by DAVID AXE
Fighting has spiked again, in Mogadishu. President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s regime, in a panic, has cried help. “We have, as a parliament, decided to ask the regional governments — like Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti — as well as the international community to intervene militarily in Somalia within 24 hours to help the Somali nation,” parliament speaker Sheik Adam Mohamed Nor said.
But with just one exception, foreign military intervention in Somalia has been worse than useless: it has exacerbated the present crisis. U.S. air and missile strikes have fed an under-current of xenophobia, as did U.S. support for the Ethiopian army that brutally occupied Somalia for two years. Ethiopia’s intervention, on behalf of the old parliament, undermined public support for that parliament and helped lead to its collapse, earlier this year, coinciding with the Ethiopians’ retreat. Ahmed rose to power from the ruins of that government.
A small, African Union peacekeeping force, already stationed in Mogadishu, represents the only effective foreign force in Somalia. The only realistic prospect for military intervention in Somalia is a bigger, stronger A.U. mission, pictured. For years, the U.N. has weighed sending peacekeepers to Somalia, but consistently declines, in favor of supporting the A.U. And the Ethiopians lack the political will for another, major intervention. The U.S., for its part, is still formulating its new Somalia policy, under the Obama administration — and it will likely de-emphasize military force.
(Photo: David Axe)
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Ethiopian Prez: Somali Insurgents “Desperate”
Alleged American Jihadist in Somalia = CIA Drone?
Offiziere.ch: Fresh Fighting Deepens Somali Islamist Schism
Fighting Resumes in Mogadishu
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