Somalia: Another Fine Mess

Halfway around the world, another fine foreign policy mess is manifesting its head thanks to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Why, because in the name of emotion in the form of terror, American-backed warlords in Somalia have free reign to destroy a nation from its infrastructure to its government in a vain effort to persecute the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), who they consider terrorist affiliates of Al Qaeda. A group that once held warlords at bay, who established order, stopped the open dealing of drugs and even allowed Freedom of speech.

That is until the United States intervened and made Somalia into another front in the global "War on Terror." Now the country has returned to the mess prior to US intervention of individual clans battling for their piece of the Somalia pie. This due to our inefficient and faulty foreign policy. The United States and U.S. policy makers never did have a valid and viable understanding regarding the troubles confronting Somali society. Yet this was not enough for the United States, as part of the international community, under the auspices of Somalia humanitarian operations to make things even worse. True, US efforts assisted in debilitating starvation and saving many lives, we couldn’t stop there and decided to wave our magical military wand and engender a backwards slide into disorder and anarchy.

After all of our wasted economic support in this effort, now what we thought we were attempting to prevent is coming to fruition – a mad dash and violent battles by warlords and tribal clans to collect as much land as possible. We have engenders more instability and corruption in the nation. It is like we never thought what could occur if all of the Islamic insurgents were to be defeated and left the region.

The failures in Somalia reflect U.S. foreign policy at its best – inept and destructive. Yet we still appear to have not learned from the lessons of Somalia. In theory, American interest in the Horn of Africa region dates back to the Cold War when both the Soviet Union and the United States competed to gain allies and influence in Africa and elsewhere throughout the world. Consequently, it was another comedy of errors that reflected more on our self-centeredness than trying to get a nation to solve its own problems internally. Why, because in the US ignorance of the tribalism of Somali culture was a major shortcoming before and during our intervention in the African nation. We entered Somalia in December 1992 under the guise of stopping the starvation of hundreds of thousands of people. Although it succeeded in this mission, the chaotic political situation eventually demonstrated a poorly organized nation-building operation in that merely increased hostility toward us and our interest as a nation.

Today it is estimated that more than 20 mini-states comprise Somalia. What was holding the nation together prior to our intervention exist no longer and it has become a country fragmented and although we attempted to end starvation, we have only made human suffering in the drought-stricken country worse. Moreover, this blunder is off the radar of main stream media for some reason or another. Maybe we really don’t ot didn’t have the humanitarian intrest of Africans in our heats in the first place. I think the adamantine Laural and Hardy said it best, “this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.