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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 people that has 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 of Mogadishu, where violence has surged in recent weeks as the Islamic militants defeated CIA backed warlords, including some who were involved in attacks against Americans 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 rivals the Bush Administration’s twisted rhetoric justifying the invasion of Iraq on anti-terrorist grounds.
U.S. government support for the warlords actually catalyzed the rise of Islamic militants who want to institute the type of Shariah law that made the Taliban notorious.
The rise of a 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 same militants it trained and armed to fight the Soviets back in the 1980’s, it did so on the cheap, an accusation also levied at the U.S. for its subsequent military adventure in Iraq. Bush outsourced most of the fighting to the easily bribed and loosely connected Northern Alliance, including the failed attempt to capture Osama bin Laden when he was cornered at Tora Bora, as John Kerry repeatedly charged in his campaign for the Presidency.
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 originally allowed the Taliban to rise to power. Hamid Karzai’s U.S.-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 a failed state or a state giving haven to terrorists be deemed unimportant; it is exactly those places that give rise to terrorist cells and combative governments. Yet it is exactly that lesson that the Bush Administration seemed to forget in Somalia, where fundamentalist Islamic influence 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.
Though the CIA was involved in trying to bring some kind of order to an anarchic nation, 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 three if the political will was there.
Iran is increasingly averse to changing course in its development of 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 continues to incorrectly prioritize 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. As public attention is focused in Iraq, the real terrorists who attacked us on September 11 are rejuvenating their base of operations and, even further from the eye of the media, a new al-Qaeda Islamic republic is born.
Thomas Coen is the co-founder of and an editor for Incite Magazine. He is a senior government and economics major at Wesleyan University. Besides Incite, he heads the Wesleyan chapter of the Roosevelt Institution, the nation’s first student think-tank. Thomas is a student representative for Campus Progress and co-hosts a weekly political talk show, Don’t Believe the Hype, on WESU. He has interned both in government for Senator Jeffords, and in the non-profit sector for People for the American Way. In addition, Thomas has worked on political campaigns at both the state and national level. Thomas can be contacted at Thomas@InciteMagazine.org |
