A strip of land in the Horn of Africa that most Americans
remember from an early 90’s failed humanitarian intervention (or the Hollywood
re-incarnation of that mission in Black Hawk Down) is now the latest
casualty from the invasion of Iraq. Somalia, a country of nine million that’s
been without a functioning government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barr was
toppled in 1991, is now under the control of Islamic extremists with a newly
anointed leader, Hassan Dahir Aweys, a suspected al-Qaeda associate.
Their power is visible in the capital Mogadishu where
violence has surged in recent weeks as the Islamic militants defeated CIA backed
warlords, some of the same warlords that killed 18 U.S. soldiers 12 years ago.
The warlords now call themselves the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and
Counter-Terrorism, a phrase loaded with so much Orwellian doublespeak that it
even rivals the Bush Administration’s twisted rhetoric on justifying the
invasion of Iraq on terrorist grounds.
U.S. government support for the undemocratic warlords that
previously fought and killed U.S. soldiers actually catalyzed the rise of
Islamic militants who want to institute the type of Shariah law that made the
Taliban notorious.
The rise of the neo-Taliban in Somalia fits the pattern of
the rise of the original Taliban in Afghanistan –religious militants fill a
power vacuum in a failed state ignored by the West. When America invaded
Afghanistan in October 2001 to defeat the very militants it trained and armed to
fight the Soviets back in the 1980’s, it did so on the cheep, an accusation also
levied against its subsequent military adventure in Iraq. Bush outsourced most
of the fighting, including when Osama bin Laden was cornered at Tora Bora, to
the easily bribed and loosely connected Northern Alliance, as John Kerry
repeatedly charged in his campaign for President.
The Bush Administration’s incompetence in fighting the war
against the Taliban has only spiraled further downhill in recent weeks. Its
negligence towards Afghanistan increased as it has diverted resources, energy,
and attention on a war of choice fought under false pretences in Iraq.
Afghanistan is reverting into the Post-Soviet state that
allowed the Taliban to rise to power in the first place. Hamid Karzai’s
US-backed government has little influence outside of the capital Kabul and
America is even transferring command of military operations to a NATO force. At
the same time, fighting in Afghanistan is more intense than it has been for the
past three years. The Washington Post recently reported that the military has
conducted more than twice the number of air strikes in Afghanistan than in Iraq
over the past 3 months.
Staff reporter Thomas Ricks writes, “Since early May, a
resurgent Taliban militia has launched numerous attacks in southern Afghanistan
in which more than 300 insurgents, soldiers and civilians have died. It has
attacked in larger numbers and more frequently, burning 200 schools in the south
and driving out foreign aid groups… Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who
recently returned from a visit to Afghanistan, said the Taliban have gone from
operating in company-size units of about 100 men last year to battalion-size
units of about 400 men this year.”
If there was one lesson policymakers could take away from
the catastrophe of September 11, it was that never again could any lawless
country be deemed unimportant; it is exactly those places that give rise to
terrorist cells and combative governments. Yet it is that exact lesson that the
Bush Administration seemed to forget with regards to Somalia. Fundamentalist
Muslim influence over there is not a recent occurrence. Ten years ago Somalia
saw the rise of Shariah courts, which operate under a severe interpretation of
the Koran, and Islamic schools.
Granted, the CIA was involved in trying to bring some kind
of order to an anarchic nation, but their warlord support backfired and their
policy fell victim to tunnel vision. Mark Mazzetti writes in the New York
Times, “One American government official who traveled to Nairobi this year said
officials from various government agencies working in Somalia had expressed
concern that American activities in the country were not being carried out in
the context of a broader policy. ‘They were fully aware that they were doing so
without any strategic framework,’ the official said. ‘And they realized that
there might be negative implications to what they are doing.’” John Prendergast
of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit research organization with
extensive field experience in Somalia, concurs that U.S. policy towards Somalia
was doomed to fail. “I've talked to people inside the Defense Department and
State Department who said that this was not a comprehensive policy,” he said.
“It was being conducted in a vacuum, and they were largely shut out.”
While the Bush Administration has pursued its disastrous
and unjustifiable war of choice in Iraq while squandering victory in Afghanistan
and witnessing the rise of a neo-Taliban in Somalia, the greatest threat to
American national security has been, at best, relegated to second-tier status.
Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, chair and vice-chair
respectively of the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks, testified
recently before a House Government Reform sub-committee. Both unequivocally
stated that loose nuclear material around the world is the greatest danger to
American citizens, an assertion John Kerry continually made during his campaign
for President as well. While Bush said he agreed with Kerry at the time, and no
doubt would say the same thing today, his actions reveal his true incompetence.
Keane said that at the current rate, it would take 14-15 years to secure all the
loose nuclear material around the world, but that it could be accomplished in 3
if the political will was there.
Iran is increasingly reticent to change course in
developing nuclear technology and North Korea, a country that already possesses
nuclear weapons, prepares to test a missile that could hit Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military is embroiled in a quagmire in Iraq and, thanks to
the Bush Administration, failing to win the war in Afghanistan or prevent the
rise of a neo-Taliban state in Somalia. If that wasn’t bad enough, what should
be the top priority of U.S. foreign policy –securing loose nuclear material –has
been pushed aside. President Bush has continually incorrectly prioritized the
threats to America, and Somalia presents the latest example of the disaster that
is Bush’s foreign policy. With the American military bogged down in Iraq, it is
not nearly as mobile as it should be. Worst, public attention is focused there
as the real terrorists that attacked us on September 11 rejuvenate their base of
operations, and, even further from the eye of the media, a new Al-Qaeda Islamic
republic is born.