Matthew Yglesias (March 28, 2008) - Somalia (Foreign Policy)

The situation in Somalia is truly heartbreaking. Somalia is essentially Iraq lite.But it is the conflict you never hear about.

The crisis is solely due to the actions taken by the Bush adminstration together with Eithiopia.
When it decided to invade in Dec. 2006. Why? To get rid of a of a Islamist leaning force that had bought a period of peace and stability to the state after 18 years without government.

The Ethiopians aided by Bush have installed a sham faux- warlord government, that is the most corrupt in the world and wreaked havoc and death.

The country desrves urgent help. 2 million are internally displaced.
But most importantly urgent pressure needs to be put on Bush to change his course in the country.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/03/28/world/20080329SOMALIA_13.html

Posted by Alex Kaman | March 28, 2008 6:20 PM

Thank you Mr. Yglesias for calling attention to this issue and thank you Mr. Kaman for your compassionate and important comments as well.

Posted by Abu Noor Al-Irlandee | March 28, 2008 6:33 PM

Certainly, to me it looked like the best chance to restart Somalia's ceaseless cycles of war, chaos, and suffering

It becomes more and more obvious that Matthew remains simply ignorant that there was a civil war in Somalia before the Ethiopians helped the UN- and AU-backed Baidoa government.

I mean, how could Matthew believe that war could be restarted by the Ethiopian invasion unless Matthew really thought there was no war before the Ethiopian invasion. A restart implies that the thing had been previously stopped, right?

So Matthew continues to show that he just had (and has) zero understanding of what was actually occurring in Somalia prior to Christmas 2006.

(And that's besides the fact that Matthew's position is precsiely the opposite of liberal internationalist, which would be odd for someone who is a liberal internationalist. But of course, as Matthew's position on Somalia shows, Matthew is an old fashioned isolationist, and not a liberal internationalist.)

As to this particular report in the WaPo, it's odd that Matthew thinks that Somalia is in "collapse" because some insurgents briefly captured the town. I mean, where was Matthew before the Ethiopian invasion, when the insurgents took over the town permanently? I know, it wasn't a "collapse" then, becuase there was no possible way to blame the insurgent's capture of the town on the United States. How odd.

Nevertheless, it's always fun to see Matthew flaunt his ignorance. The Ethiopian invasion "restarting" the war! You're a hoot, Matthew!

Posted by Al | March 28, 2008 6:48 PM

Al: The insurgents you refer to were (in all likelihood) the closest thing to a prospect for Somali-instigated effective government since the US/UN withdrawal 15 years ago. The transitional government, however well intentioned, was a basket case before the Ethiopian intervention, and doesn't seem to have been terribly welcome on the ground. Displacing the Islamic Courts, however much we don't care for their policies, was certain to restart (yes, restart) the sort of violence the country hadn't seen in years. Probably not the best idea.

Posted by Joe | March 28, 2008 7:12 PM

was certain to restart (yes, restart) the sort of violence the country hadn't seen in years

Dang. Restart. Another person who thinks there was no violence before Christmas 2006!

Posted by Al | March 28, 2008 7:16 PM

Matthew's position is precsiely the opposite of liberal internationalist, which would be odd for someone who is a liberal internationalist.

A subtle point which Al and other conservatives often miss when talking about liberal internationalism is that the point of liberal internationalism is successful engagement with other countries, not simply kicking over one hornet's nest after another.

Posted by rea | March 28, 2008 7:20 PM

"A subtle point which Al and other conservatives often miss when talking about liberal internationalism is that the point of liberal internationalism is successful engagement with other countries, not simply kicking over one hornet's nest after another."

This sounds like a distinction most easily made in hindsight.

Posted by Fred | March 28, 2008 7:26 PM

A subtle point which Al and other conservatives often miss when talking about liberal internationalism is that the point of liberal internationalism is successful engagement with other countries

You mean like engagement with the United Nations and African Union to support the less illiberal government in Somalia?

Posted by Al | March 28, 2008 7:32 PM

"This sounds like a distinction most easily made in hindsight.

Posted by Fred | March 28, 2008 7:26 PM"

Translation: there is no such thing as good judgment and foresight, so you can't judge us on our actions.

And Al, quibbling over "re-start" is up there with debating the word "is." What was the trajectory in Somalia under the Islamists we didn't like? Toward greater stability and legitimacy after years of chaos. What was the effect our Ethiopia's invasion? Instability, the installation of a warlord with no legitimacy and chaos. You can quibble over a semantic point or you can talk about the real world.

Posted by Reality Man | March 28, 2008 7:37 PM

"Translation: there is no such thing as good judgment and foresight, so you can't judge us on our actions."

Good judgment and foresight don't guarantee good outcomes. By applying the label "liberal internationalism" in hindsight, you can so designate adventures with outcomes you like; and with outcomes you don't like, you can always claim that your president deviated from liberal internationalism, and that led to the sub-optimal outcome.

Posted by Fred | March 28, 2008 7:54 PM

Apparantly everything MY learned about Somalia EXCLUDED the problem of major Al Qaeda players embedded with the Somali Islamists and part of the reason we backed Ethiopia's invasion was to "get" in the old law enforcement mentality, 6-8 "high value" Al Qaeda leaders. Of course that mostly failed as the most of the Islamoids were able to cut and run and reach sanctuary, though we did get a few and nailed the families of two others in airstrikes.

Still, the intervention served Ethiopia's interests in stopping the instability from spilling into their nation, so it was still worth it from their perspective. And from our perspective, the turning of the war inwards where radical Islamist factions are content happily slaughtering one another instead of infidels or moderate Muslims, is sweet. We just sit back, munch popcorn, and ensure all the Islamoid slaughterers have ammo.

Posted by chris ford | March 28, 2008 8:16 PM

Al, you're right. There was plenty of combat in Somalia prior to the US and Ethiopia jumping in.

The distinction is that it looked like the Islamic Courts militia was getting close to wrapping things up, at which point the combat would have been pretty much over. Yes, the people would be living with a rigid Islamic government, but we'd be splitting hairs to consider them much more conservative than the Provisional Government. With thievery and shooting down to a dull roar, at least people could eat.

If AQ set up a training camp, we could have by all means stuck a missile up their ass. But we could have left the rest of the country be.

This was no different than Afghanistan, pre-9/11. Did we really care that the Taliban had just about finished off the Northern Alliance, prosecuted a pogram against Hazaras, was physically erasing signs of pre-Islamic culture, and making women's lives suck even more than they did before? Sure, but if they stuck with the ban on opium, we'd have called it even.

Posted by cmholm | March 28, 2008 8:27 PM

Good old Al, I missed your dishonesty today.
In fact, the Islamic Court established stability in much of the country until Ethopia invaded. They brought peace to Mogadishu for the first time since the early 90s. Once they were ousted, the peace in Mogadishu "restarted". It is funny how the Islamic Courts are branded "insurgents" too, as if they are related to al-Sadr or something. It isn't an insurgency if you control half the country and the capital.

Posted by freddiemac | March 28, 2008 8:29 PM

Should read 'Once they were ousted, the war in Mogadishu "restarted".'

Posted by freddiemac | March 28, 2008 8:33 PM

Al: Yes, precisely, dealing with less liberal governments. You know, the whole business about not just negotiating with one's friends. What occurred, insofar as Washington supported it, was the US picking and choosing the government of another country. Now the Islamic Courts were hardly good democrats, but destroying all indigenous governance seems a poor first step towards democracy (liberal or otherwise), to which some measure of peace is surely a prerequisite.

cmholm, freddiemac: Well said. Yes, there was violence aplenty before the intervention, but the reduction in it had been remarkable. It's hard to imagine that occurring again any time soon.

For a test case of Somalis creating governance without the help of the neighbors, one might have a look at Somaliland, in the country's northeast, which was (last I checked) a model of autonomous good governance, even without international recognition. Yes, the situation is quite a bit different, but one shouldn't assume thing wouldn't have gone well if left alone.

Posted by Joe | March 28, 2008 8:52 PM

"You can quibble over a semantic point or you can talk about the real world."

Hey, this is what nitwits like Al, Fred, Chris and Powell do.

Nothing matters but their ideology. They sit there and see "Islamic Courts in Somalia" and start screaming, "Al Qaeda is coming! Al Qaeda is coming! Invade! Invade! Bomb! Bomb!"

The results don't matter to people like that. They're RIGHT and everyone else is WRONG. As William S. Burroughs used to say, the worst people in the world are those who HAVE TO BE RIGHT - no matter what the reality is or the consequences.

It's chimpanzee behavior.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 28, 2008 10:03 PM

part of the reason we backed Ethiopia's invasion was to "get" in the old law enforcement mentality, 6-8 "high value" Al Qaeda leaders. Of course that mostly failed as the most of the Islamoids were able to cut and run and reach sanctuary, though we did get a few and nailed the families of two others in airstrikes.

If you are looking to understand why our policy has been such a complete, utter failure in every respect except in provoking the honest loathing of the civilized world, look at this comment.

Posted by rea | March 28, 2008 10:23 PM

Remember, Al the Fucking Hack and Fred the Old Bigot think that the best government is anarchy, as long as they're personally fine.

That's all you need to know about them.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | March 28, 2008 10:30 PM

What was the trajectory in Somalia under the Islamists we didn't like? Toward greater stability and legitimacy after years of chaos.

Uh, no. It was a civil war before the Ethiopian invasion - less stable and more violent than now. The Ethiopian invasion downgraded the violence to an insurgency.

And the ICU was obviously less legitimate than the Baidoa government. The Baidoa government included members of many different clans and was supported by the UN and the African Union.

The group Matthew is supporting meant more violence and less legitimacy. But that doesn't matter to people like Matthew - the only thing that matters is that the US was involved in some action, and therefore that action was wrong.

Posted by Al | March 28, 2008 10:33 PM

The distinction is that it looked like the Islamic Courts militia was getting close to wrapping things up, at which point the combat would have been pretty much over.

Ah, yes, "wrapping things up". Otherwise known as destroying the UN- and AU-backed government. So your point is that we should support "wrapping things up" - got it. I suppose you support "wrapping things up" in Darfur too - support the Sudanese military and the Janjaweed. After all, once we support the Sudanese military and Janjaweed "wrap things up", there will be less violence, and, with the Sudanese miliary and Janjaweed having killed off everyone opposed to them, we would get the "shooting down to a dull roar", and "at least people could eat."

Posted by Al | March 28, 2008 10:42 PM

They brought peace to Mogadishu for the first time since the early 90s.

Mogadishu != Somalia

Posted by Al | March 28, 2008 10:44 PM

And the ICU was obviously less legitimate than the Baidoa government. The Baidoa government included members of many different clans and was supported by the UN and the African Union.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, Al, and suggest that you don't know very much about Somali politics or the structure of the Islamic Courts Union.

The Islamic Courts Union was a relatively loose federation of eleven regional councils united under the quasi-federal aegis of a Supreme Islamic Court and a Council of Consultation (which were loosely analogous to an executive cabinet and an old-school House of Lords, respectively). Each of the eleven courts enjoyed extremely broad autonomy, enforcing their own interpretations of Islamic law within broad limits set by the national ICU umbrella organization. (All of them, I would add, held to versions of Islamic law significantly less radical than that practiced by our "moderate" Arab ally Saudi Arabia.)

The combination of this decentralized structure and its restoration of basic law-and-order (i.e., reasonably stable property rights) allowed the ICU to build support across a relatively broad range of geographic regions and social groups, which in turn allowed it to establish authority over every major city in Somalia proper save Baidoa.

The Transitional Federal Government, on the other hand, was able to function only because it was backed by Western colonialists ("the UN") and longtime Somali enemies like Ethiopia and Kenya ("the African Union"). The idea that this gave it "more legitimacy" amongst Somali populations is insane.

This is why the the ICU was able to establish authority over the vast majority of Somalis in its own right, while the TFG has been able to assert itself over Somali population centers only when those population centers are subjected to foreign invasion and occupation.

Posted by ML | March 28, 2008 11:28 PM

Al,

You state that Somalia was "less stable and more violent than now." Can you prove this or provide any evidence that this is so?

Also, Mogadishu=Capital of Somalia! AKA largest, most populous city in Somalia. Good to know that conservatives are still as intellecutally dishonest as ever.

Posted by freddiemac | March 28, 2008 11:29 PM

just for some reference, Somalia has about 9 million people, of which 1/5 live in Mogadishu.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/so.html#People

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0002385.html

These fifth are under chaos right now:
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-04/2007-04-25-voa23.cfm?CFID=33763749&CFTOKEN=59702565

And this is a result of the Ethopian invasion.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/conflict-in-the-horn-of-africa-the-streets-of-mogadishu-432754.html

But hey, let's not state that Ethopia's invasion of Somalia "restarted the cycle of wars", because facts are too inconvenient and get in the way of ideology.

Posted by freddiemac | March 28, 2008 11:45 PM

just for some reference, Somalia has about 9 million people, of which 1/5 live in Mogadishu.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/so.html#People

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0002385.html

These fifth are under chaos right now:
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-04/2007-04-25-voa23.cfm?CFID=33763749&CFTOKEN=59702565

And this is a result of the Ethopian invasion.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/conflict-in-the-horn-of-africa-the-streets-of-mogadishu-432754.html

But hey, let's not state that Ethopia's invasion of Somalia "restarted the cycle of wars", because facts are too inconvenient and get in the way of ideology.

Posted by freddiemac | March 28, 2008 11:47 PM

Good judgment and foresight don't guarantee good outcomes

True, but they're guaranteed to come closer than poor judgement and partisan thoughtlessness

Posted by justinb | March 28, 2008 11:50 PM

Somalia, the libertarian paradise. Go oppressive government! No taxes! I wonder why the steely-eyed glibertarians around here don't book one way tickets there?

Posted by kvenlander | March 28, 2008 11:55 PM

Why should we care about Somalia, seriously? The list of culpable factors in Africa's degeneracy has steadily dwindled. I'm an immigrant, and I couldn't care less, at least, care only in the offhand way that one marvels at something they can do nothing about. A liberal I am not, but even my libertarianish motivations would allow me to easily champion improving infrastructure, welfare, domestically rather than worrying about the petty problems of the world's governments that make charitably, minimal progress.

Posted by Riemannian | March 28, 2008 11:58 PM

just for some reference, Somalia has about 9 million people, of which 1/5 live in Mogadishu

It's worth noting that this "9 million" figure (an extrapolation from the 1975 census) includes Somaliland and Puntland. If you're just talking about Somalia proper (the "Somalia" that everyone is referring to when they talk about the conflict between the ICU and the TFG), the number goes down quite a bit. It probably isn't cut in half (though figures from Somaliland and Puntland suggest it would be), but a figure of 5 million people is well within the realm of possibility.

If I were forced to guess, I would guess Somalia proper had a population somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 million. Given Somalia's political situation, I'm afraid we can't do any better than guesswork.

There's also some reason to suspect that the population of Mogadishu is larger than most estimates suggest, given significant rural-to-urban migration in the last decade or two.

In any event, you're absolutely right that Mogadishu is, in fact, home to an extremely large share of Somalia's population--even larger than official numbers would suggest. And of course, its political, economic, and social significance is disproportionately larger still.

Posted by ML | March 29, 2008 12:21 AM

@ML

Hey, I just go by the numbers the CIA gives out(insert smiley face here).

Mogadishu seems pretty important to Somalia though. I'm sure we are in agreement on this issue's basic facts.

The Islamic Courts brought stability to Mogadishu, as well as about half of the country in terms of pure geography. In terms of demographics, that makes more than half of the populace under their rule. Calling them an insurgency is as silly as suggesting Obama become Hillary's VP. Zing!

They were strict Islamic types. That makes Occidentalists cringe. Ok, but let's examine the facts. They don't seem to have been any worse for the country overall than the ruling government by many metrics (overall population dislocation, national unity, etc.). While it is easy to empathize with Ethopia because they are Christians (almost half of them, at least) and because they lost to the communists after losing to the fascists, after the Iraq fiasco it is hard to assume that because the US government says that the Islamic Courts had terrorists and al-Quada support that they really did. After all, they said the same thing about Saddam and we all know how that turned out (even Al though he will never admit to "facts" or being wrong).

Posted by freddiemac | March 29, 2008 12:36 AM

"Somalia, the libertarian paradise. Go oppressive government! No taxes! I wonder why the steely-eyed glibertarians around here don't book one way tickets there?"

I'm not a libertarian (or a "glibertarian"), but this is straw man argument. Anarchists allegedly prefer the absence of government; libertarians prefer government to be limited to those functions that only it can provide, e.g., police power, enforcing contracts, national defense, etc. There's a world of difference between the two positions.

Posted by Fred | March 29, 2008 12:36 AM

The Somali government IIRC in Kenya had no legitimacy, which is why they were in Kenya in the first place. When a group of people spontaneously take over governmental authority with a real degree of popular support to fill a void left by civil war and a lack of actual governance, trying to re-assert a failed government will only make things more violent. (By definition, this should not count as a action that a liberal internationalist would properly take.) Nobody here likes the Islamists, but they aren't the Taliban, who were so bad even a lot of people in the House of Saud thought they were overly tyrannical.

Posted by Reality Man | March 29, 2008 1:09 AM

Fred: "Anarchists allegedly prefer the absence of government; libertarians prefer government to be limited to those functions that only it can provide, e.g., police power, enforcing contracts, national defense, etc. There's a world of difference between the two positions."

Wrong. "Small-l libertarians" includes anarchists, for the most part, at least historically. Certainly it includes "right" or "free market" anarchists. "Big-L libertarians" and some other "small-l libertarians" are "minarchists", who believe in limited government.

And the part about "functions that only it can provide", while correct about the libertarian position, merely shows where the libs went wrong vs anarchists, since none of those positions necessarily imply a monopoly - not to mention that such monopolies are not possible without using a priori coercion.

As Karl Hess once put it, what do you really need government for in your daily life? To get laid? To make a buck? To decide where to go to eat? To heal your illnesses? No. But if you're walking down Pennsylvania Avenue and suddenly think, "Hot damn! Should we go to war with Denmark?", then you might stop in at the White House to discuss it.

A nation without a government doesn't need "national defense" because no one can conquer an entire population (unless it's a really small country), since everybody simply ignores the "new government". Since the invention of nukes, you can destroy a country the size of the US, but you couldn't possibly invade and rule it if the citizenry didn't recognize your authority. If you tried to coerce them to do so, you'd end up with Iraq.

The rest, police power, contracts, are social conventions and can be "enforced" pretty much by social convention.

The sole power of the state rests in maintaining coercive forces such as police and the military. Without them, there is no state. Courts, legislatures, all are meaningless without a gun to back them up.

The state is a mythic religion that most everybody believes in out of fear of their inability to deal with their fellow humans. Thus they allow certain humans to have those guns and bow to their authority.

Chimpanzee behavior.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 29, 2008 2:00 AM

Wasn't the Taliban a "stable government"?

The anti-Bush derangement here is so extreme people really do start to become apologists for the most extreme retrograde islamic elements and ones who back terrorists at that.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend is the left-wing mantra

Posted by Jozef | March 29, 2008 8:27 AM

Wasn't the Taliban a "stable government"?

The anti-Bush derangement here is so extreme people really do start to become apologists for the most extreme retrograde islamic elements and ones who back terrorists at that.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend is the left-wing mantra

Posted by Jozef | March 29, 2008 8:28 AM

The Taliban's allies also directly attacked us and they were sheltering the people that attacked us. Somalia had done nothing to us. Apples and oranges. Is it our job to go around destroying the only vestiges of stability in broken, war-torn societies if there is any trace of Islamism in how things are run? The Taliban was an extreme example even by Islamists standards. When you have leaders and Riyadh and Tehran saying things are too conservative, you are talking about an outlier, in this case the Taliban. Overthrowing the only real near-term hope for stability in Somalia didn't make us safer and just created more anarchy and resentment against us, which will likely just bite us in the ass again.

Posted by Reality Man | March 29, 2008 9:14 AM

Fuck somalia. I dont give a flying fuck if they are run by islamists or christians. That place was a shithole before we got there, it will be a shithole no matter how we intervene, and it will be a shithole long after we leave.

The people there have far more loyalty to their local warlord than they do to any central authority, regardless of whether its islamo-fascist or a puppet of the US govt.

Until they drop their stupid tribal loyalties, they dont deserve a nation and they dont deserve our help. Our "help" just fucks things up even more and gets our own soldiers killed regardless.

Posted by joe blow | March 29, 2008 10:16 AM

According to the NYT
"Somalia’s Government Teeters on Collapse"

By its own admission, the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia is on life support. When it took power here in the capital 15 months ago, backed by thousands of Ethiopian troops, it was widely hailed as the best chance in years to end Somalia’s ceaseless cycles of war and suffering.
But now its leaders say that unless they get more help — international peacekeepers, weapons, training and money to pay their soldiers, among other things — this transitional government will fall just like the 13 governments that came before it.

....

The looming failure is making many people here and abroad question the strategy of installing the transitional government by force. In December 2006, Ethiopian troops, aided by American intelligence, ousted the Islamist administration that briefly controlled Mogadishu, bringing the transitional government to the city for the first time.
The Bush administration said it was concerned about terrorists using Somalia as a sanctuary....

....

“The policy has failed,” said Representative Donald M. Payne, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. “We’re Baghdad-izing Mogadishu and Somalia. We’re making people feel wrongly treated and pushing them toward more radical positions.”

Posted by Duncan Kinder | March 29, 2008 10:59 AM

Jozef wrote:

Wasn't the Taliban a "stable government"?

Yes, it was. And it was no threat to other countries. They kept the poppy production reasonably under control, too. The Afghanistan invasion was not to overthrow the Taliban, but to get the leadership of Al Qaeda, who they hosted.

The anti-Bush derangement here is so extreme people really do start to become apologists for the most extreme retrograde islamic elements and ones who back terrorists at that.

Extreme islamic elements who don't bother anyone else are not a problem.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend is the left-wing mantra

Completely untrue - it's the right-wing one. Reagan supported the imported Islamic fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union even though the Islamic fighters were anti-America.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | March 29, 2008 2:30 PM

And here is a pointer:

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/10/ghost_wars_how_reagan_armed_the

Google "reagan soviet-union afghanistan".

Posted by Bengt Larsson | March 29, 2008 2:35 PM

The Corner, right after the Ethiopians invaded

But I can't read the news today and keep from wondering whether we should airlift a few Ethiopian battalions into Baghdad.

Posted by P O'Neill | March 29, 2008 10:17 PM

Somalia

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