising to defeat the Islamic militants and restore the democratic government. They rapidly took the capital, but now they find themselves bogged down, with order breaking down, fighting a bloody insurgency with no real hope of exit.
In Chechnya, the Russians are still fighting Islamic militants. A helicopter was shot down today killing 17. Giant Russia first sent troops into tiny Chechnya (population: 1 million) in 1994. This current Putin war in Chechnya has been going on since 1999.
In Afghanistan, the Taleban seized control of a district headquarters today killing the mayor, the police chief, and three others. The US and NATO have been fighting in Afghanistan for over 5 years.
But in Iraq, by far the best equipped and most complex militant problem, the US leadership is expecting an answer by August.
In Chechnya, the Russians are still fighting Islamic militants. A helicopter was shot down today killing 17. Giant Russia first sent troops into tiny Chechnya (population: 1 million) in 1994. This current Putin war in Chechnya has been going on since 1999.
In Afghanistan, the Taleban seized control of a district headquarters today killing the mayor, the police chief, and three others. The US and NATO have been fighting in Afghanistan for over 5 years.
But in Iraq, by far the best equipped and most complex militant problem, the US leadership is expecting an answer by August.
posted by mikevotes at
7:25 AM
4 Comments:
Re: Somalia.
Great piece on BBC World New this morning. Interview with the American ambassador and a British newsman. After the ambassador spoke the newsman essentially said he was full of shit. The reality-based consensus is that, like Iraq, our inept unilateral actions are actually making possible the nightmare scenarios we once hallucinated about before we took action.
To me, another example of American foreign policy being both shortsighted and the construction of delusional loons.
By
-epm, at 10:15 AM
Somalia is a tricky one because the Islamic Courts would certainly have dominated the country without something happening.
But, the missed point seems to be that they were successful because the people had largely come to their side not because they had amazing military force. They had won the hearts and minds.
The question, I think, is what level of militancy would they have been involved in if they had been recognized and dealt with rather than being made an outlaw state.
Could they have been coerced into good international behavior? Has the current US backed Ethiopian incursion forced them more into radicalism and into stronger relationships whith those we should be trying to pull them away from?
I'm definitely not a fan of Sharia Islamism, but as a temporary measure for RealPolitik while the US is overextended, it might not have been a bad accomodation if we could've forced them into good behavior.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 1:50 PM
I think the point is, the Islamic Courts were not al Qaeda, but by the US and Ethiopia routing them as they did, the Islamic Courts are now ripe for radicalization.
It seems to me that an Islamic government, even a Sharia-based one, if treated seriously, but respectfully, can be a stable regional and world player. Al Qaeda, in my view, is a parasite that preys on the insecurities of weak and humiliated population. This is true of all radicalizing element: they prey on a sense of victim-hood. Find a way to remove the sense of victim-hood and you find a way to make al Qaeda irrelevant.
That last line should be repeated over and over by policy makers; find a way to make al Qaeda irrelevant. Conversely, everything Bush has done has served to make al Qaeda (or other radical actors) MORE relevant in the minds of those caught in the crossfire.
By
-epm, at 2:32 PM
Right. Islamic Courts did have some relationships with some pretty bad radical Islamic figures, and some of them were even in the country, but, the strategy took away any hope of "mainlining" the ICU.
It's one of the great ideological mistakes that the Bush administration's "war on terror" framing has lifted Al Qaeda up from a small group of radicals and turned them into a global enemy giving them a legitimacy they never could have achieved on their own.
....
Man, I miss those days when you don't come by. You pull the best out of my brain.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 2:45 PM
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