regional conflict

Remove all ads!

Ethiopia has started bombing and invading parts of Somalia in an effort to crush Islamist fighters whom have been leading an insurgency against the Somalian government.

NY Times---Ethiopian Warplanes Attack Somalia


Will the sounds of the battle be heard in Iraq? Will this bolster the moral of Islamists everywhere as they see evidence of a global struggle?

 

USA continues to **** things up in the every little corner of the world. Don't say Ethiopia started that war, without the support of USA they wouldn't do it. And this "Islamist" thing starts to be a common excuse for declaring wars, but the real reason is the twisted interests, as always. Bloody bastards

 

Argohir, let's take a look at the situation there.

Ethiopia shares a long border with Somalia, which enjoys a relative peace since the islamists took over control with support of the ineffective government.

About half of Ethiopias people are of islamic persuasion, and the existence of an organised islamist fighting force in a neighbouring country may be sufficient to bring unhappy ethiopians under their banner.

The ethiopian government was never shy of using force to further it's interests, so a violent reaction to what must seem to be a political and maybe even a military threat was to invade.

The ehtiopian government doesn't need the US to do this. (Except to train it's soldiers, maybe.)

 

Yes, I don't say Ethiopia is jus a puppet, but it seems to me that USA is using this situation; absolutely they have affected the events, like they always do.

@Blackthorne TA: Can I have your opinions about the role of US in this event? Or will you just laugh without contributing to the argument? I am sure you can do something better to prove me wrong.
[Oh, no, I'm just going to laugh without contributing because that's all that's necessary in this case - BTA]

[ December 26, 2006, 22:50: Message edited by: Blackthorne TA ]

 

Well it's obvious that the US policy has been to prevent the expansion of radical islam so their sponsorship of Ethiopia is no big surprise. As far as I know this sponsorship has lasted for quite long. I doubt the US are exactly crying over the fact that Ethiopia involves itself in this conflict so directly but I also don't think that they are directly involved in this. It's as the topic says a regional conflict which has been going on for decades.

 

Somalia has been a boiling pit for a long time, its no wonder that one of its nabours has been draged in, and for once i doubt the US had much with it to do, the civil war has been a reality in somalia for so long, that something like this was bound to happend.

while i dont approve of the Etheopians way o doing it, its better then to let an army of fanatics run wild. I would rather see an international army go in, but maybe its time to let africa sort out its own problems.

 

Just an update: the Islamists are getting their butts kicked.

Good.

Mecca is this direction (LNT points at his ass).

 

Then should it be kicked or should we do a more nasty thing with it?

 

Yeah, that was my fault...

I'll grow up tomorrow...

...

...

...

...

NnnnOT!

High Five!

 

OK, as you wish.

 

Ethiopia (oops) in in this war against Somalia is a US proxy.

That is my conclusion based on:</font>

1. Ethiopia is a US ally. Professional military education and training in military training management, counter-terrorism operations, and military medicine are among the major programs sponsored by the United States. Total U.S. government assistance, including food aid, between 1991 and 2003 was $2.3 billion. During the severe drought year of FY 2003, the U.S. provided a record $553.1 million in assistance, of which $471.7 million was food aid. (source)
2. The State Department signaled support Tuesday for Ethiopian military operations against Somalia, noting that Ethiopia has had "genuine security concerns" stemming from the rise of Islamist forces in its eastern neighbor.
3. U.S. ships block escape route as Somalia assault readies. That means the US are not only sympathetic but actively supportive.
4. Kenya Sends Troops to Somalia's Border, Closes Border. So it's a concerted effort to isolate the battlezone in Somalia. It's a lesson from Afghanistan where the Taleban simply went to Pakistan. So there seems someone to be determined to avoid that from happening again.
5. Joint Statement by the United States of America, the Republic of Kenya, and Ethiopia. A joint statement of three heads of state and all of a sudden, that is, about two weeks later, a little war breaks out involving all three of them? Honi soit qui mal y pense.
   Surprise!

The neo-cons at work. They are using their cold war template and have replaced 'World Communism' with 'Islamo Facism', and there you have it. As much as it was intolerable for a country within US reach in the 70s and 80s to vote Communist or Socialist (provoking something like the greek colonel's, Pinochet, Nicaragua, or Angola), the US now will not tolerate a country to have an Islamist government. Eritrea vs. Somalia is a classical, ugly little proxy war, pretty much analogous to the Angola war.
Saying this I can comprehend the US point of view, after all it was an Islamist government that granted Al Quaeda safehaven in Afghanistan. If one takes the GWOT serious, which I have no doubt the Bush men do, crushing an Islamist state at the Horn of Africa is consequent to say the very least.

Considering that the Somalis are predominantly muslim as a matter of faith I have my doubts that simply killing off all Islamist politicos and militiamen will solve Somalia's problems. Maybe the Somalis will get a stable secular government now, something they have been unable to form for twenty years. Or, the Bush men might just be hysterical again.

In the most recent elections Nicaragua's Sandinista Front leader Daniel Ortega made a comeback, America's enemy number one (and to Ollie North still a 'Hitler' ) in Central America in the 1980s, on behalf of whom the US declared a national emergency in 1986. Iirc the Sandinistas were stopped in that epic battle in Wichita, Kansas in 1987.

[ January 06, 2007, 15:54: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Sorry BTA, but what Somali government? That rabble of exiles? They haven't had a country to rule for 15 years. Now that is what I call a joke. When they called for the intervention, then out of gratitude someone eventually paid their hotel bills.

They had the support of the UN merely because the last government's ambassador to the UN simply stayed there. Statehood and it's privileges, once gained, don't go away quickly.

 

See. You soundly misread me here. The Somalia war is about the first sound and skillfully exercised thing I've seen the Bush administration pull off. They can't possibly have ended up learning something? It suggests to me that they, for a change, left it to the pros and didn't meddle. Probably it wasn't their idea and they simply picked up a proposal from the pros, but there is some merit in recognising a good idea. It's a job well done, and subtly and quietly done. Atypical for the Bush men.

I'm certain that the the Decider sticks to his domino theory regarding 'Islamo Facism', to draw out that bogeyman. Bush's rhetoric underlines that (I haven't taken him serious for way too long), and the turn of events in Somalia underlines that. What I don't understand is why you refuse to see the clear US fingerprints all over the place. These points I counted up fit together too neatly to be mere accident.

I mocked and still mock the rigid ideological attachment to a fixed set of enemies that must not be appeased, because if they are, it's Munich 1938 and the sky is going to fall. But that's as typical for Bush himself as for his neo-con hatchet men.

Where I have my doubts is if a new government in Somalia can be built and sustained. I hope Somalia can be stabilised, I really do. I don't like Islamists at all, and I like sectarian carnage even less, just like war lords.

A good article on the challanges in Somalia.

 

The gratitude of the Somali government is worthless. They have no assets, no money and nothing to offer, short of being grateful. They're beggars.

The gratitute of the US government was worth ... some $2.3 billion between 1991 and 2003. That's quite a sum.

Atypical, because it was probably coordinated on mid level by pros, with less direct involvement and opportunity for blundering than, say, something as huge as Iraq. What I have in mind would be CENTCOM's detachment in Djibouti, which conveniently borders on Somalia and Ethiopia.

 

I would imagine that Ethiopia not liking the Islamic government was very eager to get rid of it. I'm sure that they consulted the US before doing this and got the green light but somehow I think you are exaggerating US involvement in the desicion.