NEWS: Ethiopia Attacks Somalia

POLITICS: Ethiopia Attacks Somalia

With Somalia effectively split into (at least) two disparate regions, the Mogadishu based Islamic Courts Union controls roughly half of the country, while the remaining Transitional Federal Government, based in Baidoa, struggles to maintain its slipping grasp on a country now split into three parts. Amidst this troubled background, even more problematic developments have arose. Neighboring Ethiopia, openly hostel to the ICU Islamist goverment, has begun attacking Somalia in earnest, commencing with an air and ground campaign against various targets within ICU controlled Somalia.

Sounds like a familiar doctrine.... where have I heard that before? Oh yes, it's the foreign policy championed by our own President Bush, who flouted international law when he attacked Iraq because they were supposedly about to attack us, so it was all really a defensive engagement... or something. It set a dangerous precedent, and one that we're likely to be seeing more of in the future.



Not to mention the fact that Ethiopia is one of the few Christian countries in the region, so its war against the Islamist government of Somalia could easily be construed as a proxy fight between Christianity and Islam. It doesn't help that the US is backing Ethiopia's military.

So not only is there a deep religious motivation underlying this conflict, but the US-backed Ethiopian attack may be an attempt to bolster the wrong side in the conflict. The problem is that the ICU enjoys significantly more popular support than the Transitional Federal Government. Even though the openly Islamist nature of its rule doesn't jive well with Western notions of equality and religious freedom, the fact that it is a functioning government of sorts makes it an appealing alternative to the hellish anarchy Somalis were subjected to before the ICU took over. So the US and its allies, in supporting Ethiopia, should strongly consider removing themselves from this particular fight, since while it may be ideologically advantageous elsewhere to support attacks against Islamist governments, when it's one the people support and is far better than what had previously been there, it's probably not a good idea to get involved.

The region has been inflamed with violence for centuries but somehow this is president bush's fault?

Your thesis that Somalia's Islamist-fascist government is better than no government at all may be weak as well. Somali Success Story

To say that if we were funding Ethiopian aggression (which has in no way been proven) we would be funding the wrong side may be a little shortsided. As an Athiest I would rather expunge the religious factions that are trying to take over the world and worry about the ones trying to prevent gay marriage later.

This was inevitable really. Ethopia and Eritria are using Somalia to fight a proxy war with each other. The Eritrians are backing the Islamists. Anyone that remembers the war they fought a few years back probably saw this coming months ago.

Of course not, but he's making things worse.

That's not legionnaire's thesis at all. He said that the Somalians are likely to view it that way, and that stuff like this risks pushing them closer to the people we don't want them to join.

Problem is, we've got more than enough on our plates right now as it is, and we're talking about the Ethiopians apparently pre-emptively attacking a neighboring country with the US' blessing. Remember, to their eyes we're the religious faction trying to take over the world, and shit like this doesn't help.

"to their eyes we're the religious faction trying to take over the world, and shit like this doesn't help."


This is very true, but in equal measure there's a big difference between religions in terms of morality and action.

For Instance: Jain Asceticism vs. a Reform Jewish Passover Seder.

Islamic extremists are Mysogonistic, violent, and altogether evil, kinda like Christian fundamentalists except they have a MUCH stronger hold and take their ideas to a much greater length. I'm not saying I agree with Ethopian governmental policy, but i'll take them over extremist Islam. Anyone who wants my girlfriend stoned or disfigured for showing her face / having sex with me, and tries to act on it, is going to the hospital and staying there for a long, long while.

This is an ideological war. Make sure you're on the correct side. Personally, I kinda wish we could Flush it all away Aenima style, but i'm an Anarcho Capitalist so go figure

I'm pretty sure I'm on the correct side, yeah - the side that's sick and tired of all brands of extremists making the world a shithole for the rest of us.

I am just hopeing Bush does'nt decide to become involved and send more troops overseas, we have enough on our plate as it is.

Relatively unlikely. Most likely TF-HOA will keep a general eye on things and report atmospherics. We'll probably see an increased naval presence in area blue-water to deter piracy, but that has been a problem for years. It will also put a stand-off strike capability in the region if it is needed.

Overall, it is a great chance for the US to sit back and let the UN sort it out. Not that the UN will do anything useful.

Angelina Jolie and Bono would have this sorted in a pinch!

I find it a bit....misleading to compare Ethiopia's decision to invade with the US's presence in Iraq. For one, that's actually a neighboring country and they have a legitimate concern that whatever happens there will have a direct effect upon them. and a religously motivated armed insurgency against the government would be particularly troubling, especially when, as you've pointed out, Ethiopia's religeon is different from the ICU's.


and really it's not so much that the ICU has won public support for providing better government for the people. They destabalized an already tenative peace, and now they offer themselves up as the only solution...provided that they win.

the "people" want peace and order and an end to the violence. so... someone has to win. for people in that situation they can only hope that whomever wins is no worse than whomever was in power before. and the ICU isn't doing it for the "people" either.

so anyway. my point is that Ethiopia has a legitimate conern and national interest in the ICU and Etria NOT taking over Somalia.

plus the UN's got its plate more than full already trying to figure out the Darfur mess. look how long it's taken them to even get anything moving on that issue.

Just for the record, pre-emptive invasions and military strikes have been around long before Bush. I'm not a fan of the current president, far from in in fact, but it gets tiring to see every problem in the world blamed on one person. A failure of imagination one might say...

Theres a great political cartoon i saw like that. Theres an amazonian tribesman and hes walking and he stubs his toe on a root, and falls....when he hits the ground he says. !@^%&%! GEORGE BUSH!!!!!!!

Go Ethiopia!

Yes, I'm sure they'll be greeted as liberators.

I thought the same thing when I read this.

The Holocaust was the Nazi's they were anti christian, more of a return to the old nordic gods sort of thing.

Bullshit. There was a lot of diversity in Nazi thought, actually, and much of what some of the Nazis entirely contradicted other things that other Nazis believed. Nazism as a political movement was ostensibly secular, but it contained divergent neopagan, Christian, and atheist philosohpies - some Nazis even looked to Buddhism to support their ideology.

The dominant strain of Nazi thought came out of the Christian tradition, though, just as the dominant strain of German culture did. There's just no reason to be anti-Semitic without a religious tradition fanning the flames. Inasmuch as Christianity established the very idea of anti-Semitism originally.

Actually, if it were only the Nazis, the Holocaust could never have happened. The rest of the German people had to at least tacitly go along with it. At the time, a majority of Germans were Protestant Christians (primarily Lutheran) and a large minority were Catholic.

These churches were notoriously unwilling to stand up against the ruling power - perhaps because their congregations didn't particularly mind?

Tag-team much?

Jinx!

None the less the situation does go well beyond just Ethiopia and Somalia and the US is at the top of the list of outside countries with responsibility. Bolton's last act was to remove an arms embargo on Somalia. The US has had troops in both countries for years. Some of the warlords, who really turned the country into the mess that it was, were getting funding from the US.

Ethiopia will be virtually immune to outside political pressure because the US has clearly taken sides against the majority of Somali people. We'll have to see if that continues as the death toll rises and, should history prove a reliable guide, reports of atrocities surface.

Here is an Update of things

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061225/ap_on_re_af/somalia_76

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Ethiopian jets bombed Somalia's two main airports Monday while ground troops captured three villages and a strategic border town, lending Somalia's internationally backed government crucial military aid in its struggle against a powerful Islamic militia.

Russian-made jets swept low over the capital at midmorning, dropping two bombs on Mogadishu International Airport, part of a major escalation in the week-old fighting. The leader of the Islamic militia,Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, flew into the airport shortly after the attack; it was not clear if he was an intended target.

Air strikes also hit Baledogle Airport, about 35 miles outside Mogadishu.

"We heard the sound of the jets and then they pounded," said Abdi Mudey, a soldier with Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts, which has seized the capital and much of southern Somalia since June.

Somalia has not had an effective government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, throwing the country into anarchy. Two years ago, the
United Nations helped set up a central government for the arid, impoverished nation on the Horn of Africa.

But the government has not been able to extend its influence outside the city of Baidoa, where it is headquartered about 140 miles northeast of Mogadishu. The rest of the country was largely under the control of warlords until this past summer, when the Islamic militia movement pushed them aside.

Experts fear the conflict in Somalia could engulf the region. A recent U.N. report said 10 countries have been supplying arms and equipment to both sides of the conflict, using Somalia as a proxy battlefield. Some analysts also fear that the courts movement hopes to make Somalia a third front, after Afghanistan and Iraq, in militant Islam's war against the West.

The Islamic group's often severe interpretation of Islam is reminiscent, to some, of Afghanistan's Taliban regime _ ousted by a U.S.-led campaign in 2001 for harboring
Osama bin Laden. The U.S. government says four al-Qaida leaders, believed to be behind the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, are now leaders in the Islamic militia.

Militia forces have surrounded Somali government forces in Baidoa, but Ethiopian-backed government troops appeared to take the initiative on Monday.

Pro-government forces drove Islamic fighters out of the key border town of Belet Weyne, then headed south in pursuit of fleeing militiamen, a Somali officer said. Government troops were enforcing a curfew of 3 p.m. to 6 a.m.

"Anyone who has a gun but is not wearing a government uniform will be targeted as a terrorist," said Aden Garase, a government soldier who was put in charge of Belet Weyne.

On Ethiopian television Monday night, the defense ministry said troops would move toward the city of Jowhar, about 55 miles from Mogadishu. Later, Ethiopia made a push in that direction, capturing the villages of Bandiradley, Adadow and Galinsor, according Yusuf Ahmed Ali, a businessman in Adadow.

No reliable casualty reports were immediately available; an Associated Press reporter who arrived shortly after the airstrike in Mogadishu saw a wounded woman being taken away.

As its military forces advanced against militia fighters, Somalia's government Monday also sought to seal its borders in order to prevent foreign Islamic militants from joining the Islamic courts forces.

Residents living along Somalia's coast have seen hundreds of militants arriving by boat, apparently in answer to calls by religious leaders to wage a holy war against Ethiopia.

It seems unlikely the government can effectively seal Somalia's 1,860-mile coastline _ the longest in Africa. But the closures could hamper humanitarian aid deliveries to the country, where one in five children dies before age 5 from a preventable disease.

The U.N. World Food Program airlifted several tons of food and other aid into Somalia on Monday, but had not yet been notified of any border closings, agency spokesman Peter Smerdon said.

The Islamic militia, which grew out of a network of ad hoc Muslim courts, has brought a measure of law to a lawless country: The international airport reopened in July after being closed for a decade.

But leaders of the Islamic courts movement alarmed the country's neighbors by threatening to incorporate ethnic Somalis living in eastern Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya and Djibouti into a Greater Somalia.

Many Somalis are enraged by the idea of Ethiopian involvement here because the countries have fought two wars over their disputed border in the past 45 years. Somalia is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, while Ethiopia has a large Christian minority.

Despite this friction, the Somali government _ which has failed to assert any real control since it was formed two years ago _ relies on its neighbor's military strength.

Earlier, Ethiopia had said it sent advisers to bolster the Somali government's outgunned military forces, but denied dispatching combat troops. The U.N., though, estimates that Ethiopia has 8,000 troops in the country.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Sunday that his country was "forced to enter a war" with Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts after the group declared holy war on Ethiopia.

So far, Ethiopian and Somali troops have used MiG jet fighters and artillery to attack the Islamists, who have no military aircraft and can return fire only with much smaller mortars and recoilless rifles.

Prime Minister Meles has said he does not intend to keep his forces in Somalia for long, perhaps only a few weeks. He has told visiting dignitaries in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, that his goal is to damage the courts' military capabilities, take away their sense of invincibility and allow both sides to return to peace talks on even footing.

The Arab League, which has mediated several rounds of talks between the Somali government and the Islamists, called Monday for all parties involved to "immediately hold a comprehensive cease-fire."

Fighting began in earnest between the government and the militia a week ago, although it intensified Sunday.

Heavy artillery and mortar fire continued to echo through the main government town of Baidoa, said Mohammed Sheik Ali, a resident reached by telephone. The Islamists have the town surrounded on three sides, but government and Ethiopian troops were attempting to push them back.

Government officials and Islamic militiamen have said hundreds of people have been killed in clashes since Tuesday, but the claims could not be independently confirmed. Aid groups put the death toll in the dozens.

____

Associated Press writers Mohamed Olad Hassan and Mohamed Sheik Nor in Mogadishu, Les Neuhaus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Chris Tomlinson in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.


For anyone wondering why Ethopia is involved this is a big part of the reason.

But leaders of the Islamic courts movement alarmed the country's neighbors by threatening to incorporate ethnic Somalis living in eastern Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya and Djibouti into a Greater Somalia.

And of course when you throw a party it's rude not to invite others.

Experts fear the conflict in Somalia could engulf the region. A recent U.N. report said 10 countries have been supplying arms and equipment to both sides of the conflict, using Somalia as a proxy battlefield. Some analysts also fear that the courts movement hopes to make Somalia a third front, after Afghanistan and Iraq, in militant Islam's war against the West.

Was the ICU legitimately elected? I must admit that I know little about the nature of the transitional government, but I do believe that the ICU did not take power through any form of elections.