The World After Bush Somalia
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possible sign that a US withdrawal from Iraq might be closer than Bush
wants to admit. With all my conviction I say: there will be no US
victory in Iraq and eventually they will have to pullout, if not
before Bush leaves office then sometime soon after.
When reading an article about the continued violence in Somalia with
my last article still fresh in my mind, I asked myself the question,
where will the world be after the Bush administration? Further, will
things calm down, or have the Neocons caused so much friction and
meddled so much that the explosion of violence in so many places
around the world will continue to worsen?
I will attempt to answer my questions in a series of articles, and
through the course will also inadvertently show why electing the son
of a US President, as President is perhaps a mistake, that should not
be repeated.
In most of the worlds current conflict zones the US has had some
involvement, but never has their involvement been as catastrophic as
under (the infantile megalomaniac) President Bush Jr.
Part II: Somalia - Past Mistakes:
Somalia is another country where the U.S.' mistakes in the past have
caused problems leading to current, recent and probably future
mistakes. After Somalia's dictator Siad Barre was ousted in 1991 a
similar situation as that of present day Iraq arose: with the
brutality of a dictatorship gone, a ticking time-bomb exploded -
though unlike Iraq the bomb was clan warfare not sectarian warfare.
Somalia's civil war began - it still hasn't ended. In 1993 the US/UN
sent in peacekeepers because of the heavy civilian death toll. Their
mission: to enforce the latest peace agreement, disarm clan militias
and engage one faction that refused to cooperate with the peace
initiative - namely, warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's faction. Aidid's
militia inflicted heavy casualties on the US/UN force, culminating in
the Blackhawk down incident Oct 3 - 4 1993, with the vicious killing
of 18 American soldiers, 1 Malaysian, and the wounding of 83 US 7
Malaysian and 2 Pakistani troops.
On October 6 President Clinton ordered an end to all U.S. operations
in Somalia except self-defense, announcing that all US forces would
withdraw no later than Mar. 31 1994 - not least because the dead
soldier's bodies were dragged through the streets by elated civilians.
There were similar scenes during the recent peacekeeping mission.
When the peacekeepers left, Somalia went back to much the same as it
had been before: protection racketeering, hijacking and open battles
between rival warlords and their respective clans/factions. Mogadishu
residents - as always - suffered worst.
The warlords formed the Transitional National Government (TNG) when
they met in Djibouti 2000, but it improved nothing in Somalia. The
battles between the warlords and rival clans/factions lessened, but
that just freed up more gunmen to roam the streets robbing, raping and
pillaging. The situation remained the same after the Transitional
Federal Government was formed at a second meeting in Kenya in 2004.
Bush Junior's Mistakes:
The Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) began to sweep to power in mid-2006.
They swept the chaos and violence away, replacing it with their brand
of socially restrictive but peaceful and secure calm in the areas they
controlled. Children could go back to school and nurses could treat
the sick instead of droves of war wounded.
Because of this the UIC enjoyed popular support, not least from the
businessmen who founded and funded the growingly popular group. The
UIC had the TFG and its warlords holed up in one town, Baidoa within
months. Ethiopian troops began appearing in and around Baidoa to
strengthen the TFG foothold. The UIC began to attract the world's
attention, not least with their threats to attack the Ethiopian
invaders, as well as reports of the UIC closing cinemas and stoning
women for not wearing Hijabs.
Their hard-line brand of Salafist Islam and Islamic (Sharia) Law put
the UIC on the U.S.' radar; in the crosshairs of the War on Terror.
Not too long after that the inevitable al Qaeda connection was made. I
am not denying an al Qaeda connection to a few members of the group,
though I would say more that UIC hardliners sought al Qaeda
affiliation than actually had it. Nor will I deny that a large number
of UIC followers were (are) hard-line Islamists, because it was in
fact that branch of the group that was responsible for their firepower
and rapid sweep to power. But there was a moderate following just as
large and powerful within the group.
Now anyone with any sense, seeing that the UIC was easily defeating
the warlord TFG and seeing that they were restoring order in Somalia
for the first time in 15 years, would have been attempting to talk
with the UIC - even if only the moderates, attempting to gain
assurances on its treatment of women and civilians, attempting to get
them to make a public address condemning al Qaeda and all it stood
for, in return for international recognition and assistance.
Yet the US and all its followers including the UN still refused to
give the group validity. UN Resolution 1725 was passed authorizing a
possible peacekeeping force, and reiterating that the TFG was the only
recognized Somali government, that the U.N. saw the TFG as the only
route to a peaceful Somalia, and stating that any group targeting the
TFG would be dealt with.
But it was when the UIC made their final advance to crush the TFG once
and for all that Bush really excelled himself in demonstrating his
stupidity.
Bush would have been told (he certainly wouldn't have known) about the
long-running (since 1964) history of hatred and violence between
Somalia and Ethiopia. So, Bush, supporting, or possibly even
initiating Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia to reinstate the TFG
government and crush the UIC was like supporting an Israeli invasion
of Lebanon to crush a movement regarded as a terror group. Oh, that's
right, Bush did that too, but that's another article.
With the summer Lebanon war and the Iraq quagmire as models, Bush
should have known that a nation invading a country where it is hated
is going to meet fierce resistance, from dedicated but invisible
fighters coming from and/or embedded into the civilian population. An
insurgency of almost never ending numbers, well, more recycling
numbers; every innocent killed by the invaders creates more
insurgents. But from a man who said while speaking in Vietnam about
Iraq that the US only lost the Vietnam war because it pulled out, and
he won't make the same mistake in Iraq, Bush probably thought with his
courage to stay the course he could bring peace to Somalia.
So Somalia's citizens are still suffering from Bush's error. The calm
and relative normality under the UIC has been replaced by their
insurgency and the same tribal issues as before the UIC took power:
sporadic gunfire, mortars, Ethiopian and Ugandan peace keeper deaths,
civilian deaths, general insecurity and anarchy. The situation is
worse in Mogadishu than much of the country.
This is all made worse by the fact that there was no reason to invade
Somalia. As I said the UIC were restoring order. The moderate elements
should have been strengthened by conditional international recognition
and support. Like doctors who bury their mistakes, this is just
another U.S. mistake that the world has to live with.
So, I have looked at
Iraq (part I) and Somalia, both very different in terms of how the
Bush administration meddled, but both very similar in their chances of
enjoying peace and security in the near future.
In Somalia the US involvement has always been indirect (on the
surface), but because of Bush and with the help of US contractors,
money and weapons, Ethiopia is now occupying Somalia. Given their
history, that will never be a peaceful occupation. The Ugandan
peacekeepers have also been attacked. Even if everybody withdrew
tomorrow, or after Bush leaves office, Somalia went through 15 years
of anarchy before the UIC. restored some semblance of order. Left to
their own devices it could well be another 15 years before it happens
again. It certainly won't be anytime soon.
*Liam Bailey appears regularly in various print and electronic media
outlets. He is an advanced blogger on the Washington Post's Post
Global. He runs three blogs: War Pages, for all conflict related
matters, Politics U.K. for exactly what it says on the tin, and Peace
Poetry, poetry for a more peaceful world. You can contact him by E-
mail.