[Shabelle] A US government official and two think-tank analysts raised questions on Tuesday about Kenya's role in Somalia in comments to the US Senate."Increasing security efforts by the Kenya Defence Forces may have [aid] access implications in Kismayo and re-ignite tensions in the community," said Nancy Lindborg, assistant administrator of the US Agency for International Development.
Somalis express "great scepticism" in regard to Kenya's claim that it wants to remove its troops from Kismayo, added EJ Hogendoorn, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.
He pointed to a UN allegation that Kenyan military officers earn "large amounts of money from trade, including illegal charcoal, passing through Kismayo."
Most Somalis "believe Kenya wants to control southern Somalia because it has large oil and natural gas deposits," Mr Hogendoorn told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Abdi Aynte, director of the Mogadishu-based Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, said the US has "a moral obligation to exert pressure" on Kenya and Ethiopia to cease interfering in Somalia's internal politics.
"Their unchecked interference risks further destabilising of the country and a reversal of recent fragile gains," Mr Aynte warned. "Interference galvanises militant groups and further divides Somali communities."
There doesn't appear to be any word in Somali for "gratitude," either, assuming the interpretation of Somali opinion is approximately accurate. Without the Ethiopian intervention they'd still be ruled by the Islamic Courts. Once they were chased out, the Amisom troops weren't capable of suppressing the Shaboobs. They didn't start falling apart until the Kenyans showed up with an approximately disciplined army.
As usual, doing anything at all will only cheese the turbans off, so we should all just sit on our hands and give them what they want, which is our children and grandchildren.
Bastards.