Illegal Acts In Africa

The New Republic: U.S. Intervention In Somalia Is Illogical, Hypocritical

(The New Republic)  This column was written by John B. Judis.

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What exactly are we doing in the Horn of Africa, where we have encouraged the Christian government of Ethiopia to invade Somalia and replace its Islamic government? As far as I can tell, we have violated international law, committed war crimes, helped Al Qaeda recruit new members, and involved ourselves in a guerrilla war that could last decades. It's Iraq writ small. And it can't be blamed on Donald Rumsfeld.

There's an old principle of international law, going back to the seventeenth century, against one nation violating the sovereignty of another. It was often breached, but, after two world wars, it was enshrined in the United Nations charter. We criticized the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia and justified the first Gulf war on these grounds. The purpose of this principle has been to prevent wars that could arise if more powerful countries simply took it into their hands to dominate smaller, less powerful ones.

Of course, when one nation attacks another, the other can respond. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and the overthrow of the Taliban regime, was justified on those grounds. The Taliban weren't simply sheltering Al Qaeda; they were in league with them and had become dependent upon them. To justify its invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration invented an imminent threat from Saddam Hussein's regime. It was pure artifice — remember the drones bearing nuclear weapons headed for our shores — but the very fact that the Bush administration felt it had to resort to deception meant that it understood that a certain principle of international relations was at stake.

But, last month, the Bush administration actively supported Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia. It provided money, advisers, and, finally, U.S. warplanes. And there was no justification for Ethiopia's invasion. It was a clear violation of the U.N. charter. The neighboring people have been feuding for centuries, but Ethiopia's Christian government could not cite a significant provocation for its attack on the Muslim country and its Islamic government. If anything, Ethiopia's invasion closely resembled Iraq's invasion in August 1990 of Kuwait. But, instead of criticizing the Ethiopians, the United States applauded and aided them.

The administration claimed that, in supporting Ethiopia, it was fighting the ubiquitous "war on terrorism." According to The New York Times, administration officials even held out the Ethiopia invasion as a model of how it would prosecute the war on terrorism by proxy. By this account, Somalia was Afghanistan, and its Islamic Courts Union government was the Taliban. But the analogy does not hold up. The United States claimed that the Islamic Courts government, which took power last summer, was harboring three Al Qaeda fugitives. But the Al Qaeda members had been in Somalia well before the Islamic Courts took power. They were not part of the government. And Al Qaeda itself did not have training camps in Somalia. Somalia was less like Afghanistan than Pakistan, which, according to outgoing National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, is also home to Al Qaeda members.

In the wake of the Ethiopian invasion, the administration made a stronger claim. On December 14, Jendayi Frazer, the State Department official for Africa, said, "The Council of Islamic Courts is now controlled by Al Qaeda cell individuals — East Africa Al Qaeda cell individuals." But Frazer didn't name any individuals. And intelligence analysts have questioned her claim, which, according to The Washington Post, was "[b]ased in part on intelligence out of Ethiopia." As Matthew Yglesias put it, "In other words, we're backing Ethiopia's war against Somalia because intelligence provided by the Ethiopian government suggests we should back Ethiopia."

The Bush administration often claims that it is encouraging democracy, but the invasion itself probably represents a net loss of freedom — and that's a hard calculation to make among these governments. The U.S.-backed Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi has been widely accused of human rights violations. After the Ethiopian opposition protested that the 2005 election was rigged, the Meles government killed 193 demonstrators and arrested about 80,000 others to quell the protests. Teshale Aberra, the president of the Supreme Court in Ethiopia's largest province who defected to Great Britain last fall, said, "There is massive killing all over. There is a systematic massacre." Meanwhile, in Somalia, the Islamic Courts replaced a weak transitional regime that was unable to control the warlords, who, since 1991, have turned the countryside into a Hobbesian jungle. The new government had brought a harsh Islamic justice and order to Somalia, which, for all its own injustice, was preferable to the chaos that had prevailed.

With the ouster of the Islamic Courts, the warlords are likely to return to power. Somalia will probably be plunged into another guerrilla war, as the Islamists try to retake power. And the United States will once again ally with these warlords and with a weak, corrupt regime. (According to Jonathan S. Landay and Shashank Bengali, the United States was actually paying off the aide to the militia leader responsible for killing 18 Americans in 1993 in the famous Black Hawk Down incident.) And who will benefit from American intervention? Al Qaeda, which will be able to draw up another recruiting poster from the American-sponsored invasion of a Muslim country. Al Qaeda will be able to point, in particular, to U.S. airstrikes that claimed to target Al Qaeda but instead killed scores of innocent civilians.

That's what happened on January 7 and 8 in Somali border towns; the United States claimed its bombs were intended to kill an Al Qaeda operative supposedly connected to the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But he was not among the victims; nor were other Al Qaeda members. Then reports began trickling in of civilian deaths from the AC-130 gunships that the United States supposedly sent to hunt down the single terrorist. According to Oxfam, the dead included 70 nomads who were searching for water sources. The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, estimated that 100 were wounded in an attack on Ras Kamboni, a fishing village near the Kenyan border. The Economist, which is not an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, wrote, "The Americans used the AC-130, a behemoth designed to shred large areas instantly, in the knowledge that the killing fields would be cleared before journalists and aid workers could reach them." It's a war crime to kill civilians indiscriminately.

In the 1990s, foreign policy experts, eager to identify a new enemy, hit upon the concept of a "rogue state." A rogue state operated outside the bounds of international norms and had to be restrained. The obvious candidates at the time were Libya, Iraq, and North Korea. But the Bush administration has turned the United States itself into a rogue state. Tough-minded conservatives, flexing their "muscular" inclinations from comfortable sinecures in Washington, may dismiss concerns about international law and war crimes as inventions of silly panty-waist liberals. But these inventions, which, in the modern era, were championed by Theodore Roosevelt, were meant to protect Americans as well as other peoples from the wars and the inhumanity that prevailed for thousands of years. We ignore them at their peril, whether in Haditha or Ras Kamboni.

[dhiruy]

Did I read how sophesticated were the Islamic Courts? Yes we are a witness for that, as we were for Sadam's having WMD. Is it not a good idea to invade any nation? and who will be the next? for Ethiopians, Meles is more dangereous than Islamic Courts at this moment and time.

[usawatchman]

sorry wrong board...last post

[usawatchman]

This reminds me so much of the smoking wars - remember when cigarette companies, and people who just didn't want to believe portrayed it as if there was some real doubt that smoking causes cancer?
Posted by SusanHelit at 07:00 PM : Jan 18, 2007


SusanHelit let me tell you about my father who died (78 yr old)
a couple years ago...he smoked, but quit around early 70's

The nurse who filled out the death certificate
put down the cause of death a smoking (cancer)...

forget the 10-15 drugs he was taking the last several years of his life
forget he was 78+ yr old...
if he smoked, and died of cancer,
the record shows he died because of the smoking...

[usawatchman]

Here let me say (AGAIN) what (IMHO) the Article danced around...

U.S. Strikes In Somalia Reportedly Kill 31
Official Says Dead Were Civilians From Village Targeted In Hunt For Alleged Al Qaeda Suspects
A Somali lawmaker said 31 civilians, including a newlywed couple, died in Tuesday's assault by two helicopters near Afmadow, a town
in a forested area close to the Kenyan border.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/12/politics/main2355951.shtml#ccmm

This isn't the first time this has happened
It obvious they don't care about anyone life....
were on a mission the kill the terrorist...
We can kill who ever we want as long as were on the mission to kill the terrorist...

I would think after the first couple of time they
KILL THE WRONG PEOPLE
that WE (the people) would not let theses
GOVERNMENT CRIMINAL THUGS
continue to fight this war this way...

Wait until they begin to fight their
FAKE WAR HERE in AMERICA

[hungry1968]

Yeah, definitely Ethiopia and George Bush's fault on this one - another brilliant New Republic, left-wing conclusion!! Ridiculous....
Posted by fredgrad2000 at 06:16 PM : Jan 18, 2007

You're right is it a stretch. But the question is - how will the Islamic militants / radicals / fanatics view our intervention? They're going to look at it like we are targeting Islam. Not a nation aiding a nation - they see a war on religion. THAT is what makes our intervention dangerous.

[libandigalu]

Will the US administration accept any responsibility for innocent bystanders its war planes killed in Somalia in their blind hunt for mysterious Al Qaida operatives?

Or is it just anothe case of "collateral damage"? If so, remember that others too are more than justified to do the same and get away with it...just like the Americans.

[fredgrad2000]

SharnCedar - Al Qaeda isn't real? Are you insane?!

As for the rest of this article - big shock the New Republic accuses the Bush Administration for this; accuses them of "war crimes", and of course conveniently leaves out that 1) The UIC was indeed the next Taliban, 2) Ethiopia was supporting the INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED government who requested their assistance against the "Taliban" rebels about to overthrow the recognized government, and 3) the UIC had promised as part of its platform to take Ethiopian lands and wage jihad to do so!! Yeah, definitely Ethiopia and George Bush's fault on this one - another brilliant New Republic, left-wing conclusion!! Ridiculous....

[sharncedar]

"Al-Qaeda has no problem slaughtering anyone "

Al-Qaeda is definitely cool. They have no known members (except maybe Bin Laden and 3 or 4 guys), no base of operation, no resources, no flag, no country, no buildings, no stockpile of weapons, and yet they are responsible for most of the bad things that never quite happen.

It makes sense - they don't quite exist, so they do every terrorist act that doesn't quite happen. The nuclear bombing of LA - yep, they almost did it. The destruction of Israel that almost would happen except for Bush, yep, Al Qaeda almost did it.

I would go so far as to say they almost destroyed all of living matter and the universe too, almost. If they existed, they would have.

[bluestardad]

So in the Libyan Fable it is told That once an Eagle, stricken with a dart, said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, With our own feathers, not by others hands are we now smitten.
Aeschylus

[ethiofederal]

The threats by Ayman al-Zawahiri against Ethiopia and the provocative activities and actions of the Islamic Forces and their close association with international terrorists seem to have provoked fear and recrimination for neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa . Al-Ittihad, (which preceded Al-Qaeda) had already attacked Ethiopia in 1996 and claimed annexation of Ethiopian Ogaden region . Al-Qaeda's defeat in Somalia makes Ethiopia much more safer. Ayman al-Zawahiri can rant from his cave in Pakistan, but the terrorist network in Somalia has been dealt a severe blow for now. Time will tell if this short-term success endures however; that depends on the immediate actions taken by the international community and the current Somali Transitional Government. Nevertheless, the Ethiopian Government and Defense Forces intervention at the request of the peace loving Transitional Government deserve our thanks credit for making the Horn of Africa free from destabilizing and radical elements.

[ethiofederal]

Perhaps, based on the writer's assumption, if Ethiopia had stayed out of Somalia, then al-Qaeda would have been kind and friendly to Ethiopia. Just avoid all eye contact in the face of imminent danger and everything will be fine for Ethiopia. Well, that didn't help the thousands of innocent people killed in the 9-11 attacks. It didn't help the hundreds of Kenyans and Tanzanians killed during the 1998 embassy bombings. Al-Qaeda has no problem slaughtering anyone - Indonesians, Arabs, Africans, Ethiopians, Europeans, Israelis, Americans, Shiites, Sunnis, Jews, Hindus, Christians. Killing is what they do. Allowing al-Qaeda to establish an Afghanistan-style base in Somalia, would have made attacks on Ethiopia more likely and more deadly if any thing.

[tletta]

John B. Judis article is great but it did not go far enough on how the tyrannt of Addis is playing with the never ending obsession of US Administration with "war on terror". Meles of Ethiopia knew how to play the WOT card game. Of course, junior diplomats like Jendai Frazer are misleading the American public and playing games with the lives of innocent people in Somalia and Ethiopia as well. Based on intelligence of Meles the liar!!! give a break. He can tell any story to save his *** from the resistance he is facing in Ethiopia. The repression in Ethiopia so unbearable, people are running for their lives left and right.
Meles is nothing but the butcher of Addis according to senior Judges of the land now running for their lives. The US foreign policy became so absurd any tyrant who can speak the WOT language can get the US backing. Now, he, Meles is using the same terror tactic he used in Ethiopa in Mogadishu. I think it is a very dangerous road and it doesn't serve the interest of the Amerian public to join hand with this tyrant.
I appeal to you to continue exposing the atrocities in Ethiopia committed by Meles, the butcher of Addis.

Thank you.