The U.S. Murder of al-Zarqawi Is Nothing of Which to Be Proud
The chickenhawk Bush Administration chose to act as judge, jury and executioner a couple days ago in Iraq when U.S. F-16s dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house where alleged al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi allegedly was meeting with at least five other individuals.
This act of wanton murder is nothing of which to be proud, especially considering that it wasn't even necessary or productive to any alleged U.S. goals in the Middle East. The Bush Administration claims that one of its aims in Iraq is to bring democracy, human rights, the free market and the rule of law to that country and set an example that it hopes will serve as a catalyst for transforming the rest of the Middle East. (This "domino theory" is a holdover from the Cold War when it was used to justify U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Never mind that the Middle East has yet to go through the hundreds of years of cultural evolution that are supposed to make it possible for bourgeois democratic institutions to take root successfully in societies.) Some of the basic premises of the rule of law and of basic human rights are that someone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, which means that the accused is entitled to a trial and to hear the charges and evidence against him. In practical terms this process requires that the alleged criminal be apprehended so that he can be put on trial, not bombed into oblivion.
The Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi is alleged, as the alleged leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, to have been the mastermind behind three years worth of terrorist bombings that allegedly left 1,997 people dead, almost all of them Iraqis. If the Bush administration is so concerned about building the rule of law in Iraq it would have been far better if al-Zarqawi had been arrested and handed over to the Iraqi government so he could be tried under Iraqi law in Iraqi courts for his alleged crimes against the Iraqi people. This, it seems to me, would have set a better example for the Middle East then what amounts to a U.S. vengeance killing, with the military playing the al-Qaeda role. If the U.S. has the human intelligence and technological capabilities to track and target al-Zarqawi and his associates for summary execution, including the ability, it claims, to drop bombs without any "collateral damage" then there's no reason it couldn't just as easily have raided that house to take them into custody.
i have no doubt that al-Zarqawi was a militant Islamist who hated the U.S. government and U.S. troopsfor good reasons although he expressed this animus in misguided waysand that he had some involvement with al-Qaeda and acts of terror; however, after four years of constant Bush administration lies about every aspect of the Iraq situation i am not prepared to accept at face value any allegations the administration makes about anything to do with Iraq until the evidence behind those claims is revealed. We also need to remember that the alleged crimes and dangers of Middle Eastern leaders of all sorts often are exaggerated in order to create demonic "bad guys" that the U.S. people are supposed to fear and hate as part of the process of building support for U.S. misadventues in that part of the world. The best example of this is Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction programs. Almost 39 months into the war, we're still waiting for the WMDs to turn up. Perhaps they're buried alongside Jimmy Hoffa.
Of course, al-Zarqawi was targeted as much for domestic political reasons as to make the Iraqi people safer. The Bush administration needed a spectacular success in Iraq in order to try to change the widespread perception that the situation in that country is rapidly degenerating into irreversible chaos and civil war and to try to reverse plummeting support for the U.S. occupation among the American people, which has reached a new low. (An Associated Press-Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday, June 7, before al-Zarqawi's death, found that "Fifty-nine percent [of poll respondents] said the United States made a mistake in going to war, a new high and a significant jump from the 34 percent in December 2004" and "that the war continues to take a toll on the public's opinion of Bush. Approval of the president was at 35 percent, essentially unchanged from his rating of 33 percent last month based on the poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points." [Chicago Sun-Times, June 10])
The administration also needed to divert attention from its recent setback in its so-called War on Terror that occurred when Islamic fighters took control of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, which had been run by warlord-controlled militias since the ouster of the U.S.-backed dictator, Gen. Mohamed Siad-Barre, in 1991. (Siad-Barre started out as a Marxist when a military coup in 1969 brought him to power, but eventually he "switched his allegiance to the West," and the U.S. "until 1989 was a strong supporter of the Barre government, providing approximately US $100 million per year in economic and military aid." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Siad_Barre]) It has been reported that in recent months the U.S. has been funneling $100,000-$150,000 a month to the militias to help them fight the Islamists, whom it is alleged have ties to al-Qaeda. Should the Islamists succeed in taking control of all of Somalia, it is feared that we will see a repeat of Taliban-era Afghanistan in which a country ruled by Islamic fundamentalists serves as a base for Islamic terrorists. (Plus an Islamist-controlled Somalia, which is across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia, could serve to further destabilize the monarchy in that country, which the Bush administration considers an important ally.)
By murdering al-Zarqawi the U.S. has further contributed to the spiral of bloodshed and retaliatory violence that characterizes the Middle East. It also has provided militant Islam with a new martyr and new symbol of resistance to U.S. and Western interference in the Middle East. This undoubtedly will inspire thousands of new recruits to join al-Qaeda and similar groups and flood Iraq to kill thousands more innocent Iraqis and some U.S. troops as well.
•••
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1794391,00.html
Fall of Mogadishu leaves US policy in ruins
Xan Rice in Asmara, Oliver Burkeman in Washington and Rory Carroll
Saturday June 10, 2006
The Guardian
It was a rout. After months of fighting that left hundreds dead Mogadishu fell suddenly this week: pick-up trucks with mounted machine-guns and young warriors scrambled to leave the city.
The victors broadcast a triumphant announcement that the warlords had been ousted. In their place a relatively disciplined militia promised order and security after 15 years of mayhem. At a victory rally a militia leader, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, made another promise: to create an Islamic state.
Article continues
Mogadishu is now largely ruled by the Islamic Courts Union, a powerful movement that advocates a strict version of sharia law, including public executions, and has alleged ties to al-Qaida terrorists. The Horn of Africa, say some analysts, has just acquired its own Taliban.
News of the takeover broke like a thunderclap over Washington.
"This is worse than the worst-case scenarios - the exact opposite of what the US government strategy, if there was one, would have wanted," said Ken Menkhaus, associate professor of political science and Somalia expert at Davidson College, North Carolina.
It has emerged that the Bush administration bankrolled the warlords, who are secular, to gain access to al-Qaida suspects and block the rise of the Islamic militia. CIA operatives based in Nairobi funnelled $100,000 to $150,000 (£80,000) a month to their proxies, according to John Prendergast, an International Crisis Group expert on Somalia who has interviewed warlords. "This was counter-terrorism on the cheap. This is a backwater place that nobody really wants to get involved in, so [they] thought, let's just do this and maybe we'll get lucky."
Instead Washington got burned. Amid recriminations policymakers are asking how did the fiasco happen, and just how bad is it for US interests?
Somalia has been without effective government since Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. Warlords control ports, airfields and roadblocks, gaining great wealth while offering little but trouble to the average Somali.
In the vacuum of a failed state Islamic courts were established along clan lines to dispense justice where no other method existed. With financial support from local businessmen the courts, popular with Mogadishu residents for curbing some of the anarchy and providing basic services, built up a militia capable of taking on the warlords.
In recent years radicals used the courts to promote the idea of an Islamic state. Cinemas accused of showing immoral western and Indian films were closed and celebrating new year was made a capital offence.
Assassinations
It is alleged that terrorists became active in the movement. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, closely allied to the court leadership, was the most prominent leader of al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, a fundamentalist group linked to al-Qaida and blamed for a series of bombings in Ethiopia and kidnappings and assassinations in Somalia in the 1990s.
There are rumours that Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys could soon take over the leadership of the courts. If that happens, there is the "very real potential for serious violence", according to a Horn of Africa analyst, as it would pit him directly against President Abdullahi Yusuf, who is avowedly against Somalia becoming a fundamentalist state.
An unnamed network run by one of Aweys's proteges, Aden Hashi Farah 'Ayro, has been linked to the murder of four western aid workers and more than a dozen Somalis who allegedly cooperated with counter-terror organisations. The courts are allegedly protecting three al-Qaida members indicted in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and possibly the team that staged attacks in Kenya in 2002.
The Bush administration faced a dilemma. It wanted to nab the al-Qaida suspects but did not dare send US troops back to the scene of Black Hawk Down, the ill-fated military mission that scarred Bill Clinton's presidency.
"The approach - strategy would be too generous a word - was to strengthen [the warlords'] hand in order to try to eliminate the threat posed by these individuals," said Mr Prendergast.
In February a group of warlords formed a coalition called Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism and accused the courts of harbouring al-Qaida. The courts called the alliance American puppets. US diplomats in Nairobi who criticised the warlord payments as shortsighted were ignored and, in one case, reassigned to another country. The State Department, which favoured a wider policy of nation-building, was trumped by the CIA and the Pentagon, which wanted results fast.
"They didn't realise their limited engagement would actually make matters worse," said Mr Prendergast. "It's ignorance and impecuniousness that have led us to be in a more difficult and disadvantageous position than we were."
Alarmed by Washington's intervention, the militia escalated its operations in recent months, culminating in this week's seizure of the capital.
For the White House it was a humiliating reversal but not necessarily a catastrophe. From their stronghold of Jowhar the warlords are regrouping and talking of retaking Mogadishu. Revenue from smuggling and business interests is likely still to flow, as will weapons from Ethiopia in defiance of an international embargo.
Conciliatory
The courts would struggle to impose Taliban-type rule on a society more wedded to clan than Islam. Their victory rally was countered by a rival hostile demonstration. On Wednesday Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, chairman of the joint Islamic Courts Union, softened his rhetoric. "We want to restore peace and stability. We are ready to meet and talk to anybody for the interest of our people."
The ICU sent a conciliatory letter to the US and UN and engaged with Somalia's interim government, a feeble but potentially significant player based in the provincial city of Baidoa. The government is due to send a delegation to Mogadishu this weekend.
The Bush administration has offered an olive branch, of sorts, to Mogadishu's new rulers. "In terms of the Islamic courts, our understanding is that this isn't a monolithic group, that it is really an effort on the part of some individuals to try to restore some semblance of order in Mogadishu," said a State Department spokesman.
Robert Rotberg, professor at the Kennedy School of Government and director of the Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution, said the US must try to befriend the Islamists. "Most of us suspect that if there are any real al-Qaida agents there, there are handfuls, and these guys would turn them in for money in a heartbeat."
This week's worst-case scenario, said Professor Menkhaus, could yet turn out well if the courts offer moderate leadership and participate in a national unity government acceptable to Ethiopia. "We could get lemonade from lemons."
However grateful for the relative calm, Mogadishu's residents know from experience to brace for something bitter.
Backstory
Somalia, the product of the merger in 1960 between a former British protectorate and an Italian colony, has had a violent and unstable history. In 1970 President Mohamed Siad Barre proclaimed a socialist state and started close relations with the Soviet Union. Frequent conflicts with neighbours followed. When the regime was overthrown in 1991, Barre went into hiding and the country was carved up by heavily armed warlords. The long-suffering population, which numbers more than 10 million, was plunged into further misery when famine ravaged the country. In 1992 US Marines arrived ahead of UN peacekeepers in an attempt to restore order, but the "humanitarian intervention" ended in disaster when two US Black Hawk helicopters were shot down. As warlords celebrated the death of 19 American soldiers the US beat a hasty retreat. Somalian clan elders and other senior figures appointed Abdulkassim Salat Hassan president at a conference in 2000, but little progress was made until 2004, when a new parliament was created with Abdullahi Yusuf installed as president. The fledgling regime soon stuttered and fighting between the factions resumed.
•••
http://www.mises.org/story/2212
Are the Salad Days for Somalia Over?
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
[Posted on Thursday, June 08, 2006]
Fifteen glorious years without a central government in Somalia! It was typically described as a "power vacuum," as if the absence of a taxing, regulating, coercing junta is an unnatural state of affairs, one that cannot and should not last.
Well, now this "vacuum" is being filled, with an Islamic militia claiming to be in control of the capital of Mogadishu.
But US officials may rue the day they hoped for a new government in this country. The dictator Mohammed Siad Barre fell in 1991. US troops went in with the idea that they would restore order, but thank goodness they did not. Bill Clinton's idea fell into shambles after 18 soldiers were killed by warlords. That seems like a low number in light of the Iraq disaster, but to Clinton's credit, he pulled out.
Since that time, Somalia has done quite well for itself, thank you (BBC: "Telecoms Thriving in Lawless Somalia"). But there was one major problem. The CIA couldn't come to terms with it. The US government likes to deal with other governments, whether it is paying them or bombing them or whatever. What makes no sense to central planners in DC is a country without a state.
So the US continued to talk about a "power vacuum" and secretly funneled money to its favorite warlords - a fact that the United States officially denies but which has nonetheless been widely reported. Officials who have criticized the policy have been shut up and reassigned.
Aside from the downside that comes with the creation of any government, the continuous effort to fund warlords created a problem: it left open the possibility that at some point someone would cobble together the resources to claim to be a government. The mere prospect kept the Islamic militias worried and on edge. Finally, they prevailed.
As the International Herald Tribune says: "U.S. support for secular warlords, who joined under the banner of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, may have helped to unnerve the Islamic militias and prompted them to launch pre-emptive strikes."
That's hardly surprising. How many times have we seen the US establishment back something to the hilt only to discover that the plot backfires by inspiring opposition? This is one of many problems of the US government. Its crackdowns usually end up working as advertisements (think of drugs, for example). All throughout Latin America, we've seen this happen with politics: US support is often the kiss of death. Especially in a country like Somalia, with so many factions, US backing is something to hide because it can only fire up the opposition.
But governments don't think dynamically about the long-run consequences of their actions. They figure that if they want a particular policy, they only need to pay for it. It is a very short-sighted viewpoint - and a dangerous one in political terms.
Now the United States has a bigger problem than ever: the possibility that a new Taliban has been created in Somalia. Now, you might not think that this is a problem, given that the US overthrew a secular government in Iraq and now provides security for an Iraqi regime that includes Islamic law as part of its governing mandate. But consistency is not the hallmark of US foreign policy.
Still, the creation of a new state inspires us to think about fundamental matters of political economy.
What is to be gained by the creation of a state? Well, consider what a state does. First, it taxes, which means taking from the people and giving to the government, which then gives money to its friends. Second, it regulates, meaning that government tells people to do things they would not otherwise do. Third, it creates a central bank to water down the value of money. Fourth, it builds jails to put people who disobey, including political enemies.
Well, rather then just go on with a catalog of what government does, consider the words of the Prophet Samuel from 1 Samuel, chapter 8:11-18:
This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.
The only people who are rejoicing in Somalia today are those who prefer dictatorship to puppet government. But the real victims are average people, who were doing just fine by scraping by. Adding a government to the mix will do nothing but create more trouble for everyone.
So here is a good rule. When a government falls, don't call it a "power vacuum." Call it a zone of liberty and be done with it. If some group claims to be the government, the proper answer should be: "Yeah, and I'm the Duke of Windsor. Get a life."
Lew Rockwell is president of the Mises Institute and editor of LewRockwell.com. Send email to Rockwell@mises.org. See Lew's columns on Mises.org.
This act of wanton murder is nothing of which to be proud, especially considering that it wasn't even necessary or productive to any alleged U.S. goals in the Middle East. The Bush Administration claims that one of its aims in Iraq is to bring democracy, human rights, the free market and the rule of law to that country and set an example that it hopes will serve as a catalyst for transforming the rest of the Middle East. (This "domino theory" is a holdover from the Cold War when it was used to justify U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Never mind that the Middle East has yet to go through the hundreds of years of cultural evolution that are supposed to make it possible for bourgeois democratic institutions to take root successfully in societies.) Some of the basic premises of the rule of law and of basic human rights are that someone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, which means that the accused is entitled to a trial and to hear the charges and evidence against him. In practical terms this process requires that the alleged criminal be apprehended so that he can be put on trial, not bombed into oblivion.
The Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi is alleged, as the alleged leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, to have been the mastermind behind three years worth of terrorist bombings that allegedly left 1,997 people dead, almost all of them Iraqis. If the Bush administration is so concerned about building the rule of law in Iraq it would have been far better if al-Zarqawi had been arrested and handed over to the Iraqi government so he could be tried under Iraqi law in Iraqi courts for his alleged crimes against the Iraqi people. This, it seems to me, would have set a better example for the Middle East then what amounts to a U.S. vengeance killing, with the military playing the al-Qaeda role. If the U.S. has the human intelligence and technological capabilities to track and target al-Zarqawi and his associates for summary execution, including the ability, it claims, to drop bombs without any "collateral damage" then there's no reason it couldn't just as easily have raided that house to take them into custody.
i have no doubt that al-Zarqawi was a militant Islamist who hated the U.S. government and U.S. troopsfor good reasons although he expressed this animus in misguided waysand that he had some involvement with al-Qaeda and acts of terror; however, after four years of constant Bush administration lies about every aspect of the Iraq situation i am not prepared to accept at face value any allegations the administration makes about anything to do with Iraq until the evidence behind those claims is revealed. We also need to remember that the alleged crimes and dangers of Middle Eastern leaders of all sorts often are exaggerated in order to create demonic "bad guys" that the U.S. people are supposed to fear and hate as part of the process of building support for U.S. misadventues in that part of the world. The best example of this is Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction programs. Almost 39 months into the war, we're still waiting for the WMDs to turn up. Perhaps they're buried alongside Jimmy Hoffa.
Of course, al-Zarqawi was targeted as much for domestic political reasons as to make the Iraqi people safer. The Bush administration needed a spectacular success in Iraq in order to try to change the widespread perception that the situation in that country is rapidly degenerating into irreversible chaos and civil war and to try to reverse plummeting support for the U.S. occupation among the American people, which has reached a new low. (An Associated Press-Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday, June 7, before al-Zarqawi's death, found that "Fifty-nine percent [of poll respondents] said the United States made a mistake in going to war, a new high and a significant jump from the 34 percent in December 2004" and "that the war continues to take a toll on the public's opinion of Bush. Approval of the president was at 35 percent, essentially unchanged from his rating of 33 percent last month based on the poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points." [Chicago Sun-Times, June 10])
The administration also needed to divert attention from its recent setback in its so-called War on Terror that occurred when Islamic fighters took control of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, which had been run by warlord-controlled militias since the ouster of the U.S.-backed dictator, Gen. Mohamed Siad-Barre, in 1991. (Siad-Barre started out as a Marxist when a military coup in 1969 brought him to power, but eventually he "switched his allegiance to the West," and the U.S. "until 1989 was a strong supporter of the Barre government, providing approximately US $100 million per year in economic and military aid." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Siad_Barre]) It has been reported that in recent months the U.S. has been funneling $100,000-$150,000 a month to the militias to help them fight the Islamists, whom it is alleged have ties to al-Qaeda. Should the Islamists succeed in taking control of all of Somalia, it is feared that we will see a repeat of Taliban-era Afghanistan in which a country ruled by Islamic fundamentalists serves as a base for Islamic terrorists. (Plus an Islamist-controlled Somalia, which is across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia, could serve to further destabilize the monarchy in that country, which the Bush administration considers an important ally.)
By murdering al-Zarqawi the U.S. has further contributed to the spiral of bloodshed and retaliatory violence that characterizes the Middle East. It also has provided militant Islam with a new martyr and new symbol of resistance to U.S. and Western interference in the Middle East. This undoubtedly will inspire thousands of new recruits to join al-Qaeda and similar groups and flood Iraq to kill thousands more innocent Iraqis and some U.S. troops as well.
•••
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1794391,00.html
Fall of Mogadishu leaves US policy in ruins
Xan Rice in Asmara, Oliver Burkeman in Washington and Rory Carroll
Saturday June 10, 2006
The Guardian
It was a rout. After months of fighting that left hundreds dead Mogadishu fell suddenly this week: pick-up trucks with mounted machine-guns and young warriors scrambled to leave the city.
The victors broadcast a triumphant announcement that the warlords had been ousted. In their place a relatively disciplined militia promised order and security after 15 years of mayhem. At a victory rally a militia leader, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, made another promise: to create an Islamic state.
Article continues
Mogadishu is now largely ruled by the Islamic Courts Union, a powerful movement that advocates a strict version of sharia law, including public executions, and has alleged ties to al-Qaida terrorists. The Horn of Africa, say some analysts, has just acquired its own Taliban.
News of the takeover broke like a thunderclap over Washington.
"This is worse than the worst-case scenarios - the exact opposite of what the US government strategy, if there was one, would have wanted," said Ken Menkhaus, associate professor of political science and Somalia expert at Davidson College, North Carolina.
It has emerged that the Bush administration bankrolled the warlords, who are secular, to gain access to al-Qaida suspects and block the rise of the Islamic militia. CIA operatives based in Nairobi funnelled $100,000 to $150,000 (£80,000) a month to their proxies, according to John Prendergast, an International Crisis Group expert on Somalia who has interviewed warlords. "This was counter-terrorism on the cheap. This is a backwater place that nobody really wants to get involved in, so [they] thought, let's just do this and maybe we'll get lucky."
Instead Washington got burned. Amid recriminations policymakers are asking how did the fiasco happen, and just how bad is it for US interests?
Somalia has been without effective government since Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. Warlords control ports, airfields and roadblocks, gaining great wealth while offering little but trouble to the average Somali.
In the vacuum of a failed state Islamic courts were established along clan lines to dispense justice where no other method existed. With financial support from local businessmen the courts, popular with Mogadishu residents for curbing some of the anarchy and providing basic services, built up a militia capable of taking on the warlords.
In recent years radicals used the courts to promote the idea of an Islamic state. Cinemas accused of showing immoral western and Indian films were closed and celebrating new year was made a capital offence.
Assassinations
It is alleged that terrorists became active in the movement. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, closely allied to the court leadership, was the most prominent leader of al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, a fundamentalist group linked to al-Qaida and blamed for a series of bombings in Ethiopia and kidnappings and assassinations in Somalia in the 1990s.
There are rumours that Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys could soon take over the leadership of the courts. If that happens, there is the "very real potential for serious violence", according to a Horn of Africa analyst, as it would pit him directly against President Abdullahi Yusuf, who is avowedly against Somalia becoming a fundamentalist state.
An unnamed network run by one of Aweys's proteges, Aden Hashi Farah 'Ayro, has been linked to the murder of four western aid workers and more than a dozen Somalis who allegedly cooperated with counter-terror organisations. The courts are allegedly protecting three al-Qaida members indicted in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and possibly the team that staged attacks in Kenya in 2002.
The Bush administration faced a dilemma. It wanted to nab the al-Qaida suspects but did not dare send US troops back to the scene of Black Hawk Down, the ill-fated military mission that scarred Bill Clinton's presidency.
"The approach - strategy would be too generous a word - was to strengthen [the warlords'] hand in order to try to eliminate the threat posed by these individuals," said Mr Prendergast.
In February a group of warlords formed a coalition called Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism and accused the courts of harbouring al-Qaida. The courts called the alliance American puppets. US diplomats in Nairobi who criticised the warlord payments as shortsighted were ignored and, in one case, reassigned to another country. The State Department, which favoured a wider policy of nation-building, was trumped by the CIA and the Pentagon, which wanted results fast.
"They didn't realise their limited engagement would actually make matters worse," said Mr Prendergast. "It's ignorance and impecuniousness that have led us to be in a more difficult and disadvantageous position than we were."
Alarmed by Washington's intervention, the militia escalated its operations in recent months, culminating in this week's seizure of the capital.
For the White House it was a humiliating reversal but not necessarily a catastrophe. From their stronghold of Jowhar the warlords are regrouping and talking of retaking Mogadishu. Revenue from smuggling and business interests is likely still to flow, as will weapons from Ethiopia in defiance of an international embargo.
Conciliatory
The courts would struggle to impose Taliban-type rule on a society more wedded to clan than Islam. Their victory rally was countered by a rival hostile demonstration. On Wednesday Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, chairman of the joint Islamic Courts Union, softened his rhetoric. "We want to restore peace and stability. We are ready to meet and talk to anybody for the interest of our people."
The ICU sent a conciliatory letter to the US and UN and engaged with Somalia's interim government, a feeble but potentially significant player based in the provincial city of Baidoa. The government is due to send a delegation to Mogadishu this weekend.
The Bush administration has offered an olive branch, of sorts, to Mogadishu's new rulers. "In terms of the Islamic courts, our understanding is that this isn't a monolithic group, that it is really an effort on the part of some individuals to try to restore some semblance of order in Mogadishu," said a State Department spokesman.
Robert Rotberg, professor at the Kennedy School of Government and director of the Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution, said the US must try to befriend the Islamists. "Most of us suspect that if there are any real al-Qaida agents there, there are handfuls, and these guys would turn them in for money in a heartbeat."
This week's worst-case scenario, said Professor Menkhaus, could yet turn out well if the courts offer moderate leadership and participate in a national unity government acceptable to Ethiopia. "We could get lemonade from lemons."
However grateful for the relative calm, Mogadishu's residents know from experience to brace for something bitter.
Backstory
Somalia, the product of the merger in 1960 between a former British protectorate and an Italian colony, has had a violent and unstable history. In 1970 President Mohamed Siad Barre proclaimed a socialist state and started close relations with the Soviet Union. Frequent conflicts with neighbours followed. When the regime was overthrown in 1991, Barre went into hiding and the country was carved up by heavily armed warlords. The long-suffering population, which numbers more than 10 million, was plunged into further misery when famine ravaged the country. In 1992 US Marines arrived ahead of UN peacekeepers in an attempt to restore order, but the "humanitarian intervention" ended in disaster when two US Black Hawk helicopters were shot down. As warlords celebrated the death of 19 American soldiers the US beat a hasty retreat. Somalian clan elders and other senior figures appointed Abdulkassim Salat Hassan president at a conference in 2000, but little progress was made until 2004, when a new parliament was created with Abdullahi Yusuf installed as president. The fledgling regime soon stuttered and fighting between the factions resumed.
•••
http://www.mises.org/story/2212
Are the Salad Days for Somalia Over?
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
[Posted on Thursday, June 08, 2006]
Fifteen glorious years without a central government in Somalia! It was typically described as a "power vacuum," as if the absence of a taxing, regulating, coercing junta is an unnatural state of affairs, one that cannot and should not last.
Well, now this "vacuum" is being filled, with an Islamic militia claiming to be in control of the capital of Mogadishu.
But US officials may rue the day they hoped for a new government in this country. The dictator Mohammed Siad Barre fell in 1991. US troops went in with the idea that they would restore order, but thank goodness they did not. Bill Clinton's idea fell into shambles after 18 soldiers were killed by warlords. That seems like a low number in light of the Iraq disaster, but to Clinton's credit, he pulled out.
Since that time, Somalia has done quite well for itself, thank you (BBC: "Telecoms Thriving in Lawless Somalia"). But there was one major problem. The CIA couldn't come to terms with it. The US government likes to deal with other governments, whether it is paying them or bombing them or whatever. What makes no sense to central planners in DC is a country without a state.
So the US continued to talk about a "power vacuum" and secretly funneled money to its favorite warlords - a fact that the United States officially denies but which has nonetheless been widely reported. Officials who have criticized the policy have been shut up and reassigned.
Aside from the downside that comes with the creation of any government, the continuous effort to fund warlords created a problem: it left open the possibility that at some point someone would cobble together the resources to claim to be a government. The mere prospect kept the Islamic militias worried and on edge. Finally, they prevailed.
As the International Herald Tribune says: "U.S. support for secular warlords, who joined under the banner of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, may have helped to unnerve the Islamic militias and prompted them to launch pre-emptive strikes."
That's hardly surprising. How many times have we seen the US establishment back something to the hilt only to discover that the plot backfires by inspiring opposition? This is one of many problems of the US government. Its crackdowns usually end up working as advertisements (think of drugs, for example). All throughout Latin America, we've seen this happen with politics: US support is often the kiss of death. Especially in a country like Somalia, with so many factions, US backing is something to hide because it can only fire up the opposition.
But governments don't think dynamically about the long-run consequences of their actions. They figure that if they want a particular policy, they only need to pay for it. It is a very short-sighted viewpoint - and a dangerous one in political terms.
Now the United States has a bigger problem than ever: the possibility that a new Taliban has been created in Somalia. Now, you might not think that this is a problem, given that the US overthrew a secular government in Iraq and now provides security for an Iraqi regime that includes Islamic law as part of its governing mandate. But consistency is not the hallmark of US foreign policy.
Still, the creation of a new state inspires us to think about fundamental matters of political economy.
What is to be gained by the creation of a state? Well, consider what a state does. First, it taxes, which means taking from the people and giving to the government, which then gives money to its friends. Second, it regulates, meaning that government tells people to do things they would not otherwise do. Third, it creates a central bank to water down the value of money. Fourth, it builds jails to put people who disobey, including political enemies.
Well, rather then just go on with a catalog of what government does, consider the words of the Prophet Samuel from 1 Samuel, chapter 8:11-18:
This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.
The only people who are rejoicing in Somalia today are those who prefer dictatorship to puppet government. But the real victims are average people, who were doing just fine by scraping by. Adding a government to the mix will do nothing but create more trouble for everyone.
So here is a good rule. When a government falls, don't call it a "power vacuum." Call it a zone of liberty and be done with it. If some group claims to be the government, the proper answer should be: "Yeah, and I'm the Duke of Windsor. Get a life."
Lew Rockwell is president of the Mises Institute and editor of LewRockwell.com. Send email to Rockwell@mises.org. See Lew's columns on Mises.org.