[The Nation (Nairobi)] By YOWERI MUSEVENI
Somalia seems to be suffering on account of a confluence of three factors:
A failed government under Siad Barre that could not defeat or keep under check the various rebel groups; incapable resistance groups to that government of Siad Barre; and, more recently, the infiltration into the area of reactionary ideology from the Middle East (what some people call extremism or fundamentalism).
The Siad Barre government collapsed in January 1991. I do not have time to go into why it collapsed. I have not even done enough research into that subject. However, collapse it did.
This was factor number one in the Somali problem.
Factor number two was that the armed opposition groups that were fighting Siad Barre seemed to have been having ideological problems and had also problems in grasping strategy.
I visited General Aideed and Al-Mahdi in Mogadishu in 1992. One of the questions I asked General Aideed was: "Why did you attack the city (Mogadishu) if you did not have the capacity to control it?"
It was clearly a mistake to shift from rural guerrilla operations to attacking the city and attempting to seize power there if Aideed did not have the fire-power and the accompanying organisational capacity to capture it quickly and retain control.
Those Somali groups seem to have been suffering from the mentality of "putschism" -- wanting to seize control even when you do not have the capacity.
This is apart from the more fundamental ideological issues of those groups basing themselves on clanism as a base of political organisation. This created a proliferation of warlords based on clans. These warlords disintegrated the unity of the country and turned it into fiefdoms.
Agreed to share power
At some stage, former President Daniel arap Moi started mediating among the Somali groups. After a long time, they agreed to share power in the transitional government that was supposed to last some years and, then, go for elections.
This formula has worked in both Congo-DRC and Burundi.
The IGAD countries supported this formula. If any Somali group was interested in helping, this was the easiest way out of the problem.
Such a group or groups should have prepared for elections so that legitimacy is re-established. This, however, was not to be. Some Somali groups, supported by reactionaries from the Middle East and Central Asia, introduced a new problem.
Somalia had to become what they call a fundamentalist Islamic state governed by Sharia.
Women had to cover themselves from head to toe, otherwise they will tempt men into immorality; people must not watch television because that is some form of atheism, and so on. All this must be achieved by coercion. Besides, this model should be exported to the rest of Africa.
The UPDF got involved after the Somali clan factions agreed to form a transitional government. The African Union (AU), the IGAD and the UN gave the mandate to us to help the Transitional Government by doing two things:-- Guarding some strategic points (Port, Airport and State House) as well as help in training the Somali Army, along with others from the rest of the world.
It is, therefore, sacrilege for anybody to fire at, let alone assault, an AU Force on a capacity building mission in Africa.
Who are these who dare to fire at an AU Force? They can only be agents of external, non-African forces trying to impose a new colonialism on Africa. We defeated European colonialism and we are going to defeat this new form of colonialism.
The Somalis are part of the ancient African peoples. They are a Cushitic people -- part of Nilo-Saharan group of languages. Some of their words are even to be found in the Bantu dialects.
Stop disturbing the peace
Africans believe in a philosophy of live and let live. They never try to impose anything on anybody. If the Somali reactionaries want to implement Sharia law in Somalia, let them stop disturbing the peace of their country so that the Transitional Government organises elections and they can put their agenda to the people.
If the people decide to impose Sharia law on themselves, that will be their choice.
Anyway, in the immediate, the main issue is our mandate to the AU Force to assist the Transitional Government by guarding the State House, the Airport and the Port.
Guarding them well, we have done.
The Somali reactionary groups, supported by their foreign leaders, have attacked us many times and we have defeated them.
The cowardly act of attacking our merry-making non-combatants on July 11 will make their situation worse. In the past, we were only guarding the three installations as per the AU Force mandate.
These reactionary groups have now committed aggression against our country. We have a right of self-defence. We shall now go for them.
These agents of mindless, cowardly Middle-Eastern terrorism will discover that Africa has got its defenders if their failures when they attacked us in the past, have not shown them that already.
The Somali people are the ones with the key for the solution to this problem. We can only play a supportive role. Many of the Somali people have voted with their feet by running away from the oppressor. They need to be organised so as to defeat the reactionaries.
The neighbouring countries and the AU also have a responsibility to the people of Somalia when dealing with these murderous groups.
If the internal forces are still in formation, it is the duty of Africa to stand with the Somali people. This is the experience of Africa in the last 50 years. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is the President of Uganda.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Africans believe in a philosophy of live and let live. They never try to impose anything on anybody.
#1
Somewhere far into the article is this telling chunk: The GAO report said the US had been self-sufficient in rare earth minerals for most of the post-War era. The key mine at Mountain Pass in California shut down in the 1990s when China flooded the market with exports and drove Western mines out of business. One by one, US-based processing plants owned by German and Japanese firms switched operations to China. There are none left.
OUTSOURCING strikes again!
#2
Rare metals are not in fact very rare. Large amounts exist in the US, Canada, Australia,, South Africa, Russia, Sweden, Vietnam, and above all Greenland with a third of the world's known reserves. What is rare is to find them in viable concentrations. The metalurgy is complex. The frequent presence of radioactive Thorium complicates matters. Extraction is capital intensive.
So instead of spending capital on extraction of rare earth metals outside of China, shovel it into the pockets of financial CEOs. This makes sense in some alternate universe.
#3
Its not just MONGOLIA [read, RUSSIA] anymore???
FYI CHIN MIL FORUMS > POSTERS = have opined that Beijing should consider building PLA-dominated ARTIFICAL ISLANDS + ARMED STATIONS, crammed full of various MILSYS on shallow reefs, minor islets in the SCS near VIETNAM, PHILIPPINES + INDONESIA.
#5
ION CINA, WMF > CHINA INCREASINGLY VICTORIUS IN WAGING SUBTLE "LOCAL WAR UNDER HIGH CONDITIONS" USING SUFFICIENT/MINIMAL FORCE AGZ US GEOPOL INTERESTS IN ASIA-PACIFIC. CHINA'S "ANTI-ACCESS, LOCAL DENIAL" STRATEGY + ROUTINE METHODS WILL FORCE THE US TO CHOOSE BETWEEN STRATEGIC RETREAT, VERSUS "MUTUALLY DESTRUCTIVE" NUCLEAR WAR AGZ CHINA. THE TOP CHIN PARTY-MIL LEADERSHIP BELIEVES ITS STRATEGIES WILL CAUSE THE US TO WITHDRAW OR PULLBACK FROM THE WESTERN PACIFIC TOWARDS HAWAII + US WEST COAST.
* SAME > FOREIGN MINSTER WU WU LIANG DEMANDS THAT JAPAN RETURN OKINAWA [Ryukyus Islands] TO CHINA UNDER THE TERMS OF THE WW2 "CAIRO DECLARATION", IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENTS BY JAPAN'S AMBASSADOR THAT TAIWAN WAS NEVER FORMALLY OR HISTORICALLY RECOGNIZED BY TOKYO AS BEING CHINESE TERRITORY. FM LIANG ALSO DEMANDS THAT THE CPLAN'S EAST CHINA SEA FLEET SEND ANOTHER FORCE OF ARMED WARSHIPS TO SAIL THROUGH OKINAWA + TO PREPARE TO USE MILITARY FORCE [PLA Ground Troops] TO SEIZE THE DAOYUS FROM JAPAN.
* SAME > THE ILLEGAL ANNEXATION IN 1879 OF THE RYUKYU VASSAL KINGDOM BY JAPAN ALSO INCLUDED THE ILLEGAL SEIZURE BY JAPAN OF THE RYUKYU-CONTROLLED MIYAKO, ISHIGAKI, YAEYAMA + OTHER ISLANDS.
* SAME > CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY: TAIWAN'S INTERIOR MINISTER JIANG YI HUA DECLARES UNILATERAL TAIWANESE SOVEREIGNTY + DOMINION OVER THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS IRREGARDLESS OF THE CLAIMS OF CHINA + OTHER REGIONAL NATIONS.
ARTIC = IOW, its JUNE 6th, 1944 NORMANDY + TAIWAN is the chaotic, embattled "OMAHA BEACH" dividing the Amers at UTAH BEACH + BRITS-CANADIANS at GOLD-SWORD-JUNO BEACHES as agz the German forces in France. SUB-IOW, TAIWAN > keeping PLAN from forming a UNITED MIL FRONT between the NORTH CHINA SEA/NE ASIA + SOUTH CHINA SEAS/SE + SOUTH ASIA.
* SAME > US EXCLAIMED: US SCHOLARS CLAIM THAT THE SINO-US MIL, GEOPOL STRUGGLE IN ASIA-PACIFIC MAY CAUSE THE US TO BECOME THE "NEW USSR/SOVIET UNION".
The OWG Mighty USSA versus the OWG Weak United Socialist Republiks of Amerika SSR [NORAM = becomes NORAK = NORTH AMERIKA?]
Soviet Global Republik.
D *** NG IT, CLEARLY NO "9-11 + WOT > WAR FOR OWG-NWO", COMMIE + SOCIALIST WORLD ORDER, HERE.
#8
Here is a real problem. We see it in many commodities including oil, minerals, and rare earths where it takes a substantial amount of capital investment and time to build up production.
A state with the power to coerce their citizens to work for less money than anyone else in the world, can drive out all competition for the commodity by driving the price down for years at a time. Then, with a monopoly created, they raise the price and capture monopoly profits for the time needed to build that infrastructure. As the old sources ramp up, bang, they drop the prices again and repeat the cycle.
This is a situation that is ripe for an international anti-monopoly agreement enforced if necessary by collaborative tariffs to support the second or third least expensive source for that commodity.
Unfortunately, without clarity of purpose this sort of approach could quickly lead to protectionist tariffs and squabbling about who deserves to be the supported second or third tier producer, rather than merely creating the environment necessary to avoid the creation of monopoly profits.
Perhaps the benefit of super-cheap supplies about half the time from the monopolist has more utility than a smoother supply provided at higher prices by an oligopoly. Each situation is unique and the issues can be complex.
#2
The current economic debacle has been in the making for years. Shipping our industries abroad, making ourselves dependent upon foreign oil, etc. are a couple of of many reasons for our current situation. Some of our elected politicians are morons. When a politicians think there are 500 million people in our country and think South Vietnam still exists, we got problems. These people establish policy and make laws.
#3
The 2nd great depression was a bipartisan achievement.
The 2nd depression was an achievement of liberal ideology. Republican trimmers and RINOs were indeed complicit, but the party of Taft and Goldwater was not. It was simply in the minority and out of control. Now that the fruits of that ideology are plain for all to see the question for the true Republicans is whether they can wrest control of the GOP from the collaborators.
#4
Some of our elected politicians are morons.
JohnQC, unfortunately God in Her wisdom has decided to never put political ability and IQ surplus in the same DNA package.
by JOAN VENNOCHI ... writing in the Bahston Ferfawdsake Globe...
DEMOCRAT John I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry sets sail in a $7 million yacht built in New Zealand. Republican Scott Downtown Scotty Brown hits the campaign trail in a GMC pickup truck with 200,000 miles on it.
From Newport, R.I., -- where Kerry's "Isabel'' was berthed before heading to Nantucket -- to Rhinebeck, N.Y. -- where Chelsea Investment Bankerette Clinton will marry in a mansion modeled after Versailles -- today's Democrats are looking more like Louis XVI than Tip O'Neill.
Kick in the First Family's vacation plans for Martha's Vineyard, and there's a real air of Marie Antoinette & Co. retreating to idyllic gardens, while Fox News whips up revolutionary flames. The ethics charges against Representative Charlie (Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers!) Rangel of New York are added foie gras.
In 2008, Republican John Maverick McCain ... the former foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution... was the presidential candidate with so many houses, he lost count. Barack B.O. Obama was the guy with only one somewhat luxurious home. Today, President Obama presides over a party of perceived privilege, while Republicans accessorize themselves as the party of the people.
Brown accessorized brilliantly during last January's Senate race in Massachusetts. He's not mega-rich like Kerry, yet comfortable enough, with five properties and a horse his daughter co-owned for a time with a race track owner. But Brown's humble pickup truck and barn jacket remain the enduring symbols of his upstart campaign to win the seat held for decades by the late Teddy The Lion of Chappaquiddick Kennedy.
Kennedy was a rich and powerful Democrat who kept a connection to the people in a way that Brown and millionaire Sarah Mama Grizzly Palin understand. Palin was a millionaire before she quit as governor of Alaska? Brown was a millionaire before he was elected to the Senate?
But some Democrats just don't get it, from Governor Deval (Whoa! Nice drapes!) Patrick's fancy drapes and Cadillac to House Speaker Nancy (San Fran Nan) Pelosi's Armani suits and taxpayer-funded military jet.
It isn't about having a lot of money. It's about making people feel you are rubbing your money in their faces, while draining their modest assets for sketchy government programs funded by taxes you don't want to pay.
Republican Mitt Romney is worth more than $200 million, with enough cushion to invest $35 million in his 2008 presidential bid. His real estate holdings include a $12 million mansion in La Jolla, Calif., that was once owned by actor Cliff Robertson, and a lakefront spread in New Hampshire. But for all of Romney's grandiose aspirations and political flip-flops, he is wise enough to avoid grandiose mistakes of excessive, public consumption.
Before his marriage to Teresa Heinz, Kerry was living on his Senate salary and a trust fund worth no more than $100,000. Now he is ranked as the wealthiest member of Congress, with assets of at least $231 million. The Kerry family has five houses, a jet called the "Flying Squirrel'' and a legacy that includes paying to move a fire hydrant from in front of their Beacon Hill home to free up parking space. Now, Kerry's legacy also includes the Newport-berthed yacht and the impression that he was trying to duck Massachusetts taxes.
This might all be empty, frivolous symbolism, except that in politics, perception matters. In this case, the perception fueled by the Kerry yacht fiasco hurts the Democratic agenda.
If the little guy doesn't trust the Democrats, that helps the GOP -- for now. Ahah. Now we get to the meat of it...
While Republicans drape themselves in middle class values, they are sticking it to the middle class. ... by agitating for tax cuts and competitiveness and individual liberty...
It's all in the effort to deny Obama and the Democrats any positive political message. Damn them. It's an insidious plot upon the poor Dems. There is no substance. All is perception...
Last week, Senate Republicans rejected a bill to aid small business with expanded loan programs and tax breaks. That was after the Dems spent all the money that could have covered it...
Before that, Republicans tried to block extension of employment benefits and financial regulatory reforms, which finally passed with minimal help from the GOP. The "financial regulatory reforms" are so deeply flawed they'll be gnawing the national backside for generations.
These just-say-no tactics can catch up with Republicans -- maybe not in time for midterm elections, but perhaps in time for 2012. Some of us are hoping they're the opening shots in the new American revolution.
If you watch what Brown does, not what he wears or drives, it's clear that he gets it. He's walking a line that he hopes leads to reelection. It means he can't vote against every Democratic policy aimed at helping ordinary voters. His vote against extending unemployment benefits was risky business for the junior senator from Massachusetts. He's shown to be a summertime soldier in that new American revolution.
That pickup truck only gets him so far.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2010 14:11 ||
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#1
The GOP is only the party of the people faute de mieux. From Codevilla's famous essay: The GOP does not represent the country class. For it to do so, it would have to become principles-based, as it has not been since the mid-1860s. The few who tried to make it so the party treated as rebels.
#2
Joan almost...almost...got off the plantation. Her editor must've reminded her to add the last couple paragraphs
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/01/2010 14:52 Comments ||
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#3
nah, it is just another one of those lame articles that reads like this:
Though it seems Democrats are now the party of perceived privilege, and GOP is the party of the people, if you look more closely you will see that to be untrue.
They aren't really writing this for you or me, they are writing it for the people who like to think of themselves as "liberal elite". They are starting to get a clue that they are just upper middle class, and not elite enough to make the cut to the upper-crust. It is becoming harder and harder for them to pretend they are intellectually superior to the great unwashed simply by supporting the Democrats and hating Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Fox News and the GOP. This article helps make them feel good about themselves by allowing them to continue to delude themselves that they are still superior to the great unwashed because only they can see what you can not. It just appears the dems are the party of privilege but smart people realize that is just an illusion. You simpleton, you!
Posted by: Martini ||
08/01/2010 17:32 Comments ||
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#4
The Dems are a party of three different groups of people.
1) The poor who pay no taxes and but recieve government largess.
2) Wealthy businesses who benefit from government largess, government regulations and government stifled competition. (e.g. Banksters, Warren Buffett, GE and Unions come to mind.)
3) The liberal elite who know what is best for the serfs and benefit from government grants to academia. Includes most government workers in this group.
Any time a lib tells me the Republicans are the party of the wealthy, I make a small wager that if they look up the results for the last election (almost any election in the last 20 years will do), they will find that the dems won a majority of the wealthiest zip codes, or congressional districts, or cities, or states. Those that accept the wager (after paying me off) then tell me they also found that the dems also win the poorest regions as well. I have to explain to them about point 1) above that the dems are the party that takes from the middle class and gives to the poor and wealthy to maintain their hold on power.
On the other hand, the Republicans held congress from 1994 to 2006 and the Presidencey for 20 of the last 30 years and I am sad to say they were not worth a sack of wet hair (with the exception of RR).
I think Obama is every bit the closet Marxist as the next Burger. But at least he help bring about the Tea Party and expose the Dems and Repub for what they really are. Hopefully the election of BO will be a pyrrhic victory for the dems.
Barry Rubin
Once upon a time in an intellectual galaxy now seemingly far away, liberals and conservatives shared a common view. There were the forces of democracy and the forces of totalitarianism (or, if you prefer, authoritarianism) that threatened the world, took away freedom, and held back both economic and social development. The goal of Western foreign policy was to help those favoring liberty against the tyrants and would-be tyrants.
Naturally, there were different views about how to do this, for example should some dictatorships be backed against those deemed worse, but the basic template was the same.
Then came a turning point which can be symbolized by a line in Walt Kelly's comic-strip "Pogo." A dialogue balloon destined to shake the world: "We have met the enemy," said either Pogo the possum or Albert the alligator, "and he is us." Kelly later wrote that he originated this line in 1953 in an essay opposing McCarthyism but it really took off in a 1972 cartoon, perfectly timed for the "1960s," the era whose ideas rule us today in much of the West.
The sentence was a parody of Oliver Hazard Perry's message-"We have met the enemy and they are ours"-describing his naval victory during the War of 1812. So what had once been a triumphant shout of American victory was transmuted in a post-Pogo world to symbolize a vitriolic yell of self-induced anti-Americanism.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Lest we fergit, 1990's NET > ISLAMIST POLITBURO = are "GOD-FEARING TOTALITARIAN SECULAR SOCIALISTS"???
Where Commies go, Radical Islam = Islamists follow!
WHICH THEY HAVE, DID, + STILL ARE.
The ISLAMIST GLOBAL JIHAD = WORLD CONQUEST is SSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH...CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC [Robin Williams = "C-orrectness] A COMMIE +LEFTSOCIALIST ONE AS WELL.
D *** NG IT, DON'T YOUSE EVAR FORGET WHAT WE NEVER TOLD YOU!
Initially, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon probing the murder of Rafik Hariri focused on Syria. Lately, indications suggest that the main focus is now on Hizbullah.
Tension is currently rising in Lebanon, amid reports that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is to issue indictments in the coming months. The tribunal is tasked with investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Earlier this year, its president, Antonio Cassese, said he expected that indictments would be issued at some stage between September and December.
The Hariri tribunal has followed a long and winding path since its formation shortly after the murder, which took place on February 14, 2005. In its initial period, it was expected that its main angle of investigation would focus on the Syrians. Hariri was known as a defender of Lebanese sovereignty and therefore a natural adversary of the Syrian regime.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/01/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
The Arab world, where the truth is negotiable.
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
08/01/2010 9:15 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
