Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

When the Bush Administration began its attack on purported al Qaeda operatives in Somalia, I cautioned that the source of their intelligence was weak. After much speculation and reports that one of the persons responsible for the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania had been killed, we now find out that the Bush Administration missed. What a shocker!

The Washington Post reports tonight that the United States has boots on the ground in Somalia and those boots found no al Qaeda had been killed:

A small team of American military entered southern Somalia to try to determine exactly who was killed in a U.S. airstrike Monday that targeted suspected al-Qaeda figures thought to be hiding in swampy mangrove forests along the Indian Ocean, U.S. sources said Thursday.

So far, "no one can confirm a high-value target" among the dead, said one U.S. source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But items recovered at the strike site — a piece of bloody clothing and a document — indicated that Aden Ayrow, head of the military arm of the Islamic Courts movement and the de facto defense minister of the deposed Islamic government, had been at the scene.

There are two very important pieces of information in the above two paragraphs. First, no al Qaeda was killed. Second, and more importantly, the US is now involved in a civil war in Somalia. We have taken the side of warlords against the Islamic Courts Union. More bluntly, we have taken the side of chaos over stability.

There is now no doubt that the United States has been actively involved in the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. The two countries are sharing information with each other and the warlords:

The U.S. military has worked closely with Ethiopian ground and air forces operating in Somalia and has shared intelligence and target lists. But American decision-makers have been cautious about sending U.S. personnel into Somalian territory. In the aftermath of the AC-130 attack, it was seen as a necessary risk in the effort to positively identify the casualties.

While the US claims that the attacks were "surgical" and "10 people suspected of terrorist links" had been killed, reports from the area suggest widespread destruction and loss of life. The weapon of choice, the AC-130 gunship, suggests that the attack was not surgical:

A day after widespread publicity over claims that a "surgical" attack had killed Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, allegedly involved with the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, it emerged that neither he, nor two other suspects, Abu Taiha al-Sudani and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, were among the dead.

US officials insisted the 10 people who were killed in the raid in southern Somalia were Islamist allies of al-Qa’ida. But a local MP, Abdelgadir Haji, claimed there had been far larger scale civilian casualties inflicted by the Americans and their Ethiopian allies.

Mr Haji said: "The number of the dead we have confirmed until now is 150 dead. But, every day, new reports are coming in and that number is expected to rise.

"America strikes from the air. Ethiopian tanks are coming in over land and the Kenyan border is closed. The people have no escape. Hundreds of cattle were killed and no aid is being allowed over the border. It is a hellish situation."

Even official pronouncements from the Somali "government" suggest a large loss of life:

Government officials reported many died in the attack carried out on Monday by the gunship, an armed variant of the C-130 Hercules transport plane, designed for close air support.

"Many people were killed and I think the terrorists were eliminated," Information Minister Ali Jama told AFP.

"Absolutely, a lot of people were killed," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said. "So many dead people were lying in the area, we do not know who is who, but the raid was a success."

Since the initial attack, there have been reports of other aerial attacks in southern Somalia. The US government has denied that they carried out the attacks. However, regardless of whether it was the Ethiopians or the Americans, the local population will now see the two countries joined at the hip. Any atrocities carried out by the Ethiopians or the Bush Administration’s warlord allies will now be connected to the Americans as well. This is the price of our "close coordination":

U.S. officials repeatedly emphasized close coordination with the Ethiopian military, saying that continuing air attacks by the Ethiopians in the south were motivated by intelligence reports that one of the three embassy suspects, Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese, was in the area.

The U.S. military action in the southernmost tip of Somalia has been widely criticized by European diplomats, the U.N. secretary general and the chairman of the 53-member African Union, who are concerned that it will work against efforts to stabilize a country that has been without a central government since 1991.

In the chaotic capital, Mogadishu, the weak transitional government, backed by the United States and Ethiopia, is struggling to assert control in a city still full of Islamic Courts fighters, as well as militias of clans and sub-clans who feel marginalized by the new government and resentful of the presence of Ethiopian soldiers in the city.

The Bush Administration has taken its "War on Terror" road show to Somalia. It is now fighting an undeclared war in the Horn of Africa. The original excuse of a "surgical" strike against al Qaeda has been proven to be false. Instead the Bush Administration is now actively engaged in war against the widely popular Islamic Courts Union. This is a recipe for further instability in the war-torn country of Somalia.

It is time to consider wider ramifications of the Bush Administration’s one-dimensional "us" versus "them" foreign policy. The United States, under the Bush Administration, is quickly becoming the major force for global instability. While war still rages in Afghanistan, the Bush war bandwagon took the show to Iraq. It has now expanded the war into Africa. There are indications now that Iran and Syria are next to be attacked. This policy of rapidly expanding instability is making Mr. Bush perhaps the world’s most dangerous man.

We are now at the mercy of Mr. Bush’s war without end. It is time for the United States Congress to exercise its constitutional responsibility and rescue this nation and the world from presidential war-making run amok.

There is news out of Somalia today that the United States has attacked suspected al Qaeda operatives. It remains to be seen whether we have indeed killed those responsible for the 1998 embassy bombing or not. I have my doubts.

I am not particularly encouraged by the source of the intelligence:

U.S. officials say that the United States received assurances from both the Ethiopian and Somalian governments in the last two weeks that, should they obtain intelligence concerning the whereabouts of the al-Qaida operatives, they would pass it on to the United States.

I guess the "Somalian government" passed on the intelligence. If so, I would not hold my breath.

The Bush Administration has long accused the recently defeated Islamic Courts Union (ICU) of harboring al Qaeda. However, tangible proof has been lacking. Seeing an opportunity, thugs and warlords in Somalia banded together to fight the "terrorists" in Somalia. They called themselves the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, or ARPCT for short. The ARPCT fed off the Bush Administration’s one-dimensional anti-terrorism policy. We funded these thugs until they were routed by the ICU. I wrote the following back in June when Mogadishu fell to the ICU:

The ARPCT is a recently rebranded group of Somali warlords who were funded by the United States. They were just routed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu by Islamist militants. The ARPCT warlords are now on the run as the Islamists, known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), establish control over war-torn Somalia. The United States claims that the ironically named ICU harbor al Qaeda members and therefore pose a danger to the civilized world. The ICU has thus been branded as "terrorists" for harboring al Qaeda. Seeing an opportunity to cash in, the always opportunistic Somali warlords refashioned themselves into a group of  "anti-terrorist" militias. In the "us" versus "them" world of George W Bush, these thugs became "us" and thus became worthy of our support.

Since February, with US financial backing, the ARPCT has engaged in fierce fighting with the ICU. But the ICU gained influence in Somalia by offering the people what they had been craving for decades - a sense of security and stability. When the warlords decided to stop fighting each other and rebrand themselves as the ARPCT they were now fighting against the stability provided or promised by the ICU. The people of Somalia were tired of the warlords and rejected the ARPCT in favor of the ICU. One by one, towns fell under the control of the ICU as they advanced on Mogadishu, until finally Mogadishu also fell a few days ago.

The talibanization of Somalia has begun. Just like in Afghanistan, the Somali people are unsurprisingly choosing security over constant violence and insecurity. With no functioning central government, the people have turned to the ICU for protection. In return, the people have accepted Islamist control over their lives. This is an essential concept that the Bush Administration repeatedly fails to understand. If given a choice between democracy without security and security without democracy, the people will overwhelmingly choose the latter. Failure to grasp this obvious fact and wallowing in an ideological soup that preaches "freedom is on the march" will have the opposite effect. In fact, in much of the world where the United States has engaged militarily in the GWOT, freedom is on the ropes. This is true for Afghanistan, this is true for Iraq, and this is true for Somalia.

Our Plan A in Somalia was supporting warlords - and it failed miserably. Incidentally, these warlords should seem familiar:

Somalia, like Iraq and Afghanistan, has a complex political landscape that does not lend itself to the simplistic "us" and "them" rhetoric. There are no good guys in Somalia. The very warlords who now claim to be "anti-terrorist" forces were fighting the United States and presumably harboring al Qaeda in 1993. These are some of the very people who fought the United States during the first Battle of Mogadishu, which led to the deaths of 18 American servicemen. The Bush Administration has now decided to break bread with these thugs in an ill-conceived attempt at counter terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

Plan A having failed, the Bush Administration threw its weight behind the weak transitional government in Baidoa that was rescued from annihilation by the Ethiopians. It is this transitional government that has now taken residence in Mogadishu courtesy of Ethiopia.

So, just who exactly are the new government of Somalia. It should come as no surprise that they are warlords. A number of them fought the United States in 1993. One of them has a very well-known pedigree. The new interior minister, Hussein Farah Aideed, is the son of Mohammad Farrah Aideed. Mohammad Farrah Aideed was the warlord responsible for the deaths of 18 American servicemen in the Battle of Mogadishu.

To add to the warlord homecoming, other famous warlords such as Musse Sudi Yalahow, formerly of the ARPCT, have also returned to Mogadishu. Unless these warlords are reigned in, Somalia is on its way back to the chaos of the past decades.

So, when the news media refers to the "government of Somalia", think "warlords". And treat with skepticism any intelligence that they might pass along.

Meet our newest best friends: the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, or, ARPCT for short. Our latest best friends are at the vanguard of President Bush’s Global War On Terror, or as those who know the lingo like to call it, the GWOT. So the ARPCT were our guys in the GWOT and so we bankrolled them. They were tasked with hunting down al Qaeda and eliminating them. The only problem was they did not have much support from the very people they were tasked to defend against the scourge of al Qaeda. To add insult to injury, when the people found out that the ARPCT was backed by GWB in the GWOT they actively turned on the ARPCT. So now the ARPCT is defeated and on the run. And with their defeat the Bush Administration has suffered an embarrassing setback in the GWOT.

The ARPCT is a recently rebranded group of Somali warlords who were funded by the United States. They were just routed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu by Islamist militants. The ARPCT warlords are now on the run as the Islamists, known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), establish control over war-torn Somalia. The United States claims that the ironically named ICU harbor al Qaeda members and therefore pose a danger to the civilized world. The ICU has thus been branded as "terrorists" for harboring al Qaeda. Seeing an opportunity to cash in, the always opportunistic Somali warlords refashioned themselves into a group of  "anti-terrorist" militias. In the "us" versus "them" world of George W Bush, these thugs became "us" and thus became worthy of our support.

Since February, with US financial backing, the ARPCT has engaged in fierce fighting with the ICU. But the ICU gained influence in Somalia by offering the people what they had been craving for decades - a sense of security and stability. When the warlords decided to stop fighting each other and rebrand themselves as the ARPCT they were now fighting against the stability provided or promised by the ICU. The people of Somalia were tired of the warlords and rejected the ARPCT in favor of the ICU. One by one, towns fell under the control of the ICU as they advanced on Mogadishu, until finally Mogadishu also fell a few days ago.

The talibanization of Somalia has begun. Just like in Afghanistan, the Somali people are unsurprisingly choosing security over constant violence and insecurity. With no functioning central government, the people have turned to the ICU for protection. In return, the people have accepted Islamist control over their lives. This is an essential concept that the Bush Administration repeatedly fails to understand. If given a choice between democracy without security and security without democracy, the people will overwhelmingly choose the latter. Failure to grasp this obvious fact and wallowing in an ideological soup that preaches "freedom is on the march" will have the opposite effect. In fact, in much of the world where the United States has engaged militarily in the GWOT, freedom is on the ropes. This is true for Afghanistan, this is true for Iraq, and this is true for Somalia.

Somalia, like Iraq and Afghanistan, has a complex political landscape that does not lend itself to the simplistic "us" and "them" rhetoric. There are no good guys in Somalia. The very warlords who now claim to be "anti-terrorist" forces were fighting the United States and presumably harboring al Qaeda in 1993. These are some of the very people who fought the United States during the first Battle of Mogadishu, which led to the deaths of 18 American servicemen. The Bush Administration has now decided to break bread with these thugs in an ill-conceived attempt at counter terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

What the Somali people crave is stability and security. The United States, instead of backing warlords, should perhaps try a defter approach instead. If Iraq has taught us anything, it should be that killing people is not the best way to win hearts and minds.

In an article in the Washington Post, John Prendergast argues for a more balanced counter-terrorism strategy to salvage the situation in Somalia. He states in part:

A successful counterterrorism effort would require the United States to pull the political and military threads together into a coherent strategy of broader engagement. U.S. officials and those from other governments throughout the region uniformly have told me that long-term counterterrorism objectives can be achieved only by American investment in the Somali peace process. Yet the State Department has just one full-time political officer working on Somalia — from neighboring Kenya, and he was just transferred out of the region for dissenting from the policy on proxy warlords. Somalia’s ineffectual transitional government remains confined to the shaky central town of Baidoa, where it is still struggling to overcome internal divisions.

A functioning government that could ensure security would be a win-win scenario for Somalis and the United States, enabling the state apparatus to address the criminality and extremism that undermine progress in the country. This would provide a real partner for the war on terrorism in an area that has a track record for exporting trouble.

The continuation of Washington’s current approach in Somalia would ensure that U.S. interests and those of other countries in the region remain dangerously vulnerable to terrorist attacks from this collapsed state. Continued fighting between Islamist elements and the U.S.-backed warlord alliance will breed resentment, attract recruits to the extremist cause and provide a training ground for new militants. The United States can no longer afford not to engage more deeply and directly in state reconstruction efforts in Somalia. It is in our national security interest to do so. [Emphasis added by me.]

Support for Somalia does not mean boots on the ground. After the experience of the 1990s it would be foolhardy for the United States to return militarily to Somalia. But, the only way to prevent the slide into extremism that is occurring in Somalia is to offer the people a viable alternative to the ICU. This will require regional involvement as well as involvement from the major powers such as the United States and Western Europe.

We cannot afford to let Somalia continue as a failed state. The Somali people crave and need a stable civil society and international investment and engagement can and will lead to a secure Somalia. The war against extremism is a war for hearts and minds. What is required is a lot of butter. Leave the guns at home.