| Somalia: Does Nation Face Doomsday Or Opportunity for Peace? |
| Tuesday, February 24, 2009 |
By Brian Kennedy
allAfrica.com
Gettleman's analysis echoes the perspectives of fellow Somalia watchers: United States policy has had a devastating impact on the East African country. Gettleman draws an analogy from the game of baseball, in which after three strikes, the batter is out, to show the failures of U.S. policy.
Strike one was memorable and can be summed up in three words - "Black Hawk Down". In 1993, 18 U.S. soldiers died in the streets of Mogadishu, eventually forcing U.S. to pull out.
Strike two occurred in 2005, when a semblance of order was returning to Mogadishu and the surrounding areas under Islamic rule. In a post-9/11 world in which terrorism dominated U.S. perspectives, Gettleman writes that CIA "again misread the cues," sponsoring the wrong warlords instead of working with moderate Islamists.
Strike three happened one year later, when in December 2006, the U.S. backed an Ethiopian invasion to overthrow the Islamists. Gettleman claims, "There were even some U.S. Special Forces with the Ethiopian units." Gettleman also calls the U.S. airstrikes against suspected terrorists a failure, "boiling anti-American sentiment."
Gettleman wraps up the essay with some lukewarm ideas about how to bring security to Somalia, but he seems at best unsure of their chances of success. His scenario tends towards the doomsday variety - the Islamists sparking a regional war in their effort to bring ethnic Somalis in other states into their Greater Somalia.
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posted by citizen jerk @ 6:36 AM   |
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