Sunday, March 25, 2007

The War on Terror in Somalia

I had blogged about the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) taking control of Somalia. We were told that the ICU had links al-Qaeda. Then the US then sponsored Ethiopia, the hated neighbor of Somalia, to invade and take over. We saw a mixture of US air-power, Ethiopian troops and the beleaguered 'official' government of Somalia rush in and supposedly crush the ICU. Job done.

Except its not job done. As in Afghanistan, the hard power of the US military is proving incapable of solving what are essentially localised political problems. So once the war-planes have left, we see the rise of an insurgency coupled with human-rights violations by the ruling powers then terror attacks and so on and so forth.